How To Point Multiple Domain Names To One Website Without Search Engine Penalty

It is a common practice among webmasters to register many domain names for one website. The reasons for this are not far-fetched - to prevent cybersquatting, to acquire different variations and extensions of the name, just to mention a few. But in order not to be penalized by search engines, the domains that are not developed are usually pointed to the main site and this piece will reveal how you can carry out the process in a safest manner.

Whether you like it or not, you have to register more than one domain for a website and if you want to know why, read 'Why You Need Multiple Domain Names For One Website'. After registering your main site, say 'bat.com', you will also need to register other variations like 'bat.net', 'bat.org', 'bats.com', 'bats.org', etc. You will only need to develop your main site (i.e host, design and promote it) and then point the variations to the main site. Pointing a domain can also be called forwarding or redirection in accordance with the term that your registrar adopts.

Once you login to your domain account at your registrar, you should select the domain you want to redirect and you will be prompted to enter the URL of the domain you are redirecting to. It is very important for you to follow the format provided by your registrar in this regard as some may require the 'http://' prefix while some may be okay with only the 'www' prefix. Furthermore, you will be asked if the redirection is permanent or temporary and in this case, you should choose permanent. Temporary redirection is used for redirecting domains you still hope to develop in future.

The other terms for permanent and temporary redirects are 301 and 302 redirects respectively. So, if you see these during the process, you should not be confused. A permanent redirect will tell search engines that a site has changed address to another one permanently and that all the reputation of the old site should be transferred to the new one. As a result of this, all the backlinks, page rank and other special privileges of the old site will automatically go to the new site. If you choose temporary redirect, you are telling search engines that you are changing address for a while but will be back - I hope you get the logic.

Once you are through with the setting above, you will need to wait for some few hours or days, depending on your registrar, before you will see the result of what you have done. As soon as it picks up, or 'propagates' according to the technical jargon, anyone typing any of the domain variations (e.g 'bat.com') into his/her browser will automatically land at your main site (e.g. 'bat.com), but you need to test it on your own browser in order to confirm.

Related Articles:
  
How To Register Domain Names To Beat Competition 

Why You Need Multiple Domain Names For One Website

5 Reasons For Multiple Domain Name Registration





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