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Does it help in SEO if you host same content in two domains ?

This post answers the following questions

  • Does it help in SEO to host the same content in two domains?
  • Is it a good idea to host two copies of your site?
  • Can I use two domain names?

Well the answer is no, and absolutely not. If you host duplicate content the end result might send both your domains to bottom of the search results. This creates a duplicate content issue, so Google will think at least one of the site is copying or mirroring the content. And you will never get double the traffic. And your new domain will never see the top of the search rankings.

So if you are planning to migrate to a new domain, then set a permanent 301 redirect in the old domain for at least 3 months before retiring the old domain. If your audience come mainly through Search engines this should be fine, but if they come through other site links, then you might need to change those links or keep the old site’s redirect on.

You can find how to set up a permanent 301 redirect here

Article on 301 Redirect

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How to setup a permanent domain redirect ? How to change your domain name ?

This post answers the following questions

How to redirect your website to a new address ? or how to change a domain name ?

How to setup a 301 permanent redirect ?

How to setup .htaccess file?

Most website owners might end up facing these questions, when we start our website we would be happy with a name but at a later stage might find some other name more suitable for the website. So how to set up a new domain name without losing your existing subscribers, Google Search rank and old website name ? Well it is actually very simple, setup a 301 Permanent redirect. It will redirect every url of say site x.com to y.com.

For example you currently have website named my-shop.com and you want to rename it to myshop.com. Then you need to setup the 301 redirect in the root directory of my-shop.com.

In your domains control panel my-shop.com might point to folder named /myshop or even the root directory / (if you have only one website).

So everytime a request to access my-shop.com will be serviced from this folder’s content.
For changing the domain point your new website name myshop.com to point to folder /myshop and my-shop.com to point to a new folder /oldshop. Then in this oldshop folder create a file .htaccess (only extension no actual file name). In that file enter the following

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.myshop.com/$1 [R=301,L]

If user clicks a link of the my-shop.com .. say www.my-shop.com/files/index.html the 301 redirect will instead load http://www.myshop.com/files/index.html. Basically it replaces the x by y or old site name by the new name and preserving all the urls.

Typically search engines like Google will learn to go to new site and index its content automatically within a month. And meantime you will not lose any visitors/search results.