The Second Domain Pointing at the Same Site

How you end up with several

Almost every established business has more than one domain, without having planned to.

The dot ca and the dot com. A previous trading name. A misspelling somebody registered defensively. A domain from a campaign. One a supplier bought years ago.

None of that is a problem in itself, and it becomes one when two of them serve the same website without anybody deciding which is the real one.

The fix is straightforward and takes minutes, and the cost of not doing it accumulates quietly.

Two ways to connect them

The distinction that decides everything else.

Pointing means both domains serve the site, so the same pages exist at two addresses and both work.

Redirecting means one domain sends every visitor to the other, so only one address ever serves anything.

The first is what happens by default when somebody simply points a second domain at the same hosting, and it is almost always the wrong choice.

The second is what you want, in nearly every case, and it is a setting rather than a project.

What pointing costs you

• Two copies of every page exist and can be indexed.
• Signals are split between two addresses.
• Links accumulate to whichever people happen to use.
• Analytics are split, so figures understate.
• Customers see inconsistent addresses.
• The wrong one can end up in results.

None of those is catastrophic, and together they mean a business quietly competing with itself for its own name.

Choose the primary deliberately

Worth a moment's thought, since changing it later costs more than choosing now.

Pick the one you print, say, and would want a customer to remember.

For a business trading locally, a dot ca reads as Canadian and is frequently the better choice. For a business selling more widely, a dot com may be.

Where one already has history, links, and search presence, that is a strong argument for keeping it, since the accumulated position moves imperfectly.

Then use it everywhere: the site, email, signatures, invoices, vehicles, and printed material, so the redirect handles legacy traffic rather than ongoing confusion.

Make the redirect permanent

The technical detail that matters, stated plainly.

Redirects come in permanent and temporary varieties, and the difference is significant: a permanent one passes the accumulated value to the destination, and a temporary one does not.

Use permanent, unless there is a specific reason not to.

Redirect the whole domain including every path, so an old address for a specific page reaches the equivalent page rather than the homepage.

And redirect at the domain level rather than serving a page that says we have moved, since a page requires a click and most visitors will not make it.

Your host can do this in a few minutes, and most panels have a redirect tool for exactly this.

A worked example

A business had operated on a dot com for years and later bought the dot ca, which a supplier pointed at the same hosting.

Both worked, so nobody thought about it again.

Two years later they noticed their analytics figures seemed low, and that a search for their business name returned the dot ca version of a page they had been improving on the dot com.

Both versions had been indexed throughout, links had accumulated to both, and their visitor figures had been split across two properties they had never combined.

They chose the dot ca as primary, since it matched how they described themselves locally, redirected the dot com permanently, and updated their printed material over the following months.

The figures consolidated within weeks and the duplicate pages dropped out over a couple of months.

Handle www at the same time

The version of this that exists on almost every site and is usually already handled.

A site can be reachable with and without the www prefix, which is the same duplication problem in miniature.

One should redirect to the other, and which one you choose does not matter provided it is consistent.

Test it by typing both into a browser and seeing whether the address bar settles on one form.

The same applies to the secure and insecure versions, where everything should end at the secure one.

Four combinations, one destination, which takes a minute to verify and is worth doing while you are already looking.

Keep renewing the others

A point about the domains you are redirecting away from.

A redirect only works while you still own the domain, so letting it lapse breaks every old link, printed reference, and bookmark pointing at it.

Worse, an expired domain that once belonged to a business is occasionally picked up by somebody else, and your old address then serves somebody else's content.

Keep renewing them, add them to your expiry register, and treat the cost as maintaining the redirect rather than as holding a spare domain.

For a former trading name in particular, that redirect may be carrying real traffic for years.

The counter-case

There are legitimate reasons to run a genuinely separate site on a second domain.

A distinct brand, a different market, a joint venture, or a service with its own identity may warrant its own site with its own content, and that is not duplication because the content differs.

Microsites for a campaign can also be justified where there is a real reason to keep them separate, though the default should be a page on the main site.

What is rarely justified is the same content on two addresses, which is the situation this article is about.

Separate content, separate site. Same content, one address and a redirect.

The check

1. List every domain you own.
2. Type each into a browser and see what happens.
3. Choose one primary and use it everywhere.
4. Redirect the others permanently, including paths.
5. Check www and secure versions settle on one form.
6. Keep renewing the redirected domains.
7. Search for your own content to confirm one version appears.

Step two answers this in about a minute per domain, and it is the step that reveals a second version of the site nobody knew was live.

The related structural choice is covered in subdomains, folders, and what Google sees.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.