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Hans C. Kaspersetz hans-at-cyberxdesigns.com |nyphp dev/internal group 
use| wrote:

> I am working on migrating a site from one server to another today.  On 
> the old server there were multiple domains pointing at one virtual 
> site eg:  www.domain.com, domain.com, www.domain.org and domain.org 
> all point to the same virtual site and therefore the same content.  
> (Duplicate content.)  I am trying to devise a migration strategy that 
> will include 301 redirects and DNS.
> Do the search engines handle A records and CNAME records differently?  
> If www is a CNAME to domain.org, is that the same as two A records 
> www.domain.org and domain.org as far as search engines are concerned?  
> Is that subject to the duplicate content penalty?  Do I need to create 
> 2 distinct virtual sites one for www and one for domain.org and have 
> one of them redirect to the other?
>
> Hans


I'd like to see what others have to say on this as well.

An A record assigns an IP to the domain, so that's not the issue 
w/respect to search engines. Your issue is in the virtual hosting or C 
name/alias configuration.

Your means of implementing a C name (alias) will determine if it is 
"appropriate" or not. For example I have seen cpanel implementations 
(older) deploying 302 redirects, and I have seen cpanel (newer) 
implementing c names as a transparent alias (Apache simply generates 
200OK plus the site content), which appears to the search engines as a 
completely separate site (hence duplicate content). With a modern cpanel 
set the c name alias and then put a 301 in place at that location for 
each additional domain to feed the primary domain. I guess that is the 
same as you called "Do I need to create 2 distinct virtual sites one for 
www and one for domain.org and have one of them redirect to the other? 
". That is what I do.

It is always best to test and examine headers. Avoid 302's and if yu 
have multiple domains serving the same content make sure all but one are 
robots.txt for noindex (as a mirror).

-=john andrews