Masking Domain Names is a Mistake For SEO and Visitors

Q: My website is hosted by my company and has their URL in the address bar.  I set up domain masking so my domain name appears in the address bar then  I heard domain masking is bad for search engines.  Should I mask my domain name or forward it or what?

The short answer is no, you should never mask a domain name.  Here’s why:

1. Website visitors like to have some control of their experience on your website.  By masking the domain name.  One of the most basic forms of control we have on webpages is bookmarking them for future reference.  If the domain name is masked, your visitor will not be able to bookmark that specific page.  Instead, they will only be able to bookmark the home page.  No good for website visitors.
2. Search engines like to know what page they’re crawling and to where it links.  They also consider duplicate content bad, and when you mask a domain name it creates duplicate content to the content on your website without the masked domain name.

The solution is to forward (or redirect) your domains.  If you own several unique domain names that you use for different marketing campaigns, great!  Instead masking the domain names, just forward them to the specific URL.  And to take it a step further, using a 301 redirect tells the search engines to pass any “link juice” to the original URL.

There are several ways to perform a 301 redirect.  The best way is to edit your .htaccess page.  Website owners don’t always have control over their .htaccess file though.  If you need help doing a 301 redirect instead of masking a domain, leave a comment below with the URL to your website (not the forwarding domain name).  I’ll check it out and get back to you.