Two Domains Pointing at Same Website - Will I Be Penalized?

[RiverRat]

Okay here's my problem...sorry it's so long and if I didn't put this in the right forum, I apologize!

I have two domain names - adriftwood .com  and oldriverratdriftwood .com - both pointing to the same website and I'm worried I'm going to get penalized for duplicate content.

The oldriverratdriftwood name was our original domain registered in 2004.  This is the actual name of our business.  The name was registered with our old host and when we left to go with ZenCart we registered the adriftwood name until we could get the other one transferred.  We also thought the shorter name would be easier to remember, type in, etc.

We've been operating under the adriftwood name for a year with the old domain also pointing to the same site.  Our sad little page rank is only 1, but we do fairly well in the search engines for our main keyword (first page everywhere BUT Google where we're #35) and most of our other keywords show up on page one everywhere.



Question:  Which domain name should I make the MAIN domain and how should I handle the second one?  Just leave it as is with the nameservers pointing to the website, or should we do a 301 redirect for it?

What would y'all do if it was your site?  :-\

[regic]

I have two domain names - adriftwood .com  and oldriverratdriftwood .com - both pointing to the same website and I'm worried I'm going to get penalized for duplicate content.

You won't be penalized.

Which domain name should I make the MAIN domain

Pages indexed in google: adriftwood.com 507 oldriverratdriftwood .com 24

I'd leave it the way it is.

[RiverRat]

Thanks Regic! 

[jezebel]

You could put a blog on the second domain. 

[RiverRat]

Oooo I never thought of that.  Thanks for the idea!

I've been messing around with one of those at blogspot and trying to get it set up has driven me crazy.  I don't know enough about CSS yet to customize it.  LOL 

I wish there was an easy way to set it up like I did on my eBay blog.  That one was a no-brainer. 

[bargainbloodhound]

[quote author=RiverRat link=topic=7641.msg44452#msg44452 date=1172023408]
Oooo I never thought of that.  Thanks for the idea!

I've been messing around with one of those at blogspot and trying to get it set up has driven me crazy.  I don't know enough about CSS yet to customize it.  LOL 

[/quote]

B2evolution is fairly easy to customize.  Almost all of the template customization can be done in one file .  If you used the template from your store the only CSS you'd need to customize would be fonts and colors.  We use B2evolution for the "articles" and "cart demos" sections of TT.

[RiverRat]

Thanks BBH! 

I bookmarked their site so I can go back and really read about it. 
I like the idea of being able to use the template from my store. 
Maybe I can figure out how to set it up without asking y'all TOO many questions.  LOL