CNAME vs 301 redirect

[Houdoe]

Hi all,

Recently I created a website for a new client and my next job is trying to get them higher in Google.

I added them in OSE and noticed some strange backlinks. To my surprise the client has about 20 domain names. All automatically poiting to (showing) the same new mainsite now.

www.maindomain.nl

www.maindomain.be
www.maindomain.eu
www.maindomain.com
www.otherdomain.nl
www.otherdomain.com
...

Some of these domains have backlinks too (but not so much).

I suggested to 301 redirect them all to the main site. Just to avoid duplicate content.

But now the webhoster comes into play: "It's a problem, client has only 1 hosting account, blablabla...".

They told me they could CNAME the 20 domains to the main domain. Or A-record them to an IP address. This is too technical stuff for me.

So my concrete questions are:

1. Is it smart to do anything at all or am I just harming my client? The main site is ranking pretty well now. And some backlinks are from their copy sites (probably because everywhere the logo links to the full mainsite url).

2. Does the CNAME or A-record solution has the same effect as a 301 redirect, from SEO perspective?

Many thanks,
Hans

[Houdoe]

Hi Robert,

Thanks so much for your response! You really have been of great help. I'll try to arrange things the way you proposed.

Great to see people are willing to help each other here

Cheers,
Hans

[RobertFisher]

Forget the CNAME, A record as it is all poor advice. (Yes, I said it - poor advice). When you say only one hosting account, etc. (Hosting is virtual hosting. Only for the mainsite. If I was given acccess to the 20 others, I would put a .htaccess with a 301 redirect there. But that's not an option.) there are things that do not add up here. These others to be up MUST be hosted somewhere. Where? They are not parked domains if links are going to them and they link to main site. (They may be a dupe, but they exist.) So let's go another way. First, if you are familiar with ahrefs.com, this is where I am getting the data from. I like a lot of software, but ahrefs is a real go to for me on links at times (not the only one).

For these sites, compared to what you have coming into the main site, I see no tremendous value. Yes, the one has some links, but comparatively to the main site, I do not believe you are going to see much change if you do not have it - if any. But, you could see some change based on your having duplicate content all over Europe. You will end that by shutting these down. I think that is more important than the links issue.

If you want to give the client comfort I would suggest something we are doing with a client we are taking from about 50 domains (some with significant links others are so what domains) to ONE: We classified ours as Critical, Basic, and Goodbye. For the Critical it is full 301 etc. for the Basic it is a homepage to homepage (client had input on this) and for the others we are ending them with a domain to domain for 90 days then goodbye. NOTE: They actually had little duplicate content. We do a few a week and so far no loss. For yours do one of these every week or two and start with the nothing ones. Then if the last one www.vochtweringsbedrijf.nl and you turn it off and a week or two later you have an issue, you will know that is the issue and be able to choose to revive or not. (I do not think you will).

Make sure you look at analytics at traffic (my guess is it is little or none) for the sites and if one is getting a lot, then you have a reason to keep it. As it stands now, you are screwing up local, SEO overall, duped content, etc. This should be an improvement - based on the info I have at hand.

All the best, and welcome aboard Moz.

Robert

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[Houdoe]

Hi Robert,

Thanks again for answerring and also for your understanding. I really appreciate that!

I'm new here in Moz, but what I like is the general intention to do things 'as they should be done'. That's exactly what I like to do myself (being a single entrepeneur and webdesigner trying to become better in seo btw).

But I also have to be realistic. If I let the hoster remove all the 'domain pointers' (or how should I call them?) and that would lead to their main site dropping in Google, that would not make them happy.

---

I'll try to be more concrete then. There is a main site, www.hetzuiden.nl. Doing pretty well in Google for some terms, but they want to do better.

If you look in OSE, you see domains like www.hetzuiden.eu, www.hetzuiden.be and www.vochtweringsbedrijf.nl as linking domains. Low DA, but still. If you visit these sites, you are in fact looking at the main site. Only the domain name stays visible in the browser.

If you visit www.vochtweringsbedrijf.nl in OSE you see backlinks too. Arranged by the SEO guy before me.

All together not impressive, but it could make a difference I guess. Especially because the duplicates are containing the same keywords. or am I thinking wrong here?

---

I hope the above explanation makes it easier to send me in the right direction

One concrete question: You made it clear that CNAME is not the way to go. Is the 'A record solution' also a no go?

Thanks a lot,

Hans

[RobertFisher]

Hans, 
I am following up as I hear the pain in your writing.

I think we try to avoid bad absolutes here with a passion, but that most here is fairly straightforward. Per what Highland has, and what your needs are, the CName changes are not what I would do. Absolutely not. Ever. (Hope that is clear without telling you what you should do).

As to the problem with the other domains, it is difficult to give a do this or do that due to the fact we are seeing only example.com etc. and there is in no way anything close to the whole picture. It is kind of like going to the doctor and saying I have some pain. If you cannot give specifics, it is too hard to treat. She does not want to give you the wrong drug for the pain you have. We don't either.

To try and cover all of the permutations you could be facing is to have to write a text book in redirect how to, etc. So we are left with more generalities which is what we have given you along with some specifics.

