I created a website back in 1999 with an Ihouse template and it worked well for some time. I of course wanted to get more exposure so I took Ihouse's advice and purchased some more domain names that pointed at this same site. Ihouse referred to this as "Mirror Domain Names". At one time I had 4 different domain names pointing at the same site.
With this and other things I did my site started climbing the search engine ladders. Then all of a sudden my site started falling from grace in terms of the search engines. I phoned Ihouse for ideas but no great ideas were given and my site kept falling. This went on for over a year.
About 3 years ago I was referred to an SEO specialist out of Florida and I explained my dilemma to him. He informed me that this use of multiple domain names was hurting me because Google and other search engines viewed my site as "Spam" due to the practice. I was shocked to hear this and immediately called Ihouse. I spoke to someone different this time and sure enough I was told the rules had changed and yes, multiple domain names were bad when used as I had been using them. Read The Danger with Multiple Domain Names which in part says:
"Depending on the actual content that you place in these domains, search engines and directories would flag them as mirror sites and refuse to list them. You will spread your incoming links (and therefore link popularity) across multiple domains. This will keep any one of them from ranking as highly as your main domain would if all the links pointed at it".
I stopped using multiple domain names and sure enough my site starting climbing the search engine ladders again. When I joined Active Rain and joined Karen George's project my site skyrocketed
I have since been told multiple domain names pointing at the same site is O.K. if setup properly but I don't know what SEO experts mean. What is the latest news on multiple domain names? Anyone heard what is currently acceptable and what is not?
I appreciate your opinion
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