Domain Alias

[kchandler]

I have a client that picked up a bunch of keyword rich domain names and he wants to point them to his current corporate site as domain aliases.

Could this in anyway negatively or positively effect his SEO? or ranking?

Thanks  - Kyle Chandler

[stevenmusumeche]

Make sure to use a 301-redirect and you shouldn't have any problems.  If those domain have any existing links, then the 301 will also pass most of the link juice to your primary domain.

[kchandler]

Thanks for the quick response, Steve.

[Thos003]

It shouldn't negatively effect his site. It will most likely positively effect his site. If the newly acquired domains don't have any links or rankings then the effect will be minimal to none.

As Steve said, use 301 redirects. Don't use domain masking. If the redirected site was built out and had some very strong pages, then you can do individual page redirects from the htaccess file.

[kchandler]

From my understanding it will only positively effect the site if there is a 301 redirect or conical link back to the original corporate site domain. A simple domain alias will risk the possibility of duplicate content in search engines.

[stevenmusumeche]

Your understanding is correct.  You want to 301 them (or use canonical, but 301 is better) and NOT use a domain alias.

[Thos003]

Ditto that.

Domain Alias = Domain Masking.

htaccess is a 301 redirect. You probably want to just use a site 301 redirect, also called site forwarding. But 301 is the correct forward as it is considered permanent.