Think I'm Messing up - too many sites?

[onlineart]

HI Everyone,

Hope someone can help - I'm sure the answer is simple to lots of you, although it's a little bit complicated to explain, PLEASE STAY WITH ME! .

Here's the thing, A good few years ago (about I started a site which showed people how I painted wildlife (for free) and then after a while I sold a CD showing demos, here's the old domain although it now shows my paintings instead http://www.onlineartdemos.co.uk

Well as my paintings started to sell more I wanted to distance myself from the free Demos and CD and have a gallery type site and keep the old one ticking over as a seperate site completely as there were occasional Cd sales.

So I bought some cheap domains - http://www.wildlifeart-online.com and http://www.wildlifeart-online.co.uk plus my name - http://www.jasonmorgan.co.uk seemed like a good idea at the time!!!

So I put the CD on the jasonmorgan.co.uk site and used my host 1&1 to show the art type stuff on the other sites. The oldest of my sites (onlineartdemos) get's by far the most hits and the wildlifeart-online.com gets some as well.

But looking into it a bit more (trying to learn as I go along!) I think I will most likely be penalized by the search engines for having these duplicate sites? I think that is right?

Here's the question - what the hell should I do now?

What would you do in my position? I don't particularly want to get rid of the wildlifeart-online.co.uk and com sites as they are both listed in Google and I would just get page not found errors in google searches if I change the sites completely.

I guess I just don't want to make any more mistakes so would REALLY appreciate any advice anyone could give - Thanks for your time

Jason

[NothingButNet]

I think you should just change the content. Duplicate content is indeed penalized. So write new texts and you should be fine.

[ScriptMan]

Unless the sites have exactly the same content or you interlink extensively between them there is no problem at all. The myth of duplicate content is greatly over-rated.

The extensive interlinking can be a problem. A few one way links won't hurt or add to your SER.

Look at what you wrote in your post. Wanting to brand the different segments of your business in a different manner is entirely logical and reasonable.

It also normal for the older site to have more back links than the newer sites. Build the backlinks and add more content to the site(s) you want to promote and over time their rating will rise.

[NothingButNet]

http://www.wildlifeart-online.com and http://www.wildlifeart-online.co.uk are duplicate. 100%. And that's penalized. So you are right. He is in trouble. And that's a pitty. I really like the paintings and I think he should change his strategy fast. Maybe an online PR company could help or an experienced SEO. DIY only hurts in this situation. My two cents.

[onlineart]

Thanks everyone,

Yes http://www.wildlifeart-online.com http://www.wildlifeart-online.co.uk and http://www.onlineartdemos.co.uk
are exact duplicates as I mentioned above, my host just point each domain to the same files. Basically I was mistaken into thinking it was a good idea to use up the spare domain names I had. Damn.

So do you think I am already being penalized or am I likely to drop off the search engines when / if it happens?

So, should I just remove the two wildlifeart-online.com and co.uk sites for now? and stick with the original and better ranking onlineartdemos.co.uk and then write different content for the other two?

I Really appreciate the input, I hope to eventually become a full time wildlife artist so perhaps I should stop doing things myself as suggested and concentrate on the paintings instead? would I be talking big bucks to get this sorted out? I don't think I am up to optimizing it myself much more I think I have just about gone as far as I can, I've tried my best and think the site is pretty decent for an artist ha..... but perhaps I need someone who specializes in this?

Jason

[Marketing Guy]

What's the point of having the same site on both wildlife art domains? Need to ditch one of those - the .com is doing better so keep that and 301 redirect the .co.uk to it.

Personally I would scrap them all and work it like this:

1. Use your personal domain to host a personal biography and portfolio examples - use this to detail the work you can do and how people can get in touch, etc.

2. Use either http://www.wildlifeart-online.com/ or http://www.onlineartdemos.co.uk/ as your main shop area. Which you use is up to you (I'd personally go with the online art demos one).

3. 301 redirect the remaining domains to the main shop site you choose.

By 301 redirecting the unused "link weight" from them to your main site and it also means Google won't list them in the index (which is a good thing).

You're not in any serious trouble so I wouldn't panic, but it is certainly something you want to sort out.

Scott

[Marketing Guy]

Added - use onlineartdemos.co.uk as your main site - it's doing a little better in Google - 301 redirect the others (except your name domain) to it.

[onlineart]

Thanks Marketing Guy,

Can anyone explain in SIMPLE terms how to do a 301 redirect please my host is 1&1 (uk), or does anyone know of a link to show me how? looks like I need to shuffle thing around pretty soon.

[Marketing Guy]

http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php

Depends on the technology you use. If you retain the hosting accounts for the domains you are redirecting then you can use a simple PHP redirect. If they are hosted on an apache server you can use mod rewrite or an IIS server you can use ISAPI to do the same thing.

Some domain name registrars will allow you to park a domain for free and 301 redirect but be warned - this isn't the same as "forwarding" the domain, which will end up with the same problem you have just now.

Speak to your host and emphasis you want a 301 redirect (not 302, no forwarding, etc).

Scott