I was just on the phone with GoDaddy back-ordering a domain name for one of my clients when I got into an interesting conversation with the rep.  As anyone who has experience with GoDaddy knows, the tech people are really tech-sales people.  They try to up-sell you on anything they possibly can.

In this last call, I almost got off the phone without my rep offering to upgrade me when immediately she interjected that it would be a good idea to buy several domain names related to the domain of my client. (“Close, but no cigar” I thought, “I’ll entertain this one though.”) She wasn’t recommending domains that were spelled similarly or sound similar to the domain in question.  She was suggesting very different domain names and explained that this would help promote the primary site.  Immediately I asked her, “wouldn’t this hurt the natural ranking of the site?”  I wanted to see what she would say and what angle GoDaddy is training their sales people to use.  She said that it would be an alias domain and that it’s perfectly safe.  She told me to”… look it up.”  I challenged her by asking, “Isn’t it bad to have multiple domains with the same content?” She responded by saying that as long as the site uses its own files, it is safe.  She then said, “There’s a quick way to copy the folder structure for the primary site so that the new alias domain can have its own folder and not share the  same folder as the primary domain.”  I told the rep “That still duplicating content…” and, “Thank you, but I am not interested.”  I didn’t want to go into detail with her as to why that wouldn’t help but rather hurt my client. Instead, I’ll take the time to explain it to my readers!

The problem with the GoDaddy rep’s logic is that regardless of the file names, hosting companies, etc., Google only looks at the content displayed by the domain.  It only sees what your browser displays; it can’t access your hosting server to look at the PHP file names and Database entries.  Google isn’t an all knowing search engine god, it just knows what you display.  If you display the same exact content on one domain as you do on another, you risk being demoted or blacklisting your site from Google.  It isn’t guaranteed that you’ll be penalized, but I wouldn’t want to risk my client’s domain from being blacklisted and excluded from Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP).  I’d have a lot of explaining to do then.

Google’s goal is to provide its audience with unique and original content for every link it displays in the SERPs.  This is what their algorithm is all about and that’s why Blog sites get promoted when they continue to write about their niche.  If a business thinks in terms of presenting unique content and valuable information without duplicating it all over the internet, then they will eventually be rewarded for it.

The GoDaddy rep did mention a term that I recently spoke to another business about this week:  “Alias domain names”.  This business had recently hired an SEO in New York (not someone on the islands who you can talk to face-to-face) to optimize their website after the previous web designer left out all the goodies to help the website get ranked.  The business owner noticed that they ranked first for their domain name, but not at all for the key words they really wanted to target.  Naturally, the business owner thought that if he buys other domain names with more relevant key words in the domain name, he would rank first for those key words.  So, he bought several domain names and e-mailed me before he set them up.  He asked,  “Should I park these domains or redirect to my site?”

My answer was in two parts because it was a confusing questions at first.  Parking is associating the alias domain name with the hosted content of another primary domain.  Redirecting is automatically moving the user to the primary domain when they land on the alias domain.  Essentially, these two strategies are the same to users viewing through a browser or to the Google bots crawling your site.  In both cases, it looks like you are duplicating your site on another domain which is a no-no.

My suggestion was to focus on the primary site and to “…promote the hell out of it.”  I suggested that if he didn’t want to waste the domain names, that he can setup new sites and create unique content for each domain.  However, this would take resources away from promoting the primary site and wouldn’t really solve the initial problem of getting the primary site ranked for more relevant keywords.  Lastly, I explained that there is one form of redirecting which is acceptable by Google and that is a 301 redirect.  The 301 redirect is a type of redirect that tells Google that the initial page (found on the alias domain) has been permanently moved to the new site (primary domain) and to not index or store the information on the initial page (alias domain).  Typically, this technique is used if you have renamed your company and want traffic from your old domain to go to your new site.  Also, this strategy can be used for mistyped domains or domains that sound similar to your primary domain.  You want to buy those domains so if someone mistypes or spells the wrong word while typing in your domain, then the traffic doesn’t go to a squatter.  Damn Squatters, I hate them!

