1 site on 2 domains (interesting situation, expert advice needed)

[Fudge]

Dear all,

i have read many posts about having one content on 2 different domains, how to combine those two to avoid duplicate content. However the story of my two domains makes this question really difficult.

Domain 1: chillispot.org ( http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=chillispot.org )

The original site was on this domain, started 9 years ago. That time the owner of the domain was not me. The site was very popular with lots of links to it. Then after 5 years of operation, the site closed. I have managed to save the content to:

Domain 2: chillispot.info ( http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=chillispot.info )

The content i put there was basically the same. Many links were changed to chillispot.info on external sites when they noticed the change. But lots of links are still unchanged and pointing to .ord domain. The .info is doing well in search engines (for example for keyword 'chillispot').

Now i managed to buy the original chillispot.org domain. As you can see the domain authority of the .org domain is still higher than the .info one and it has more valuable links.

Question is: what would be the best approach to offer content on both domains without having penalized by google for duplicated content? Which domain should we keep the content on? The original .org one, which is still a better domain but not working for several years or the .info one who has the content for several years now and doing well on search engines?

And then, after we decide this, what would be the best approach to send users to the real content?

Thanks for the answers!

[Fudge]

Ok we are trying this approach. We have set up the 301 redirection for all URLs from .info as the content is exactly the same on .org.

We will see how it will work.

About your side note: all links were created by users of the site, we didnt do any link building strategy yet. It seems they are all using the brand keyword to link from us.

Thanks for your suggestion.

[RobMay]

Sounds like a complex situation, but it really isn't all that hard to discern. This is the approach I would take on the matter. Looking over the initial MOZ Explorer crawl data, it's a close call for sure.

1. First, the old .org domain, which you just recently re-acquired still has old links pointing to it and good value.

2. The .info domains still don't have or generate as much 'trust and authority' as other TLD's like .com, .ca, .org. I would seriously consider moving back to the .org TLD.

3. Any links you haven't been able to switch over or have little to no control over (and would take a ton of time and resources to have switched over to the .info domain). Redirect all the pages, and the link values being passed will still count when pooled to the new .org domain. Value will still stand, even losing some value in the 301.

4. If you do decide to use the .org domain, make sure to plan out a seriously detailed 301 redirect plan (TLD, sub domains/folders and all pages) when looking to move and migrate data over to the older .org domain. Not taking the time to plan this out would cause very negative ripples in your current and future SEO endeavors This is a very careful area, but needs to be watched carefully.

5. Avoid running both sites side by side. This will surely cause duplicate content issues. Choose 1 domain, redirect all the other value, content, etc through 301's, canonical's and migration procedures and have all the value sitting within one site. Build your marketing, social and search platform around one site/brand and work from there

On a side note looking at your linking data from OSE:

Your actual main text linking revolves around your brand name almost 80-90% of the time, which isn't all bad, but you might want to start looking at alternative ways to generate links to your site, using some of your product descriptions and through content generation. Try to vary the amount of links and types of link test being used to link to you from other sites. Don't sculpt your links, but rather include ways to evolve your current linking practices.

Hope some of this input helps!

[Kurt_Steinbrueck]

Jesse said what I would said.

[jesse-landry]

Yes. As Kurt said the DA and link-juice will carry over via 301 redirects meaning whichever site is redirected will benefit the site that it's redirecting to. If I were you I'd redirect to the site that's currently being ranked well in Google as this will limit any fluctuation you may have in the SERPs. Even though the other domain has a longer legacy, if it isn't currently being listed in SERPs for your target keyword then you might be waiting awhile for the whole thing to propagate and sort itself out.

Hope this helps.

[Fudge]

Thanks for the answer.

From google's point of view the .org domain is older and it had the original content first. Does that count?

"Just redirect one domain to the other and combine the sites."

If i redirect, will the .info site be stronger from google's point of view?

[Kurt_Steinbrueck]

I would choose one domain to go with instead of keeping content on two.  From what you've said, you don't really need two sites, you are just thinking about having two sites because of domain authority.  Just redirect one domain to the other and combine the sites.  If both sites already have the same content, then try to redirect each page to its corresponding page, if possible.  That will make for an easier transition.  Using 301 redirects will pass the authority from the redirected domain/pages to the other domain, increasing it's authority.

As for which domain to keep, I'd go with the one that's getting the most user traffic.  From what you've said, it sounds like that is the .info site.

By combining the sites, you won't have to worry about an approach for sending people to the "real" content.  There will only be one place for the content and it will (hopefully) all be real.  You'll also be able to focus all your attention to building up the one site instead of spitting your efforts.

Kurt Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com