Yet another question for you e-marketing gurus out there. Would you consider it worthwhile purchasing multiple domain names to submit the same site multiple times to the search engines? Would you consider this a viable marketing scheme or a step removed from spam?

I'd be interested in hearing your views on this.

No, the search engines would consider this spamming. If they catch you spamming they won't index your site at all.

What if the indexed pages had slightly different text?

hmmm I don't know about that one...

IMO the best place to learn about engines and to keep up on what the current atmosphere is VirtualPromote.com (http://www.virtualpromote.com)

Originally posted by northernscum
What if the indexed pages had slightly different text? "Slightly different text" would still be considered a duplicate or mirror site, and submitting such pages would violate the rules of any of the major search engines.

Of course they might not catch it. Still there are still a couple of other arguments against it -- for one, since these new domains would have no incoming links, they probably wouldn't get indexed anyway. Submit to Google's "Add URL" page, for example, and they won't add you if your site isn't linked to by another indexed site. Other search engines may add your submitted site eventually, but will penalize or remove your listing if you site isn't found by their spider within a few weeks.

Then, since your site will be identical to the site you already have, what's the benefit? It'll presumably be ranked the same (other than any effects of the different domain name itself), so it gets you no improved ranking.

And if you do get a good ranking in a competitive area, you'll very likely be found out. All of the majors now have a mechanism through which users can report spam. If one of your competitors comes across your mirror site and reports it, there's a good chance all of the duplicated sites will be removed from the index.

Bottom line: it's not a good idea.

Sounds like sage advice. Thank you.

On another note, do you know if search engines consider subdomains a distinct "site", and index them accordingly?

I would recommend that search engine questions be posted at:
http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums
:)

Originally posted by northernscum
On another note, do you know if search engines consider subdomains a distinct "site", and index them accordingly? In general, search engines consider distinct sites to be distinct sites. That is, the domain -- or whether it's a subdomain -- doesn't matter as long as it really is a distinct, independant site.

If it isn't, two sites being subdomain on the same domain is certainly evidence of (or at least hints at) abuse. Having two sites on the same server hints at abuse. Having two sites with dns registered to the same name hints at abuse. Two sites on the same IP block might hint at abuse.

In short, if everything's legit you don't have to worry about any of this stuff. If your violating a SE's TOS or playing in a gray area, though, these are things to be mindful of.

I would recommend that search engine questions be posted at:
http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums Er... I wouldn't. While a couple of the mods seem to know what's going on, it's not really a collection of great experience and is operated by one SEO company so you're really getting only one point of view. For a good, complete forum on SEO topics, a forum used by and posted to by many of the experts in the business, I'd recommend http://www.webmasterworld.com/