Indexing of 301 Redirects

Hey all,

I've searched this forum for an answer to my situation, but didn't find anything that fit my exact situation. Apologies if I'm reposting a topic that has already been answered.

Anyway, here is my situation. My client has a main domain, let's call it www.icecreamstore.com. Now, to aid in their google, yahoo, etc search rankings, I purchased several (30+) keyword domains in hopes of accruing more visits (and thus business) for my client. Domains purchased would be like www.chocolateicecream.org, www.icecreamscoop.biz, www.wescreamforicescream.com, etc, etc.

Now, originally I made the foolish mistake of just parking these domains on top of the main domain. While the benefits were nice and quick (a few of these domains were top 10 in Google for the associated keyword searches within 1-2 weeks), I soon realized this was a big NO-NO in the SEO world. Apparently Google and others do not like duplicated websites, and will penalize you for doing this.

So, I fixed my mistake by creating 301 Permanent redirects for each of those domains. Basically, I logged into my client's GoDaddy account and set up 301 Permanent Redirects for each domain. However, instead of just redirecting them to the main domain, I instead redirected them to the main domain as follows:

www.icecreamscoop.biz -> www.icecreamstore.com?site=icecreamscoop.biz

I did this so that I could programatically display various information (meta tags, introduction text, etc) for each individual domain.

Now, the redirection is working as expected, HOWEVER it seems Google in particular no longer visits the sites and reindexes them. According to Google Webmaster they haven't been visited by Google since early June! Why is this? Does Google not index 301 Redirects? Is my 301 Redirect strategy a poor one? Should I be doing the 301 Redirect directly on my server (programatically) rather than via GoDaddy?

Any help or direction you can provide on this issue would be greatly appreciated. Is there a better strategy I should be employing for multiple keyword domains?

Thx in advance!

- MWM

I did this so that I could programatically display various information (meta tags, introduction text, etc) for each individual domain.

the redirect is done before the spiders index anything on your unused sites, so the metas and descriptions should be missed completely. If the spiders did or do get these redirection pages, you would have a dup issue.

but its really quite simple why your not getting recrawled. When a spider goes to crawl your site it checks to see if the file size has changed by the addition of new or updated content. If your pages have no changes after several attempts to recrawl, the spiders will skip that site completely and eventually it will fall down or even out of the rankings. Add to this the fact that the spiders are not even getting any content because of the redirects.

remove the metas and descriptions, heck, with the 301's you don't need anything. Keep the 301's in case someone types in the browser, types the domain name in the SE, or just to keep the competition from getting conflicting/competiting domains.

you can also maually set up the 301's in the htaccess file if your hosted on an apache server. In IIS and if you have access to the server, its really simple to just use the GUI to make the redirects.

[ Message was edited by: mj1256 07/10/2008 05:52 am ]

Look at it this way; a human being visiting those domains would soon realise that they were being forwarded, and cut out the middle man. Spiders do the same.

The only value of having those domains is to stop someone else getting them; there is no SEO value in duplicate domains, and, as you've discovered, some distinct downsides.

Set up plain vanilla 301s, and move on to some serious SEO work for the one domain that matters.

*** I purchased several (30+) keyword domains in hopes of accruing more visits (and thus business) for my client. ***

Creating mini-sites is a big no-no for google and others. You can sometimes get away with one or two (if you are a Big Brand), but 30 is a big red flag.


*** Domains purchased would be like www.chocolateicecream.org, www.icecreamscoop.biz, www.wescreamforicescream.com, etc, etc. ***

Domains like that are usually not much good for keywords, as the words are seen as one long word allruntogether.


*** Now, originally I made the foolish mistake of just parking these domains on top of the main domain. ***

As you discovered, Google filters sites out when there is exact duplication like this.


*** So, I fixed my mistake by creating 301 Permanent redirects for each of those domains. ***

Yes. That is the best thing to do.


*** Instead of just redirecting them to the main domain, I instead redirected them to the main domain as follows: ***

*** www.icecreamscoop.biz -> www.icecreamstore.com?site=icecreamscoop.biz ***

That, has just created a new Duplicate Content problem. The root index page of your main site now has multiple URLs. That will cause you a lot of problems.


