Two sites. One forum?

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by cmeinck, Oct 10, 2005.

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  1. #1
    I've recently launched a "niche" site that has a similar topic to my main site. I run a vBulletin forum at my main site. Instead of recreating the wheel, I've found out that it's possible to "share a db" and have two different styles or templates on forum. This way, visiting Site A presents a certain template and URL www.sitea.com/forum and visiting Site B presents a different template and retains it's url www.siteb.com/forum.

    I'm still not sure how this works - I'm investigating the process now. With anything, I'm always thinking about the effects on my SEO. Anyone ever do anything similar. I don't want to do anything that would adversely affect Site A.

    My thought process for doing this is to "automatically" have a community for my new site -- site b.

    Thanks.
    Chris
     
    cmeinck, Oct 10, 2005 IP
  2. Monolith

    Monolith Member

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    #2
    While its possible to do this, you have to be very careful with how you implement it. The forums your users see when coming from each URL must be the same. That is, if your vB has forums 5 forums - A, B, C, D, E - each URL must show all 5 forums. You can't have sitea.com show only A, B, E and siteb.com show C and D.

    I doesnt quite sound as if this is what you were planning, but vB is pretty fascist with their licenses, and the above example is a big no-no in their eyes... so just thought id mention it.
     
    Monolith, Oct 10, 2005 IP
  3. just-4-teens

    just-4-teens Peon

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    #3
    unless of course you brought a second licence.
     
    just-4-teens, Oct 10, 2005 IP
  4. cmeinck

    cmeinck Active Member

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    #4
    It would be the identical content in the forum -- only difference would be the style/template. One would show a logo/colors for SITE A and the other would show logo/colors for SITE B.

    I'm not sure if it can be done. I'm looking into it at vBulletin.org -- after being sent from vBulletin.com. From a SEO standpoint, I guess I could just set up a robots.txt to disallow /forum on SITE B. This way, Google only indexes the main forum and prevents any duplicate content issues.

    -Chris
     
    cmeinck, Oct 10, 2005 IP