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**keli** · 03-29-06, 07:26 AM

Read this post and see if it's what you're looking for:

http://www.highrankings.com/issue142.htm#guest

HTH

**Wendy** · 03-29-06, 07:44 AM

Hi Keli!

Thanks for that article -- it does sound like a good plan, however, for reasons way too complicated to explain, I actually don't want my "old" domain links to re-direct to the new URL.

So I think what's going to happen is Google is going to index the "new" domain when it follows the nav links that have absolute URL's in them. So I will have all my pages indexed under two different domain names. Then I'll just remove the "old" domain so when it's clicked on, it will actually bomb out, and eventually that domain will drop from Google's index.

That's what leaves me with the question about duplicate content.

So I guess the real question is does Google see "pointer" domains as separate domains when indexing? So if you have one, or more "pointers" to the same domain, is that going to be considered duplicate content?

**keli** · 03-29-06, 07:54 AM

If I'm understanding correctly... I'd just have some inbound links from other Google-approved sites (so that the new domain is picked up and indexed) and just get rid of the old site as it's not going to be in the picture, you don't care about existing rankings with it and you want to avoid dup content.

Say you have x number of domains pointing to one that we'll call your *main* domain (one that you want Google to take notice of for SEO/indexing purposes), just make sure that main domain is the ONLY one indexed by Google. The others won't matter as long as you aren't using them for SEO purposes. That's why I think I'd get rid of the old domain (content) alltogether so that there's no duplicate content prob while you're trying to promote the up and coming domain.

Does that help? I think I need coffee lol

HTH,

**Wendy** · 03-29-06, 08:04 AM

LOL Keli! I'm on my second cup already and I'm still confused.

The way the site is set up now is like this:

www.mainsite.com
then I have www.pointerdomain.com pointing at www.mainsite.com.

In all my links on my site I've always used www.pointerdomain.com/blah blah so that Google would actually index www.pointerdomain.com and not www.mainsite.com

And that worked. However www.mainsite.com has the same google page rank as www.pointerdomain.com (but not nearly as many pages indexed).

So I want to create www.pointerdomain2.com and point it at www.mainsite.com and change all the links in my nav etc. to absolute links like www.pointerdomain2.com/blah blah. So now when Google crawls, they will be following links to the same pages, but with a the new URL (www.pointerdomain2.com) and will stop indexing the original www.pointerdomain.com).

After 1 month, I would remove www.pointerdomain.com and would be left with www.mainsite.com and www.pointerdomain2.com

But for about 1 month, I would have the same pages indexed with 2 different domain names which would really be pointing at the main site (same pages).

ROFL! Is it even humanly possible to follow what I just typed? I don't think coffee is going to do it, I might need something stronger! LOL

**keli** · 03-29-06, 08:11 AM

IF I am following, I'd just remove pointerdomain.com alltogether right off the bat. It's not needed.

Why can't mainsite work alone without the pointers? If both the pointer and the mainsite have PR that would concern me that Google views these as two different sites. You only want one of them in the SE's.

Yep, we're gonna need something stronger... and it's just 9am!

**Wendy** · 03-29-06, 08:16 AM

I could just use the main site, only it has a really crappy name, not related to our industry at all. However, it does have a PR and because of that, anything new I add to the site gets indexed within 24 hours. If I use a new pointer, it automatically gets the same PR as the main site -- at least that has been my experience.

Thanks for the input though, I think once I get the new pointer set up, I will remove the old one right away. :)

**larryh** · 03-29-06, 08:19 AM

I didn't read the article, so I don't know if this was discussed in it, but: why don't you use 301 Redirects (301 = resource has been permanently moved) to direct pointerdomain.com to pointerdomain2.com, and a robots.txt file on mainsite.com to keep it from being indexed at all.

The advantages of doing this are:

1) users will never see broken links when they click from google (or any of the other search engines). 404 errors are bad, because the user thinks you're out of business and just goes away looking for someone else.

2) when the googlebot crawls your pointerdomain.com site, and sees the 301 redirects to pointerdomain2.com, they will REPLACE pointerdomain.com with pointerdomain2.com in their index, and you should retain the same PR on the new domain.

If you haven't already, you should also create a google sitemap for pointerdomain2.com.

**Wendy** · 03-29-06, 08:22 AM

Hi Larry!

Thanks for the info, however, I don't want to re-direct the old URL to the new one!

I don't care if someone clicks on an old link and it bombs. I want this new URL to stand on it's own and not be linked to the old one. I just want to hijack the old one's page rank! LOL

**jason - jmh web services** · 03-29-06, 08:44 AM

I would make sure no links are pointing to these other domains and you use the robots.txt file to tell search engines to not index them.

**Bruce - PhosphorMedia** · 03-29-06, 08:57 AM

Well, the one way to help retain the old pages page rank is to do what is called a 301 permenent redirect. That should at least, get SEs to include inbound links to the old site, as inbound links to the new site, since technically, a SE can't tell the difference.

**Wendy** · 03-29-06, 08:58 AM

Thanks Jason! So you're saying make sure there are no links to the main site and the original pointer and same for the robots text? This way the new URL will be the only URL that Google is picking up!? :)

**jason - jmh web services** · 03-29-06, 09:08 AM

Originally posted by Wendy

Thanks Jason! So you're saying make sure there are no links to the main site and the original pointer and same for the robots text? This way the new URL will be the only URL that Google is picking up!? :)

yes, i would do the 301 redirect as bruce said too. will be really good if the same pages on old sites are on new sites. hostasaurus will be able to set you up with a 301 permanent redirect wildcard so that anything at www.oldsite.com/*.* redirects to www.newsite.com. If you have inbound links to old sites from third-party domains, contact them all to change their link. hth

**larryh** · 03-29-06, 01:55 PM

Originally posted by Wendy

Hi Larry!

Thanks for the info, however, I don't want to re-direct the old URL to the new one!

I don't care if someone clicks on an old link and it bombs. I want this new URL to stand on it's own and not be linked to the old one. I just want to hijack the old one's page rank! LOL

I guess I'm just not understanding what you're trying to accomplish, or why you wouldn't care about potential lost sales when someone clicks from google and gets a 404.

But, AFAIK, the only way to "hijack" the old PR is by using the 301 redirect. It also has the added benefit of REMOVING the links to the old site from google's index, and replacing them with the links to the new site.

**Wendy** · 03-29-06, 03:59 PM

Okay, I hafta admit -- I'm no web guru! I didn't understand what a 301 re-direct was. Read up on it a bit, understand it, sounds like a plan.

But the original article that Keli pointed me to says that it's better to use a 302 re-direct for 6-12 months since a 301 will make Google think it's a new site and will not rank the pages the same.

So which is better a 302 re-direct until the site "ages" or a 301 right out of the starting gate?

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