Hi,

I didn't set out to cheat Google, and if that's what I'm doing, hopefully I can fix the situation before I get punished for it. That seems to be a theme running through a lot of what I'm reading about SEO.

I got a domain to host my photography, LandscapePhoto.us, as landscapes are the bulk of what I shoot, and what I tend to enjoy most. But then I started shooting more and more portraits, and felt like I'd painted myself into a corner, so I bought another domain name ( ForrestCroce.com ) and parked it over my site.

Looking into Google's web master tools, I see a lot of external links from the first domain to the second. I thought I had set the entire site up using relative hyperlinks ( ie ../Thumbs/... ), and looking at the source, I don't see any hard-coded URLs. Also, I seem to be benefitting from "external links" from the same domain names, but with www. as a prefix, like a subdomain.

So, should I be concerned Google is going to mistake me for a link farm, or is this more likely just a bug in the web master tools? I'm trying to go about things the right way ( especially building quality content ), so it would be especially bad to get punished for something I didn't mean to do.

you do have a nice case there. if u built the site, than you should know if u linked to the other site or not. and besides, how many pages can u have on one site that could effect google so much? its like saying: "i bought a site-wide link on the PR0 site, is google gona kik me out?" i don't think so, although there are many here that know better.

You are talking about advantages, do you mean your PR has risen significantly?

Okay, I checked a few examples at the top, and neither domain is mentioned in any of them. Which makes sense; I built most of the site in Dreamweaver, and built the internal links by navigating up or down a level.

Also, there seem to be lots of them ( mostly the nav bar repeated over lots of pages ) but they seem to count less than nofollow links from other sites, as I look into it more. Still, I need to figure out how to correct this.

hopefully I can fix the situation before I get punished for it. That seems to be a theme running through a lot of what I'm reading about SEO.

You're reading the wrong stuff!!

You won't be "punished"

Decide which hostname you want to be seen and 301 redirect the other to it. If you don't, the SEs will eventually work out they are one and the same set of pages and filter out one of them. However (as you are finding out) it is a bumpy ride with lots of glitches on the way.

The worst case scenario is that they will "pick" the wrong one (from your POV) to show in the SERPs

Originally Posted by chrishirst

You're reading the wrong stuff!!

You won't be "punished"

Decide which hostname you want to be seen and 301 redirect the other to it. If you don't, the SEs will eventually work out they are one and the same set of pages and filter out one of them. However (as you are finding out) it is a bumpy ride with lots of glitches on the way.

The worst case scenario is that they will "pick" the wrong one (from your POV) to show in the SERPs

Agreed... You have no problems here. BTW your photos are awesome!!!!! What camera do you use?

EDIT: I also hope you have those images watermarked...

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Decide which hostname you want to be seen and 301 redirect the other to it. If you don't, the SEs will eventually work out they are one and the same set of pages and filter out one of them. However (as you are finding out) it is a bumpy ride with lots of glitches on the way.

VanGogh gave me the same advice ... I'm trying to set this up with my host. The problem is that I'd like to go with the FC domain and set up redirects on LandscapePhotos.us, only the site is actually hosted there and FC is parked on top of it, so I can't just add redirects to the real copy. One of the techs suggested looking into mod rewrite - any thoughts on that?

Originally Posted by Visio

Agreed... You have no problems here. BTW your photos are awesome!!!!! What camera do you use?

EDIT: I also hope you have those images watermarked...

Thanks!

I'm using a 5D for about the past nine months, which cost as much as my car. And a bunch of lenses, one of them hand crafted by God himself. I've always loved to travel, and after discovering a bunch or really beautiful places, I really had to learn to use a camera. It's been a passion ever since. The camera is 13 megapixels, which is pretty handy, because I need to make 16x24s for my doctor's office.

Oh, and I watermark all the images in Photoshop, well, except the thumbs.

The problem is that I'd like to go with the FC domain and set up redirects on LandscapePhotos.us, only the site is actually hosted there and FC is parked on top of it, so I can't just add redirects to the real copy. One of the techs suggested looking into mod rewrite - any thoughts on that

It matters not which you see as the site with the copy and the one that is parked and pointed. They both are the same copy in the same location on the server drive on the same IP so can be redirected whichever way you choose.

Have a read at HR's thread on permanent redirects just about every variety of code in there.

Hey the photographs are awesome.
As someone who knows nothing about cameras, if I get a Canon EOS 5D 12.8 megapixel camera, will the photos come out like yours? Or is there some special lens u can recommend.
Sorry for veering off-topic...
Thanks

Go over to http://www.google.com/webmasters/ and sign in with your google account (if you have one, otherwise create one). Within their site tools they have an option for you to let google know about other domains that point to the same content and which one you prefer not to show up.

[offtopic]

As someone who knows nothing about cameras, if I get a Canon EOS 5D 12.8 megapixel camera, will the photos come out like yours?

Probably not,
The camera doesn't make the photo

[/offtopic]

Well ... I tried buying a fancy keyboard and mouse, but it didn't improve my site's design. Chris is right, the camera's job is to record a scene. You still have to find a good one, figure out how to frame it, and all of that. But then digital makes it a lot easier to learn, because you can experiment and see the results right away.