You said this, "The only reason the 20 domain names exist, is to avoid competitors to registrate them." To me, that says, goodbye domains. You also said there are "some links to them," which generally means they were for more than registration prevention. If you do a domain to domain redirect (301 of homepage essentially) you will LIKELY get most of the juice, but your "webmaster" does not want to do that. So, what are your options now:

Shut them down or not. Those are the only options. The CName thing does nothing for you.

So, there you have the most direction I think anyone can give. I sincerely hope it helps,

Robert

[Houdoe]

Could anyone advice me, reading the above, what the right direction is?

1. Keeping the situation as it is. Duplicate content is not preferred, but it's not a crime either. And I'm not unintentionally harming my client by making the wrong choice now.

2. Continue with finding a solution for the situation. Whether that's via CNAME, A record or something else?

Thanks,
Hans

[Houdoe]

Hi Highland,

Thanks for the explanation. I must admit these expressions are new to me (CNAME and A record). But I'll try to understand.

A few questions:

1. If I read your explanation, isn't the CNAME in fact my actual situation? otherdomain.nl showing the maindomain.nl website but with otherdomain.nl visible in the browser?

2. If I ask the hoster to go for the A record solution, do I have the same result as with a 301 redirect in a .htaccess file?

3. If so (see 2) does this A record solution also transfer the link value of the other domains to the main domain (just like with a 301-redirect in .htaccess)?

Many thanks,
Hans

[Houdoe]

Hi Robert,

Thanks for your extensive answer!

Physically, there is only 1 website, www.maindomain.nl. Meaning that if I put the word 'moz' on the homepage, all 20 other domains immediately show 'moz' too.

So the other 20 domains are nothing but domain names. Showing the main site but under 20 different domain names.

The only reason the 20 domain names exist, is to avoid competitors to registrate them. And alos the believe (misunderstanding) that this would help them to be found in Google much better (with a lot of sites).

The SEO guy before me arranged some backlinks to some of the 20 domains. So they have some link value. And as they all have a link to the mainsite (due to the logo pointing to www.maindomain.nl) they could all be supporting the maindomain too a little?.

Hosting is virtual hosting. Only for the mainsite. If I was given acccess to the 20 others, I would put a .htaccess with a 301 redirect there. But that's not an option.

So part of the 20 domains have some link value, others haven't.

I hope this helps a little answerring the question :).

Many thanks,
Hans

[RobertFisher]

Highland,

Thanks for great server side explanation.

Hans,

Highland gives a very good explanation to the other side of the equation your webmaster was suggesting. The important thing for me is that it speaks to what your 'webmaster' was saying and that a CNAME record is not the same as a 301. What the webmaster suggests will do precisely what Highland says with regard to duplicate content and will have no benefit for passing link juice.

Best,

[Highland]

A CNAME is a DNS record that says that domainA.com lives where domainB.com is. That means you then do another lookup on domainB.com and get its A record. Somewhere down the chain you have to have an A record. An A record is what ties a domain to an IP.

The problem here is that a CNAME is not the same thing as 301. If you go to the CNAME as mentioned above, your browser will still say domainA.com. We use a CNAME because we have a load balancer with AWS. So our site resolves to a CNAME that resolves to the load balancer address but it still shows up as www.ourdomain.com. We have dozens of URLs like this pointed to the same hosting configuration and each domain is seen as the original TLD. This will cause duplicate content problems for your client.

The correct solution is to set them up with an A record pointed at a web server and then have your web server return a 301.

[RobertFisher]

Hans,

In order to correctly answer this there is more data needed:

Is www.maindomain.com the Main Domain you are potentially pointing the others to?

With the other cctld's, (.eu, .nl, etc) are they sites that are up and running? What about the other .com?

Given you have 'OtherDomain.com's', are they similar sites with a different domain name or are they altogether different sites? Are there domains with languages that are not served by the Main Domain you are redirecting to? Have you looked at traffic to all in GA? What about local?

Is there a business purpose to any of the Non Main sites that would negate changing any of them? Make sure you have talked all the possibilities through with the client or you are going to cause yourself a problem. Please.

What type of "hosting account" is being used? Someone hosting a domain on a network solutions, bluehost, etc for $5 - $10 per month? Dedicated server? Semi dedicated server? etc.

I am not sure who the 'webmaster' is, but they need to understand the reasons you are contemplating this. Frankly, they seem to not want to do the 301's (given the size(# of urls) of the varying domains, varying url structures, are they all exclusively on LAMP stacks or exclusively on IIS, etc. it can be a daunting task.)

If they are simply domains that have no pages or pages with no real link value, a domain to domain redirect takes care of the rare bird who may have one in a bookmark, etc. and, if there is no real chance you would need to worry re bookmarks, you can simply turn them off.

So, you are at a place where you need to answer a lot of questions before you make a decision. A note here since you said, "...a new client.." is that if these are in the least extensive or are critical domains that you really need to be able to preserve the link value or the traffic from you should consider a fee for each domain like that. We charge US $250 for a simple domain to be redirected and a small domain (site) that is critical and has even 10 pages we charge a minimum of US $750. It can go up significantly from there. Why? Because we are a knowledge business and we have learned the knowledge at great cost to us. Also, there is risk involved in this and if something goes wrong, the client will be expecting you to handle it out of your pocket.

If you can answer the questions, I am sure some of us can assist you with the decision tree you face.

Best,

Robert