We've been using domain forwarding to offer a simple-to-remember domain name to our potential customers to direct them to a listing on a vacation rental database site, instead of a lengthy and unmemorable url.

Options on forwarding offered by our domain name supplier, include:

Masked domain
Masked title
Masked description
Masked keywords

Do using these options have any relevance with Google or any other search engine? I can't see how they can, but if this is the case, why are they used?

Thanks.

no idea!
it depends on how they actually redirect and what the server response is.

But if it's like most hosting companies who are clueless where SEs are concerned it will probably do more harm than good.

Chris, thanks

Well, in simple terms:

Customer goes to www.paradisevilla.com (our masked domain)

Server dishes up http:www.vacationrentalsareus.com/cl/detail.asp?<wbr>l=2216 (or something like it) on the main database

Customer sees: www.paradisevilla.com in url box, and is none the wiser

So, what's in it for Google etc. however much I feed into Meta description, keywords, title etc into the masked domain?

I just don't get it.

(all domains made-up)

probably frame forwarding (hard to tell without real URIs)

practically a death sentence for search engine results

What happens if someone enters the url for the original page? Do they get that actual page?

It seems to me that the origal site should be able to stand on its own, but the pseudo site isn't goint to do well in the se's

It seems like you could set up a 301 direct from the new site to the existing site? Is there a reason this wouldn't work? I'm not a 301 expert, so I'm not in a position to give GOOD advice..

I'm just thinnking that there may be a better way to do what you want to accomplish.

Yeah, the masked forwarding helps the PR for the domain but google doesnt' end up reading the content or assigning PR to any of the pages.

Happened to a site I was working on.