Duplicate Sites - do they help or hinder?

[jonathan-uk]

I am pretty new to all this and have made a website at www.bikewebsite.co.uk ....I have also got a duplicate site at www.cjmotorcycles.com ...does a duplicate site register under google as an attempt to spam, because over this last week my site has dropped from 700 visits a day down to 400... I am no too concerned with this as I will just carry on building an honest site, I was just curious to peoples opinion on duplicate sites.

1. are they good
2. should we people just set up a foward from there spare domain to there existing site.

Thanks for your time

Regards

Jonathan

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by jonathan-uk

I was just curious to peoples opinion on duplicate sites.

1. are they good
2. should we people just set up a foward from there spare domain to there existing site.

Neither is a good idea...

From Google's Guidelines for Webmasters:

* Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
* Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
* Don't send automated queries to Google.
* Don't load pages with irrelevant words.
* Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
* Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

These quality guidelines cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative behavior, but Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here, (e.g. tricking users by registering misspellings of well-known web sites). It's not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn't included on this page, Google approves of it. Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles listed above will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit.

[cbp]

Not only duplicate sites get you a penalty....Google got assigned a patent in December for the detection of near duplicate sites --> the way the patent reads is that if a "near duplicate" site is returned in response to a search query, one is booted (dosen't matter if its one oy yours or not) --> supposodly to improve quality of search results.

CBP

[jonathan-uk]

I have learnt a lot today. Thanks I am now sorting this out. My aim is to to build an honest site but it looks as if I have made some mistakes.

regards

Jonathan :)