Parked vs. Redirected vs Parked and Redirected vs...aw heck

[Menard]

Okay, I obviously did not completely understand the concept of a parked domain vs a redirected domain.

What I have is my cargoship site with the domain name of zhorkow. Not being a particularly easy name for someone to spell, I also have two mispellings registered: zorkow and zorcow.

Usinf cpanel, I have parked both domains on top of zhorkow. Problem is that should someone go to the mispelled domain, well that is the url to which they will go and stay, but I want them all to go to zhorkow.

Obviously parking the domains is not what I want, but I did want to ask someone who is familiar with cpanel if I should just setup a redirect of the parked domains to zhorkow, or should I write an htaccess file myself setting up a permanent redirect? Is it the same or is it any different?

Sorry about the basic question, but this is the first time I have had to deal with parked domains.

[donecweb]

Sorry I can't help but just wanted to say that is a very good question.

[White Wolf]

Safest way SEO wise is to do a 301 permanent redirect.

I have not used cpanel in awhile but, i'm sure you can do this within your CP.

[agent]

I think there are many URL redirectors available...
GO in for any cheap one...

[Andy]

I think there are many URL redirectors available...
GO in for any cheap one...

What are you talking about? You don't have to use any extra service to redirect a domain name.

[Menard]

I wanted to bring up this question again, but from a different standpoint. I have a site which I would actually like to have available as both domain names without a permanent redirect (e.g. the visitor can use domainAdotcom or domainBdotcom and, as far as they know, their address window will show whichever domain they entered).

The question is: will this likely get the hosted domain hurt in seo due to the search engines considering it to be duplicate content?

[Andy]

I don't think it's possible to do what you want to do without having a copy of the site content. Of course it would be duplicate content so one domain name would rank higher than the other.

[Menard]

I don't think it's possible to do what you want to do without having a copy of the site content. Of course it would be duplicate content so one domain name would rank higher than the other.

If I parked one domain it would do that, but the rub is that the domain I am wanting to point it to is an addon domain and not the account domain; being that parked domains only point to the public_html folder (unless you know of a way around that?). I am thinking of just using the registrar's url masking to do it.

[Menard]

If I parked one domain it would do that, but the rub is that the domain I am wanting to point it to is an addon domain and not the account domain; being that parked domains only point to the public_html folder (unless you know of a way around that?). I am thinking of just using the registrar's url masking to do it.

I should add though, that was my experience when I parked domains on the zhorkow domain. When they were parked, zorkow and zorcow would be what would show up in the address window, rather than zhorkow. That was using cpanel 9. I don't know for certain if that is standard for a parked domain to do that; I am presuming.

[Menard]

I think I see what you are saying now. As I was looking at a forum for which I am using a masked domain, the only address that shows in the window, regardless of where you are, is the masked domain. Probably, I'm guessing, the only way around that is to literally duplicate the files on both domains. Being that I don't care to have the second domain indexed, I could restrict robots with a robots.txt file.

[Menard]

Question:

I've never tried this, but is it possible, in cpanel when adding an addon domain, to point more than one domain at the same directory?

[Andy]

I've never tried this, but is it possible, in cpanel when adding an addon domain, to point more than one domain at the same directory?

That's what I thought couldn't be done, but maybe you can try it and report results? I was looking at the Apache server docs and the alias examples for a site URL only use one domain name, but maybe it still works for multiple domain names? However, it is a bad idea for SEO. I would always 301 redirect the alternative domain names to the mother ship domain.

[Menard]

That's what I thought couldn't be done, but maybe you can try it and report results? I was looking at the Apache server docs and the alias examples for a site URL only use one domain name, but maybe it still works for multiple domain names? However, it is a bad idea for SEO. I would always 301 redirect the alternative domain names to the mother ship domain.

I will either have to do a 301 redirect or have two duplicate sites. I tried directing the domain to the root where the other domain is, but cpanel wouldn't let me do it; saying that the domain already exists for that root. I guess you can only point one domain at a sub-domain in cpanel.

I hadn't noticed any problems like this when I accidentally did it with parking domains for the CargoShip. Of course, the CargoShip was the root domain for the account, and it was in frames so it had only one url to display regardless of what page one was viewing.

[Andy]

You can frame any site to hide the real URL (known as masking) but they can bust out of frames using Javascript. Also, masking hides the internal URLs so it is a bad thing.

[Menard]

You can frame any site to hide the real URL (known as masking) but they can bust out of frames using Javascript. Also, masking hides the internal URLs so it is a bad thing.

I found that out when I used my registrar's masking for another domain. It's horrible and even seems to slow the site.

I've cured the problem, though. I am just going to split the site off onto its own account. I'll have it as the primary domain and park the second domain on top of it. It's only going to cost $1 a month to do this.