I have noticed that a few companies in my industry registered a few extra domains and simply duplicated all content on it from their original site including design, tech features, etc. Could you, please, explain what could be the reason for that? Simply to help google index the sites and aviod sandboxing when they actually start promoting the websites? If I do not duplicate content, but simply put a redirect to a different website - will domain be receiving some PR, or, perhaps, be easier indexed by google when I add content to it? Thank you for clarifications.
That's not smart on their part. Doing that will cause duplicate content penalties. If they have multiple domains they should redirect all of them to the main domain.
That will not help any it will only create duplicate content. Google can penalize sites that contain duplicate content.
Some people also do that to build country specific sites. domain.co.uk domain.com etc. with just minor language changes.
I have the same question. If 2 domains are sharing 1 hosting, what is the best way to prevent duplicate penalties other than using redirect? Thx
It's not the hosting that matters. It's the content. If they point to the same site, use a redirect. If they share hosting but offer different content, you're fine.
If it's duplicate hosting you definitely need separate I.P. addresses otherwise Google's algorithms will pick up the duplicate content quicker and maybe even penalize you more.