Domain aliases

[newbloke]

I was just checking the domain of one of my clients (host domainname) and the result that was returned was

"www.domainname.com is an alias for z1lnx002.web.vi.net.
z1lnx002.web.vi.net has address 212.78.66.134"

.... whereas I would have expected to get something like
"www.domainname.com has address 212.78.66.134"

I have never seen this before and I am concerned about the way in which this might affect my attempts to get this site indexed with the search engines.

Has anyone else had a similar experience or am I just un-necessarily suspicious?

Thanks for your help

[french dread]

You may try to ping the two domains to see if they have the same IP. If yes I would not worry as it is perfectly ok to have several domains pointing to the same server.

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums newbloke! :hi:

Yes, but if more than one of them is being promoted to the se's, you will have big-time problems.

I would simply ask your client what the scoop is. He cannot promote the 'same' site with multiple url's.

[french dread]

I would slighly differ.

Yes it would be stupid to promote more than one domain, ie because the benefit of link popularity and SEO would be diluted, and time wasted.

Though, from experience, I haven't seen (nor heard) any problems with SEs indexing several domains for a very same website (same IP). They are quite intelligent at this.

Yes, but if more than one of them is being promoted to the se's, you will have big-time problems

[ihelpyou]

Yes but no se would want to index more than one domain for the same site. They will drop one of them which could be the one you don't want dropped.

Too many problems with multiple domains for one site. Promote one of them. Why would anyone wish to get more than one domain listed? Because they think they can get more ranks on the same keyphrases, that's why. :) Not a good idea.

[french dread]

There are some circonstances where a website may want to have multiple domains, ie to avoid position squatting. Sometime several links point to different adresses, not because of cheatting attempt, but simply because humans make links.
Exemple : Marks and Spencer (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=mark+and+spencer&spell=1)

I am in charge of a such website since 3 years now. I never noticed any problem. The global ranking dont change even if many domains or TLDs are indexed.

[newbloke]

Sorry guys - either I have explained my problem badly :doh: or I am misuderstanding the advice you are giving. Either way, thanks for the prompt responses.:up:

Going back to the original query. When I tried to find out the IP address of my client's web site it showed up as 212.78.66.134 which was fine. The thing that I was worried about was that his web site appeared to be an alias for z1lnx002.web.vi.net which is the ISP (vi.net).

I was worried that this configuration might be regarded by the SE's as cloaking or something similar.

I hope I've explained it a bit better this time.

Thanks for your help.