*** Now, the redirection is working as expected, HOWEVER it seems Google in particular no longer visits the sites and reindexes them. ***

Once a URL issues a redirect, that URL should be deindexed, and the target URL should usually be re-indexed in its place. In this case, however, the target URL is a close Duplicate of the root index page, so it will be filtered out too.




One correction:

*** If your pages have no changes after several attempts to recrawl, the spiders will skip that site completely and eventually it will fall down or even out of the rankings. ***

That's not really true. I have pages last edited in 1997 that still rank.




*** The only value of having those domains is to stop someone else getting them; there is no SEO value in duplicate domains, and, as you've discovered, some distinct downsides. ***

There is one other benefit. You might use one in print media advertising and measure that type-in traffic to gauge the effectiveness of the ads. The type-in URL would redirect to the real site.

I use additional domains (as redirects) for type-in traffic, and to stop typo-squatters owning names that are too similar.


*** Set up plain vanilla 301s, and move on to some serious SEO work for the one domain that matters. ***

Agreed. And, it doesn't matter *where* you set up the 301 redirect: in .htaccess, or in your Control Panel, the end result is still the same. A 301 redirect is a 301 redirect.

You might use one in print media advertising and measure that type-in traffic to gauge the effectiveness of the ads.

Nice one;

But what does 'print' mean?

Offline advertising: newspapers, magazines, hoardings, hand-out leaflets, whatever.

Yeah, OK, it would also cover radio and TV advertising, too, but not that many businesses use those compared to "stuff printed on paper".

Thanks for the feedback all, but I'm still a bit confused.

*** Domains purchased would be like www.chocolateicecream.org, www.icecreamscoop.biz, www.wescreamforicescream.com, etc, etc. ***

Domains like that are usually not much good for keywords, as the words are seen as one long word allruntogether.

I disagree. The main reason I embarked on this keyword domain campaign is because I found it worked for other sites. For example, I've seen really poor constructed websites returned top 10 in Google simply b/c they had the keywords in the domain name. I believe it does work.

*** www.icecreamscoop.biz -> www.icecreamstore.com?site=icecreamscoop.biz ***

That, has just created a new Duplicate Content problem. The root index page of your main site now has multiple URLs. That will cause you a lot of problems.

How have I duplicated the content again? Is it because I'm redirecting to www.icecreamstore.com?site=icecreamscoop.biz rather than just to the main domain of www.icecreamstore.com? As I understand it, a 301 redirect is a 301 redirect. Thus, Google would not consider these websites to duplicate copies. Otherwise, Google would also consider www.icecreamscoop.biz -> www.icecreamscoop.biz to be duplicate content, no?

*** EDIT - I was just thinking about this some more. Does Google think I'm duplicating content because I'm altering the content a wee bit upon the redirect (aka both sites are not EXACTLY the same)? In other words, when www.icecreamscoop.biz redirects to www.icecreamstore.com?site=icecreamscoop.biz, I alter the resulting content a bit to make the visit a bit more unique for that keyword domain. Does Google look at this and say "Hey, this site is similar to www.icecreamstore.com but not EXACTLY the same, so I'm going to penalize them both." ?? ***

Which brings me to another point. If I redirect www.icecreamscoop.biz -> www.icecreamstore.com?site=icecreamscoop.biz shouldn't Google index the website as www.icecreamscoop.biz and not www.icecreamstore.com?site=icecreamscoop.biz? It seems that is the way Yahoo is doing it, but Google seems different.

Lastly, are there any resources available that explain the strategy of keyword domain forwarding? It seems a logical strategy to me, and I've read a little bit about it on other websites.

Thx again.

- Matthew

[ Message was edited by: mwmconsulting 07/10/2008 07:31 am ]


[ Message was edited by: mwmconsulting 07/10/2008 07:33 am ]

some think me a bit harsh on here but it has to be said... your idea has flopped and you made a big mistake.

All domains you have purchased are now useless. All you've done is indexed some domains on google, and a few weeks later have told it those domains are no longer active, and instead have shoved all requests to them to another website.

What you've done with that amount of domains is very risky, it reeks of dubious methods. To have that amount of keyword rich domains all redirecting to one master domain is slightly fishy to say the least. Its obvious what you're trying to do to anyone, and that includes google. I wouldnt be suprised if you've harmed your actual working domain results by doing this.

Take the redirects off, park the domains with a holding page at the registrar, and work on your active website, with luck you havent done any damage.

