Does it hurt to have 2 domain names point to the same site?

Marketing
1

I currently have two domain names that point to the same exact content. Is there any disadvantage to that?

My primary website is a photography website, which showcases my own photography. I ended up calling it “GlenVision”, partially because my personal name wasn’t available as a domain name at that time. Many photographers simply use their own name followed by “.com” for their website address, but that wasn’t an option for me then.

A couple years later, my personal name became available as a domain name. I bought it the moment it became available, thinking it might be nice to have my own name as a domain. At the time, I didn’t have any detailed plans to build a second site for this domain, so I just pointed it to the same hosting account as my first website. I thought I might figure out a better use for the second domain at a later date.

Now, I’m wondering if it would be better to build a second website for this second domain that bears my personal name?

Could it be hurting the search engine ranking of the original “GlenVision” domain in any way?

Perhaps I should build a second site for the second domain, to try reaching a different audience, and perhaps generate more AdSense revenue in the process?

I appreciate any helpful suggestions.

thank you,
Glen Berry

2

Ok. The 301 redirect is something I’m not currently doing, but I’ll check into that today. If I keep the second domain pointed to my original site, that would seem the thing to do.

However, do you think it would be better to build a second site for my second domain? If I did that, I would do my best to avoid overlap in the content and themes of the two sites, and I’d try to reach a different audience with the second site.

3

Just 301 redirect the second domain so that the search engines only see one domain regardless of which of the two domain names is used.

4

That is always an alternative. It also gives you additional web pages for people to link to.