Can I Have Two Domains Pointing To My Website?

SEO / traffic-building questions and answers

Question:

Can I have two domains pointing at my website? I have an established website that is well ranked in the search engines. The problem is, when I first created the site, I made the domain name my company name. Now I want to use a different domain name but not lose my rankings.

I just recently discovered a great domain name based on my primary keyword. In fact, I believe a ton of users would find my site just by typing the domain.com into the address bar.

Is it possible to keep the old domain on the site as-is and point the new one to it as well? If so, will it affect the search engine rankings on the existing domain? Thanks in advance!

Submitted by Theresa J.

Answer:

Yes, you can point a second domain to your website and still keep the first domain unchanged. Simply contact your web host and they can assist you with the setup.

Just make sure that you do what's called a 301 permanent redirect to redirect all requests for the new domain to the existing site. If you don't, Google will attempt to index two identical sites (the existing domain and new one) and you'll receive a duplicate content penalty.

The short answer to your question is yes, you can indeed use two domains for one site. Just ask your web host to help you and don't forget about the redirect.

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