Multiple domains

[HelenLF]

I have a client who has asked me to purchase 8 domains for her to protect her company branding. Is there any disadvantage from an SEO point of view to having all of these pointing to the one website. Does Google see this as repetition. Is there a 'best' way of doing this? Usually when there are just 2 domains, I use one as the main domain and have the other as a parked domain in the same hosting account pointing to the main domain.
Many thanks for any help.

[Tiggerito]

It's best to have them all 301 Redirect to the main website.

One reason for this is this ensures people will always link to your main domain and re-enforce it, instead of spreading the link juice across the 8 domains.

If you have all the domains display the same content, this is normally termed "duplicate content". There is no disadvantage to this, but at the same time no advantage. You will find that Google will only display one version in its search results.

[HelenLF]

Thanks, that's really useful. So, can I just clarify that if I use 301s then there is no chance of being penalised by Google for having multiple domains?

[Tiggerito]

Google does not "penalise" for multiple domains or content.

However, if you are worried, doing 301 means you are not having multiple content as all domains lead to a single one.

Google themselves recommend using the 301 Redirect:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93633

check the second bullet.

[HelenLF]

Brilliant. That's exactly what I needed to know. Many thanks