Hi There,

I have two domain names pointing to 1 IP www.okwineclub.com and
www.okanaganwineclub.com. Is this considered duplicate content? Will
our sites be flagged? We really want to follow any rules as we have
worked hard on this site for over 75 wineries. Thanks in advance for
any help.

Dan Carter

Based on my research, I haven't found anything to say that google
won't consider this duplicate content. But if it does, the worst it is
likely to do is remove one of the domains from it's database.
Unfortunately, you can't pick which one, so marketing could be a bit
harder.
I did find a recommended technique to deal with this type of situation however.

At this page:
http://rainborick.inpacifica.com/seo-tips10.html

The following is Apache code for fixing this problem, assuming
"www.okanaganwineclub.com" is your preferred domain.


RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.?)okwineclub.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.okanaganwineclub.com/$1 [R=301,L]


This should be placed in your httpd.conf file, or if you are on a
shared host, you should create a file in your root directory called
".htaccess" and put this code in there.

What this should do is redirect all requests from okwineclub to
okanaganwineclub, and tell Google that the url has changed. So Google
will only index okanaganwineclub, but it will accept all links to
okwineclub as well.

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Request for Answer Clarification by lambert-ga on 13 May 2004 11:13 PDT

Hi passive-ga,

I already had a 301 redirect but it seems that the site has been
flagged? I apperricate your help. But I guess theres no way either of
the sites are going to show up now in a search. This was a honest
mistake, is there anyway to fix this.

Dan

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Clarification of Answer by passive-ga on 14 May 2004 06:39 PDT

Hi Dan,
I would love to help further, but I think at this point you need
tocontact Google directly.
Both domains do seem to be listed, so it doesn't look like you've been
removed or anything drastic.
Good luck getting this resolved,
Passive