Several domains for one website

[Miko]

I have taken over the management of a website which will be completely rebuilt. The site currently uses three domains which was set up by the previous webmaster. When clicking through the website you don't really notice anything unless you look in the address bar. Is this a good idea to continue to use or should I consider using just the one domain name? I guess by using several domain names is that it is easy to update without affecting the rest of the site. Does Google like this? Content is spread over the three domains. Thanks in advance for your advice.

[Acorn]

I have taken over the management of a website which will be completely rebuilt. The site currently uses three domains which was set up by the previous webmaster. When clicking through the website you don't really notice anything unless you look in the address bar. Is this a good idea to continue to use or should I consider using just the one domain name? I guess by using several domain names is that it is easy to update without affecting the rest of the site. Does Google like this? Content is spread over the three domains. Thanks in advance for your advice.

I'll be interested in others' thoughts on this but how would Google know?

Three domains are probably better than one but I would consolidate all your material under one domain.

Why not publish the same site to each one? (three times the effort).
Then see which one is the most popular.

At some point, you'll probably have to use CPanel's Domain Redirect.
You could set up temporary Redirects for the less popular sites or jump in and make them permanent.

Do the same if the driver is financial but then just park or don't renew the other domains.

Acorn

[gwpriester]

I would use one domain name. It makes life so much simpler.

And if need be, post a redirect page on the other two. Or use a redirect script so if someone goes to one of the other two domains, they will be automatically redirected to the one you are using.

[CQDX]

Unless the website is HUGE with a lot of content that might load slowly, I'd publish the content to a single host and directory, and if the customer picks up the tab for the other domain names, I'd set the others up to forward to the primary domain/published website. I think you'll find this easier - unless the content on each domain is unique and you are using simple links, but there really is no good reason I can think of to do this as I'll mention a simpler alternative technique.

Depending on your Host, website forwards can be easily setup. I have numerous websites with multiple domain names. Some have a very long domain name which is painful for those who don't type, so these also have an abbreviated domain name - the user gets to use either one; for example: "abcmotorcycleclub.org" and "abcmc.club". Then there are other domain names such as "abc.com" and "abc.pub", and "abcbusinessname.com" and "abc.website", etc.

As far as spreading content out over different domain names as you mentioned, here's an alternative, yet similar, and I think simpler method - I have some very large websites with a lot of photographic content. For example, one has photographs arranged by years and each year is individually published to the same parent website hosting account but in different directories (folders). The parent site links to each year and vice versa - all pages look the same and all nav bars look (and work) the same, so other than the addfess bar, this jumping around is pretty much transparent to the user, and is fast. It also makes for a leaner (smaller) parent website .XAR file size, not to mention the years.XAR file sizes.

This means you pay for a single hosting account plus each of the domain names you want to have (or hang on to).

There are different ways to achieve what you want - have fun. Xara makes it easy.

[Miko]

Thanks for the replies guys. The initial thought was to consolidate into one domain. I can lose one domain as it's of little use and move the content of the other domain into just one as it's going to be completely rebuilt. All the domains are hosted in one place and the hosting cost is not an issue. I'll see how the rebuild goes as I am not sure how many pages it will run into.

[CQDX]

... I'll see how the rebuild goes as I am not sure how many pages it will run into.

You probably know this ...
I don't think page quantity will have as much of an impact as will the content on these pages. Think of it this way: lots and lots of empty plastic grocery store bags don't weigh very much collectively - it's what you put into the bags that does, LOL. So if they are mostly textural pages, light weight.
BTW - Google likes links ... not only intra website links but also (more so I believe) inter-website links.

[Miko]

Thank-you for this CQDX