Are different domain names considered as duplicate content?

Hi everyone.

We used to use http:// www. domain-name . com (spaces are deliberate
because I want the link to be visible) on all of our marketing material
and so on. However, we now use http:// www. domainname . com (again
spaces are deliberate).

The hyphenated domain was doing better in Google for our main search
term although the new domain name is gradually working it's way up the
rankings. We have set up a 301 HTTP redirect from the old domain to the
new one but wondered if anyone here thinks I should request the
hyphenated URLs to be removed from Google's index? I suppose what I am
trying to ask is whether Google will think that the content is
duplicated because there are links to our home page in Google's index -
one for each domain?

Also, can anyone say whether it would be worth adding a list of all our
dynamic pages in our Sitemap. In other words, literally listing every
querystring combination so Google knows which pages to crawl? Some of
these may lead to a "no results found" type page so in this case, would
this be considered duplicate content by Google?

I look forward to hearing some views on these matters!

Many thanks

Max

maxparmenter wrote:

Hi everyone.

We used to use http:// www. domain-name . com (spaces are deliberate
because I want the link to be visible) on all of our marketing material
and so on. However, we now use http:// www. domainname . com (again
spaces are deliberate).

The hyphenated domain was doing better in Google for our main search
term

if the main search terms are in the domain name it may well do better as
Google will treat the hyphen as a space and will therefore see the two
words. Also people linking to you often use just the url as the anchor
text so again the hyphenated domain name will give you more relevant
anchor text.

rankings. We have set up a 301 HTTP redirect from the old domain to the
new one but wondered if anyone here thinks I should request the
hyphenated URLs to be removed from Google's index?

Nah, the 301 should do its stuff in due course. I have 301'd all the
www. pages of one domain to the short form and most of the old pages
have gone after 6months. Stuff does hang around a long time.

There was something on webmasterworld recently about duplicate
content... someone did an experiment and found that Google ended up
ignoring a whole directory tree where it found some heavily duplicate
pages. Assuming this to be correct it seems like Google tags potentially
spammy directories so they don't get indexed. However the www. or not
problem is well known to Google and I would have thought you only
problem is PR dilution.

David

Thanks David for your reply.

You mention about PR dilution? By this do you mean spredaing your
PageRank through each of your pages? If so, do you have any ideas how I
can achieve this as it appears that our home page is the only one with
any sort of PageRank.

Look forward to your response.

Cheers

Max

davidof wrote:

maxparmenter wrote:
Hi everyone.

We used to use http:// www. domain-name . com (spaces are deliberate
because I want the link to be visible) on all of our marketing material
and so on. However, we now use http:// www. domainname . com (again
spaces are deliberate).

The hyphenated domain was doing better in Google for our main search
term

if the main search terms are in the domain name it may well do better as
Google will treat the hyphen as a space and will therefore see the two
words. Also people linking to you often use just the url as the anchor
text so again the hyphenated domain name will give you more relevant
anchor text.

rankings. We have set up a 301 HTTP redirect from the old domain to the
new one but wondered if anyone here thinks I should request the
hyphenated URLs to be removed from Google's index?

Nah, the 301 should do its stuff in due course. I have 301'd all the
www. pages of one domain to the short form and most of the old pages
have gone after 6months. Stuff does hang around a long time.

There was something on webmasterworld recently about duplicate
content... someone did an experiment and found that Google ended up
ignoring a whole directory tree where it found some heavily duplicate
pages. Assuming this to be correct it seems like Google tags potentially
spammy directories so they don't get indexed. However the www. or not
problem is well known to Google and I would have thought you only
problem is PR dilution.

David

On 13 Sep 2006 08:45:24 -0700, "maxparmenter"
<max.parmenter (AT) directenquiries (DOT) com> wrote:

it appears that our home page is the only one with
any sort of PageRank.

You and 1000's of other sites since the last PR update.
Not affecting SERPS though. Nor should it.

plh
Paul

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