How to approach redirecting thirty domains?

Question

I have a client with thirty some domain names. All bought for the reason of being close to a competitors domain. They want them all to redirect to their main portal. Right now I have them pointing to the main portal but that obviously only does this:

www.competitors-site.com -> goes to www.main-portal.com but still retains www.competitors-site.com in the address bar.

So, is the best option then to htaccess all of these domains?

-If we do that we have to put all thirty of these domains on a hosting account correct? -Can I then use one htaccess file to make sure they all get redirected properly?

I am not real good with the htaccess server setting stuff that is why I ask. The idea of setting up thirty different htaccess files seems quite tedious and I would like to make sure I have explored all options before I get started on this.

I suppose I could set up some sort of php header redirection too, but again that seems like a hefty amount of work.

Answer 1

Host all domains on one server, for the reality of the matter is, no number of domains containing the same information will help your SEO ranks, they more than likely will hurt them. So if indeed you client needs to have 30-1000 domain names with variations of keywords or typos, its just going to be easier to host them all on the same server. Just much more easier to maintain over time.

Answer 2

You have a few options to forward all the domains

1. Forward the domains from the registrar account (where they were registered)
2. Use .htaccess to redirect
3. Use meta refresh to redirect
4. PHP redirect (it's not difficult see below)

Domains on the same server linking to each other don't hurt your rankings, it's not bad SEO. How many domains exist on Amazon servers? Or BlueHost who host millions of sites? There is much more coming into account for SEO and this play little into it. Matt Cutts discusses this in a video.

PHP redirect

<?php
   header( 'Location: http://www.yoursite.com/' ) ;
?>

Answer 3

If the site "redirects" but keeps the old address in the address bar, then it is not redirecting at all and instead is just displaying the site in an iframe.

You should set the domain to do a 301 Redirect to the new domain. You should be able to do this in your domain's control panel, with no need for hosting. If you are not able to do that, get a better domain name provider.

However, I will also add that owning a ton of domains that just redirect is almost entirely useless. Unless you have lots of links pointing to them, those domains will carry no weight. If your site (or competitor's site) is example.com, just owning myexample.com will not rank that domain or your site when searching for "example".

Moreover, you may get small amounts of traffic through misspellings, but you could be on shaky legal ground if the domains' sole purpose is to drive traffic away from a competitor.