As to WHY your sites are no longer visited by google, well its simple.. they dont exist anymore. You've told google they've gone and have been moved elsewhere, so its just following the redirect to the main site. As far as google is concerned those domains no longer exist with regards to indexing, so they wont be visible in the index.


PS considering your industry sector, i'd keep this quiet from your clients and do a bit more reading next time before doing something so radical.

freeflyer,

Thanks for the reply. I will quickly revert what I've done and hope that I haven't hurt my client's Google indexing score.

That said, I did read about the concept of a keyword domain strategy. Is this not a wise thing to do? Is there a better way of doing it? Is it best if I create simple 1-2 page unique sites for each of the keyword domains? Or are you saying that keyword domain strategies are completely worthless?

Perhaps you could elaborate or point me to some helpful resources.

Thanks again!

- Matthew

keyword domains do work to a degree, but they shouldnt be your sole method of SEO, in fact i wouldnt advise it at all as i think its a waste of time and resources which could be better spent on your main site, but thats just me.
But, providing you have seperate keyterms for seperate sites for seperate domains then yes it can make a difference. Ie , doing a site for www.smallbluewidgets.com will target 'small blue widgets' better than www.bluewidgets.com will, PROVIDING the two sites are different.

However, compare that with making a site called www.bluewidgets.com , and adding a dedicated page for 'small blue widgets' inside it at www.bluewidgets.com/small-blue-widgets.htm . That page will (or should) do just as well as the site domain www.smallbluewidgets.com. Not only that but your domain will be picked up for all the other terms contained in the site. It will also get better prominence in the search engines as it will probably get more promotion from yourselves and others who link to it.
Other reasons not to use them? The clients customers will also like having just one site to look at instead of guessing which one is the right one from a multitude they find on google. Multiple domains are difficult to administer and monitor in relation to traffic and marketing.

So, do you use them.. well, you can, but its up to you if you do. 95% of people on here would say not to bother and concentrate on your main site instead, and i'd agree with them. If you want to target additional keywords such as those you would register in your domains, then you simply create news and article pages for that keyword on your main site.

As a final note, registering multiple keywords in multiple domains for one client also comes across as incredibly amateurish for an SEO professional

Thanks for the info freeflyer. I'm definitely no SEO professional. In fact, this is my first stab at doing it. That's why I would appreciate any resources you could provide to increase and better my knowledge on SEO.

Can you provide anything?

Thanks.

- Matthew

keep asking questions here in the forum and read the other posts.

basic rule, if what your doing is an overt manipulation of the SE's. don't do it.

310 redirect using htacces for supported servers is the nice way to put redirect in .net we adopt other methods.

*** Domains purchased would be like www.chocolateicecream.org, www.icecreamscoop.biz, www.wescreamforicescream.com, etc, etc. ***

Domains like that are usually not much good for keywords, as the words are seen as one long word allruntogether.

I have to totally disagree with that. For instance, if you do a search in Google, Google bolds the words within the results that match the search query.

Try doing a search in Google for "search forums". You will see "searchengineforums.com" appear as the #3 result, with the words "search" & "forums" bolded in the URL for the listing, but not "engine". This illustrates that Google can seperate words from one long URL.

As far as i know, that bolding is done as one of the very last things at display time, and has nothing to do with the words being found at an earlier stage of the ranking process.

I think vanachte is correct on this one. Take this website for example:

corporatesignsinc.com

Search Google for "corporate signs". The website above will be listed as #4 (at least for me). Now, look at the website. It's pretty crap, and only has the word "corporate" on it ONE time (twice if you include the meta keyword list). Now, how is Google gonna rank it as #4 without taking into account the domain name itself as reflecting the keywords searched?

Hmmmmm....

[ Message was edited by: Dinkar 08/21/2008 01:40 am ... Reason: de-linked as per TOS. ]

As far as i know, that bolding is done as one of the very last things at display time, and has nothing to do with the words being found at an earlier stage of the ranking process.

While I can see this as being a certain possibility, I would be surprised if that were true. I have just seen so many instances where as mwmconsulting notes, crappy sites with zero links and zero seo are ranking well, where the only instance of the target phrase is included as part of the domain.

IMO This should not be the case, While sure, the domain should play a role, it should be an incredibly SMALL role if you ask me. Far too often the best site is not ranked first simply because of some poser with the right kw's in his domain for an a*s site.

Just my two cents