Was this post helpful?  Too technical?  Give me your opinion in the comment section below!

Before you hire someone to do your online marketing, read this article from Google:

If you’re thinking about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better. A great time to hire is when you’re considering a site redesign, or planning to launch a new site. That way, you and your SEO can ensure that your site is designed to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up. However, a good SEO can also help improve an existing site.

Some useful questions to ask an SEO include:

• Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
• Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
• Do you offer any online marketing services or advice to complement your organic search business?
• What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?
• What’s your experience in my industry?
• What’s your experience in my country/city?
• What’s your experience developing international sites?
• What are your most important SEO techniques?
• How long have you been in business?
• How can I expect to communicate with you? Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?

While SEOs can provide clients with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to manipulate search engine results in unfair ways. Practices that violate our guidelines may result in a negative adjustment of your site’s presence in Google, or even the removal of your site from our index.

Working as a Product Manager at an online start-up was a fortunate opportunity (challenging but good).  I wore many hats and became a “jack of all trades” when it came to gaining widespread distribution online (with the exception of organic search) .  Basically, any online channel that my former company could spend money on, I got involved in.  Developing successful products and business units required these various channels and Search was essential.

In 2005, the company I was working for had established very close relationships with Google, Yahoo!, MIVA, etc.  These relationships were a function of their online spends; we spent a lot on PPC (Paid search).  The internal search team was comprised of about fifteen employees. Despite all the money that was being spent on the media buys and resourcing the team, and despite the money that was being generated, there was no natural search effort in the company whatsoever.  I guess I never questioned why back then, I just considered it was a “Dark Art” and something that only a few select individuals broke the code on.

Three companies later, I had still never met anyone who had strong natural search experience.  SEO/SEM companies were on the other side of the fence from Lead Generation companies in most cases.  Challenged by my executive team telling me that “…we just can’t do natural search,” and “…leave SEO to the search companies,” I began examining the few companies in the Lead Gen space that did SEO.  I contacted former co-workers and associates who went to work at these and other large SEO firms  (iCrossing and iProspect to name a few).  I interviewed search consultants who tried to sell me on the secret marketing tactics involved with SEO without being able to elaborate on anything past what I read on Google.  I burned the midnight oil sifting through articles on SEO and finally started to optimize my own sites as case studies.

After a few successes, I quickly realized that there is no secret sauce, no magic spell, no Jedi mind trick that you can perform to rank your site over another.  Granted, there are Black Hat techniques for short term gains, but those end up hurting a business in the long run and are not sustainable (watch out for anyone who says they can get you instant traffic). In online marketing, when Google changes their algorithm, you know it; companies who aren’t playing by the rules stop delivering traffic.  All the techniques that anyone needs to know about how to organically rank have been blogged about on thousands of websites.  Not to mention, Google has done everything but provide their actual algorithm on their site between their forum and webmaster tools.

I could easily sell the idea to my clients that SEO is a secret art and takes years to learn, but why would I want to start out a business relationship by lying?  Optimizing a site could be as simple as adding a few internal links and keywords or it can be as involved as re-coding an entire site.  After the site is bot friendly, the rest is up to how you link to and from the site.

What I am getting at is that I’m not afraid to reveal to my clients the steps they need to take to make their site search engine friendly because there’s so much more to ranking than how you code your site.  If my client managed to code their site correctly, then they saved us both a lot of time and energy. We can now focus our time and resources into driving traffic via other distribution channels which will only further promote the site’s natural ranking.  SEO is only one tool in an online marketers tool box and should be viewed as such.

To those new to online marketing, do your research.  If you don’t have time to research, be cautious how you spend your marketing dollar (This is a given considering the current economic state).   Don’t put all your eggs into the basket of a self proclaimed SEO expert.  Don’t buy into anyone who can guarantee the #1 slot on google or instant traffic to your site – these are all signs of unscrupulous search practices.

Excerpt from Google:

No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.

Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do. Ask for explanations if something is unclear. If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or “throwaway” domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google’s index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it’s best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to “help” you.