In the world of Internet marketing, we often discuss domain names as a form of “virtual real estate.” It’s a good analogy, as few things have been as important to your company’s online success (both in terms of search engine visibility and real-world branding) as your website name and address. It is for this reason, and because search engines have shown a clear preference for “exact match” domains in the past, standard practice has often been to buy several different domain exact match domains and forward them all to your “real” business website.

The best way to do this has typically been through what’s called a domain name redirect or forward (with a canonical meta tag), which tells browsers to permanently send traffic to another destination. The user sees the redirected or “correct” address in their navigation bar, and search engines note the change. The net effect is that any previous SEO authority that old domain or URL had is transferred directly to landing domain or what we call the Money Site. Do this a number of times, and you could greatly increase the visibility of your main business website.

With the recent Penguin and Panda changes to Google’s algorithm, though, things may be changing. That’s especially true when you consider that a lot of experts think the effects of both are becoming stronger over time (that is, Google is gradually enforcing them more strictly). Could having too many domain name redirects do more harm than good?

Only a handful of people know the definitive answer to that question, but judging from the evidence at hand – and the direction Google seems to be taking – we can draw two good conclusions:

1. First, there probably is an unofficial penalty for too many domain redirects (or will be soon).Google has been very upfront about the fact that it wants fewer “over-optimized” sites in its listings, and that it is toning down the relevance of “exact match” domains. Put those two factors together, and it’s easy to see how a large number of domain redirects is going to be considered “unnatural” in the eyes of the world’s largest search engine. What will that number be, and when will we see effects? It’s too soon to tell, but let common sense be your judge.

2. A great deal will probably depend on the domains themselves. When the last two Google updates came around, many websites that had previously undergone huge amounts of SEO were virtually unaffected. Why? Because even though Google might have been ignoring some links and content, they still had a strong enough profile to be important, reputable sites to send traffic to. The lesson? If your site has a lot going for it, a large number of redirects probably aren’t going to hurt your search positioning.

If you’re starting your site from scratch today, it’s probably not a great idea to redirect dozens of domains at your home page. But, if you’ve already used this tactic in the past, don’t spend your time worrying about it or the future effects – instead, get busy building a stronger site and a more sustainable search engine optimization plan.

Want to set up your domains and search engine optimization plan without incurring Google’s wrath? Let our team of Los Angeles SEO experts help you and your company. Call 1-800-658-0113 or e-mail Full Impact Studios now to set up a free consultation.