DNS Service and Search Engines-Indexes

[joss]

Can anyone provide any insight into how DSN services and url forwarding effect search engine and index listings?

I have a site with an actual domain that I got when I initially set up the site. Shortly afterward, I got a couple more domains (not important why) and had my hosting company point these new domains to my orginal site/domain. And, just recently I obtained another domain that I would like to use as my site name. I got this last name from a separate registrar and am using mydomain.com to point the new name to my original site/url.

Just started submitting to search engines and find that they have two anti spam policies that I am concerned may effect my ability to get listed. First policy is that you cannot have more than one url pointing to the same content. Second rule is that the index (altavista in this case - but probably others) does not support url's that are set up for the sole purpose of redirecting to another site. Does anyone know if using pointers, either from the same hosting company or separate DNS service, violates these policies and affect your listings? Tried using a link checker on the domain I have managed thru mydomain.com, and it only sees the managed domain and top level files on my host server.

Sorry for the long post, but kind of hard to explain with less. Appreciate any info anyone can provide.

joss

[Mr Chunder]

Hi Joss, just had the similar sort of issue before. Its discussed in the following threads:


http://forums.webhostdir.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1529

and

http://forums.webhostdir.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1122

I have found that all the search engines follow 302 redirects apart from the Direct Hit spider (which feeds Ask Jeeves I believe).

They also insist on visiting the original IP address even if it is 302ed onto somewhere else until you remove the redirect.

[joss]

Hi Mr Chunder and thanks for the reply.

Not sure I understand. I had red the two posts you referenced, but I a, pretty new at this, but what I think you said ws:

These url forwarding services set up a 302 redirect in the same manner as if you had moved your site, as opposed to a full time redirect, which is what I am doing now, and:

Most search engine spiders do not look at a redirect as "a page set up for the sole purpose of redirecting a user to another site", and therefore using url forwarding does not get you disqualified from an index?

But what I am doing is having a new domain/url forwarded to my site with the old/original domain/url and am concerned that the indexes will consider this more than one url pointing to the same content. But, if I only submit the new url, am I OK?

Thanks/joss

[Mr Chunder]

In those previous threads, we referred to redirects as being temporary but there is no reason why a 302 cannot be a permanent redirect. I ran this for about 5 weeks with no problem - so I would guess and say that leaving this permanently would be ok.

Possible rumour / gossip / urban myths have been circulated saying that using multiple domains to the same content will result in search engine dropping your ranking but I cannot say this for sure. I have inconclusive testing of this.

If you submit only onw URL and no-one ever, ever links to your site via the old URLS and the old URLs are removed from any search engine databases, then you should be absolutely fine.

The problem is if other people link to your old url or the old urls are still lurking in a corner of a search engine, then you may have a problem.

[joss]

Thanks again. I went ahead and changed my site domain to my new domain and will only use that url for search engines. New site, so no worries about people using my old url.

For general information for anyone else that has read this thread and has similar questions, I do not know if search engines drop you for pointing more than one domain to the same page, but altavista says you cannot "submit" more than one domain for each page. Also got some info from one of the search engine submission companies live help who says that you can have as many urls pointing to your site as you want but cannot submit more than one to the search indexes. I cannot verify that this is true or not, but am offering it for anyone that may be interested.

Thanks again/joss

[Mr Chunder]

No probs,

Your point about having as many urls so long as they are not submitted is fine. However, should anyone accidentally find an alternative url (by guessing a url) and then link to it from their website, which is itself submitted to search engines, then the engines will pickup on these other unsubmitted urls.

Having said that, this has happened in the past to me but have not seen conclusive behavior to indicate that search engines don't like this.

Otherwise, good luck with your site.