Isn't this duplicate content / spamming?

[stubbsy]

Hi All!

I've noticed an increase is sites using multiple domain names to target specific areas of their websites. If for example someones main website is e.g. www.qwerty.com and in that website there is a section for crash helmets made by arai for example with a url of www.querty.com/arai_crash_helmets/

They have purchased domain names related to those specific sections e.g. www.araicrashhelmets.com and they link to that specific section of his main site www.querty.com/arai_crash_helmets/

In doing this they appears pretty near the top of the google results for those search terms on both his original site and his url which links to the section of his main site.

Now I would have thought that this is duplicate content but it doesn't appear to be being picked up by google as such.

Any thoughts?

[SEFL]

Just to clarify: are you saying both the domain and its redirect are showing up on a primary SERP? If so, a real-world example is probably in order, since it sounds like duplicate content on the surface but what things sound like vs. their reality are often two very different things.

There is actually a perfectly legitimate way to use domains to redirect to specific sections of a site. For example, Major League Baseball does it with all of its teams. Try www.bluejays.com as an example. It's not the best way to do this particular redirect, but when you're MLB, you don't really have to care all that much.

[Connie]

Doesn't sound to me like a redirect is involved. The way I read the question is the second domain may be more of an informational page with a deep link back to the main website.

Your right the OP needs to clarify what he means.

[stubbsy]

Hi there,

I didn't really want to post specifics but just to clarify the site in question is

dirtbikexpress. co .uk

and they have a section for airoh helmets

ww.dirtbikeexpress.co.uk/airoh_motocross_helmets/airoh_motocross_helmets/

they also use the domain ww.airohmotocrosshelmet.co.uk/ to point to that same section of the above website and both URLs appear in the listings, one slightly above the other

http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4SUNA_enGB282GB282&q=airoh+motocross+helmets

I would have thought this was a bit underhand?

[Danny]

Yes, they violate one of Google quality guidelines :
Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
Not only that, they have created a mini network of crosslinking sites
and they are also keyword stuffing.

That's a good enough reason to complete a spamreport.

[stubbsy]

Thanks for confirming that Danny, I was pretty sure that what they had done was not above board!

All the best

Dave

[SEFL]

What Danny said. The good news is that looking at the code makes it a complete no-brainer.

I don't think I've ever seen a meta copyright tag stuffed before. Damn.

<meta name="copyright" content="Airoh Motocross Helmets,Airoh Motocross Helmets - Online motocross shop offering Airoh Motocross Helmets,Airoh helmets,Airoh Runner,Airoh Stelt,Airoh S4,Airoh CH3,Airoh Supermoto Helmet,Airoh McKenzie,Airoh Runner Drop,Airoh Runner Climb,Airoh Runner Joke,Airoh Stelt Coppins,Airoh Stelt Searle,Airoh Stelt View,Airoh Stelt King,Airoh Dome,Airoh Firefox,Airoh Rock,Airoh Runner Flower,Airoh S4 Free,Airoh S4 Street,Airoh Stelt Cairoli,Airoh Stelt Cervantes,Airoh Stelt Colour,Airoh Stelt Factory,Airoh Stelt Monster Energy,Airoh Stelt Phil,Airoh Stelt Torn,Airoh Stelt Rattray,Airoh De Dycker,Airoh Dome,Airoh Runner Logo,Airoh Stelt Evo Avenger,Airoh Stelt Knight,Airoh Stelt BMW">

Never mind the multiple domains (which is easy enough to do legitimately, but obviously they're not). That alone should be enough to convince a search engine.

[ChiefLee]

My guess is that Google might sniff this out on their own.

Our current site structure creates duplicate content on our site. (We'll be fixing this soon, though it doesn't really seem to be a problem.) But sometimes on deeper pages that aren't crawled as often, if we make an update on the page, and google crawls it, they might now see it as a different page than the same page they had crawled previously in another location (with the old content). Then all of a sudden the page in the SERPs twice from different locations. Then when they get around to crawling the old page and sees same content, one of them drops back out of the SERPs.

If they change their content often enough and significantly enough, maybe they can keep both in the SERPs. But I imagine Google will figure it out.

[ChiefLee]

Keyword stuffing in the meta copyright tag. That's funny. Never seen that either.