Index entry differences for various URLs

[stopping]

Hello all,

I've run into the following situation with several of my clients, and am wondering if anyone has any comments about it.

Let's say that a fictional company shows up in google with the following URL variations:

http://www.wonder-shoes.com
http://wonder-shoes.com
http://www.wondershoes.com
http://wondershoes.com

The number of google index entries varies for each URL:

www.wonder-shoes.com (11,000 entries)
wonder-shoes.com (565 entries)
www.wondershoes.com (2,420 entries)
wondershoes.com (2,660 entries)

Search results also vary for each of the domains.

Does anyone have any comments about this situation?

Thanks.

ST

[brian.mark]

Best practices says that you'd want to use 301 redirects to clean that up. The net result should be a more focused site with better rankings and the combined efforts of the links to every variation. Any pages not listed on the main domain should be found via the 301 redirect and included in the index.

In practice, if they're all raking, then most people tend to wait until there is a problem. This is just fine if you can afford to drop for a while. If not, then proactive cleaning is the best thing to do.

Brian.

[greeneagle]

Especially if both Sites are as similar as I imagine they are.

Ken

[stopping]

There is actually only one site, so yes, they are similar.

;^)