When a host sets up multiple domains for me on the same account, will the search BOTS see the second domain as a sub-directory of my main account?

for example, if seconddomain.com is mapped to a directory such as maindomain.com/2nd, which URL location will the search engines produce?

I understand web surfers won't know it's on the same account as my main domain, I am wondering whether the search engines will know it.

Thsi would depend on exactly how they are doing the redirection. If they are doing it in the virtual host (httpd.config file), you'd be fine, but those redirection scripts might (if not always, I'm not sure) cause problems with SE's.

To answer your question, the SE's won't see it as a subdirectory fo your main domain, that is where it is on the server, nothing more. If it is set up with a script, you probably won't get indexed at all (what I said above)...

thanks for the response.

not being found by the search engines is acceptable. I can submit to some SE if I want. I just didn't want the websites to show up under the others' SE results, because they are totally unrelated.

I wasn't sure if the BOTs worked through the directories that I see (or create with WS_FTP), or if they just follow html links from one page to another. or some other technique.


thanks again

BOTS only follow links.

Originally posted by JTY
Bots only follow links.
That's not true, at least not of all of them. I;ve had pages show up on SEs that weren't linked anywhere on site. One of them was a page that was not finished (which is why it wasnlt linked) and was plagiarized by one guy on 3 different sites. I got him shut down on all 3 for copyright violation.

Hmmm, I wonder how the bot found out about the page....

Originally posted by amalgam
not being found by the search engines is acceptable. I can submit to some SE if I want. I just didn't want the websites to show up under the others' SE results, because they are totally unrelated.

I wasn't sure if the BOTs worked through the directories that I see (or create with WS_FTP), or if they just follow html links from one page to another. or some other technique.

Well, in looking at Duster's experience you may have two problems. One being that some pages may get indexed (that you don't really want indexed).

The other being that the SE simply will not accept your submission due to redirecting (this is not something I am fully aware of, just catch bits and piece of it on various forums). I do not redirect any sites so it isn't something I have really had to worry about but I suggest you research the limitations (if any) of submitting redirected sites to SE's.

I would compare it to a shared server with a whole bunch of domains on the same IP. It have never been any problem.

Not quite. Framed redirects and redirection using those scripts is not the same as shared server with sites on one IP. That much I do know. As I said however, I'm unsure of the effect these scripts have on indexing. I've heard that they can cause problems, but it would be nice to hear from people who use these scripts to post the limitations (if any).

Chicken got it right the first time. If domain 2 goes to a different directory via the httpd.conf file, it is a separate domain, content and everything, for all intents and purposes. That means, among other things, that keywords and search results will be different than for the other domains (assuming they are on different topics).

You can control what gets spidered with many search engines by judicious use of the robots.txt protocol. I would suggest you use it and learn it. The search engines differ in their spidering methods, though some share similarities.

I was surprised when I found an unlinked page (there were others) listed on the Web. I used to think that only linked pages were spidered. I sure found out that isn't true. I no longer put anything on my server that I wouldn't want someone to see.