URL Redirection vs. Site Duplication

[executive9]

First off, I'm new to this forum and would like to introduce myself. I am a software engineer in Seattle getting my feet wet in domaining. I have a nice little collection of mostly type-in domains and am looking for ways to maximize and monetize my traffic.

:hi:

To the point: I have 40 industry related type-in/keyword domains, several of which have strong 'natural language' potential. From an SEO perspective, is it better/worse to create 40 essentially identical sites (with unique URLs) or to redirect most of the domains to the best natural language URL. I get that SEO isn't as relevant for type-in traffic, but would like to avoid being penalized into oblivion for duplicate content and/or redirection.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[ofclean]

Why wouldn't you just redirect? It should cost a lot less.

 

[executive9]

Why wouldn't you just redirect? It should cost a lot less.

Hmmm, assuming that the 40 URLs are parked or hosted with 'unlimited' addon domains, the cost would be essentially the same either way. But, I'll take this as a vote for redirection.

 

[ofclean]

If all of these domains are registered with a registrar like godaddy, you can redirect them all for free, but hosting them would cost extra.

 

[executive9]

If all of these domains are registered with a registrar like godaddy, you can redirect them all for free, but hosting them would cost extra.

To clarify: I have a hosting account that allows 'unlimited' addon domains. It doesn't matter whether I host 1 domain or 1000, the cost is the same as long as my bandwidth and CPU usage are reasonable. Each of my 40 domains point to the (same) name servers of my hosted account. The question is whether each addon domain should be redirected (via HTML/JavaScript) to a single domain/landing page. Or, should each domain have its own full-fledged (identical) landing page? I have read that Google penalizes duplicate content as well as page redirects. Which approach is penalized the least?

 

[abdussamad]

I found a site that answers your question using very clear language. You can read the detailed answere by clicking on the link below. In short though, you should do a 301 redirect using .htaccess file for each addon domain:

redirect 301 / http://maindomain.com

More details http://www.mcanerin.com/EN/articles/301-redirect.asp

 

[executive9]

Brilliant, abdussamad!

Exactly the answer I was looking for. Not sure how the NP$ thing works, so will offer my thanks verbally...

THANKS! :tu:

 

[cache]

I think it is better not to redirect. Each domain should gain its own page rank, and you may link them together.