I had an interesting often asked question from a new client today and thought the reply merited posting here:

Q: Would it help to have a duplicate url with keywords in it?

A: A duplicate URL is dangerous if not done properly and is a copy of or points to the same website. If (when) the search engines find two identical/virtually identical websites they will normally ban the newer of the two.
What we suggest if more than one domain is desirable that the keyword rich domain be the primary, e.g. denverrealestate.com and that the secondary name be 301 redirected (permanantly moved) to the first e.g. yourname.com. In this way yourname.com can be used in all offline advertising for branding purposes but is not problematic for the search engines, while yourtownrealestate.com is the name used in the search engines.

Frankly, there is only a slight advantage to the keyword rich names and since you have already begun the promotion of yourname.com, the benefit does not justify starting over unless---"yourtownrealestate.com" were available!

Note that this particular clients website had very little promotion already done, and that in the event the site was already ranked, hard thought would have to be given to abandoning a ranked domain name.

__________________
Oppenheimer Group, Inc.
For professional Mortgage Website Design and search engine optimization.
For professional Real Estate Website Design and search engine optimization.
LanCo Design is a full service website design company!