# DUPLICATE\_ALTERNATE\_ID **URL:** \ **Category:** CRM\ **Tags:** starter\ **Created:** [October 26, 2020, 7:20pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/duplicate-alternate-id/27225 "2020-10-26T19:20:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![softlightdan](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/softlightdan/32/58551_2.png) [@softlightdan](https://community.hubspot.com/u/softlightdan)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 7:20pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/duplicate-alternate-id/27225/1 "2020-10-26T19:20:30Z")
Hi Everyone, I just completed an ‘companies’ import and i had quite a lot of duplicates. The error code was DUPLICATE\_ALTERNATE\_ID and the reason was (for example) | “Alternate ID ‘[companyname.com](http://companyname.com)’ was already used in this import on line 38” | | --- | I think it means that the domain name is already associated with another company also listed in the import. If so, how do i add companies with the same company name, domain but different addresses into Hubspot? ---
**Author:** ![karstenkoehler](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/karstenkoehler/32/68554_2.png) [@karstenkoehler](https://community.hubspot.com/u/karstenkoehler)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 6:13am UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/duplicate-alternate-id/27225/2 "2020-10-27T06:13:53Z")
Hi @softlightdan, For companies, HubSpot uses the company domain name (the company’s website domain) as a unique identifier. If this unique identifier appears twice or more times in an import file, this causes an error. If you have several companies with the same company name, e.g. ACME, this wouldn’t cause a problem as long as they have distinct company domain names, e.g. [acme.org](http://acme.org), [acme.com](http://acme.com), [acme.net](http://acme.net). (Should ACME appear several times with the same domain name, that’s a sign that these rows are actually duplicates since they have the same unique identifier.) Hope this helps! ---
**Author:** ![softlightdan](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/softlightdan/32/58551_2.png) [@softlightdan](https://community.hubspot.com/u/softlightdan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 1:57pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/duplicate-alternate-id/27225/3 "2020-10-27T13:57:44Z")
I do not see how this answered my question, my question was how do I ADD duplicate domains (or companies) with different addresses? ---
**Author:** ![katlud](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/katlud/32/102590_2.png) [@katlud](https://community.hubspot.com/u/katlud)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2021, 4:01pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/duplicate-alternate-id/27225/4 "2021-03-25T16:01:56Z")
Hi, I’m having the same issue today. I have companies that have the same domain but different street addresses. Did you manage to solve this? ---
**Author:** ![PamCotton](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/pamcotton/32/47916_2.png) [@PamCotton](https://community.hubspot.com/u/PamCotton)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2021, 10:29pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/duplicate-alternate-id/27225/5 "2021-03-25T22:29:25Z")
Hello @katlud I would recommend as an option [To add a parent or child company to an existing company record](https://knowledge.hubspot.com/companies/how-can-i-add-a-parent-or-child-company-to-an-existing-company-record) I hope this helps. Pam ---
**Author:** ![MMerl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@MMerl](https://community.hubspot.com/u/MMerl)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2022, 7:47am UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/duplicate-alternate-id/27225/6 "2022-10-21T07:47:35Z")
Same issue here, we have several independent branches that we want to target individually but still they share the same domain-base. We contacted the support and also got the hint to use the parent-child relation. In our case we worked around that via not uploading the domains at all - so the column for those “Duplicates” is empy in the upload file. ---
**Author:** ![BOuzts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9f8e36/32.png) [@BOuzts](https://community.hubspot.com/u/BOuzts)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2024, 9:15pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/duplicate-alternate-id/27225/7 "2024-08-04T21:15:20Z")
how do i add duplicate IDs. I have multiple businesses at different locations all sharing the same email address. i need a row for each one since each has different address.