Hi guys,Ive noticed just recently that my page ranking has dropped from 3 to 2 and I would like to know if by having multiple domain names if this could be contributing towards the fall in my PR.At present, the primary domain is http://www.egaragesales.com.auWith secondary accounts which all point to the same website ...the secondary URL'S arehttp://www.fleamarkets.com.auhttp://www.carbootsales.com.auhttp://www.yardsales.com.auNow - I noticed just recently within my site admin that someone had visited my site using the keywords "Garage sales in Perth" which shows results at...http://www.fleamarkets.com.au/city/gara ... -perth.asphttp://www.egaragesales.com.au/city/gar ... -perth.aspWhat I want to know is - could this be hurting my site? Is this what is causing my PR to drop?I havent just recently made any changes? Any suggestion or thoughts?JohnPR is entirely calculated by off site factors, specifically backlinks. You could have been penalised for duplicate content but it wouldn't have effected your PR.It could affect your PR if other people are linking to the same content on different URLs.Use 301 redirects to forward your other domains to your primary domains. This way all PR is passed along to your primary domain.Axe wrote:301's are done by using a .htaccess file using this format:redirect 301 /old/old.htm http://www.you.com/new.htm More INFOonly problem with doing a 301 to the primary domain, make sure those other domain names are each on its own IP address on other networks across the USA or around the world.or google might see the same IP address and give you zero credit for the redirects.It won't give zero credit. It's extremely common for businesses to register several domain names (eg, theircompany.com, theircompany.net, theircompany.org(, and have the .net and .org 301 redirect to their primary domain, on the same IP address).I've never seen any evidence that having 301 redirects on the same or a different IP address make a different. After all, all it's doing is informing people that the page has moved. Not necessarily to another server, just a new location.If IP addresses were a factor, then what about pages that don't go to another domain or another server but simply move within its own site?If somebody starts off with a basic plain static HTML site, should they now be penalized because contact.html now forwards with a 301 redirect to contact.php? I'ts probably due to your link partners PR dropping...then they pass you less PR...it's a chain reaction.As for the IP address being the same that will NOT have an effect on PR. Here's an excerpt from an interview with Google's CTO Craig Silverstein:5) Google and IP address.by Anonymous Coward Why in this day and age does google continue to penalize sites that are virtual hosted? With ip addresses becoming harder to get/justify every day why does google discount the relevance of links that don't come from a unique ip address. Please don't just deny it, I think the Internet community deserves an explanation. Craig: I can't just deny it? What are my other choices? [
] Actually, Google handles virtually hosted domains and their links just the same as domains on unique IP addresses. If your ISP does virtual hosting correctly, you'll never see a difference between the two cases. We do see a small percentage of ISPs every month that misconfigure their virtual hosting, which might account for this persistent misperception--thanks for giving me the chance to dispel a myth! Complete article here: http://interviews.slashdot.org/article. ... 03/1352239
] Actually, Google handles virtually hosted domains and their links just the same as domains on unique IP addresses. If your ISP does virtual hosting correctly, you'll never see a difference between the two cases. We do see a small percentage of ISPs every month that misconfigure their virtual hosting, which might account for this persistent misperception--thanks for giving me the chance to dispel a myth! Complete article here: http://interviews.slashdot.org/article. ... 03/1352239