Does Selling the Same Product on Different Domains Look Spammy?
-
Today, I have watched such a great video on YouTube from Google Webmaster Help with following subject.
Does selling the same product on three different domains look spammy?
Now, I have same issue with my three websites. You can find out details as follow.
Traditional Table Lamp in Brushed Steel Finsih with Green Glass
http://www.vistastores.com/indoorlighting-roycelighting-rtl50091-12b.html
7.5' Patio Umbrella Push Tilt - Olefinhttp://www.vistapatioumbrellas.com/marketumbrellas-californiaumbrella-slpt758-f13-red.htmlhttp://www.vistastores.com/marketumbrellas-californiaumbrella-slpt758-f13-red.htmlThere are three different website with 4000+ same products, same Title tag, same Meta description, same price, same details, same SKU number, same images and same details.There are very few pages indexed by Google for VistaStores.com. [I have submitted series of question on SEOmoz Q & A forum to resolve my website's crawling issue.]I assume that, this is one of biggest reason to stop my crawling. So, How can I fix it?
-
Great. Thanks for your prompt reply and I suppose to integrate with my problems.
-
I shared the information already. I appreciate your situation but my initial reply is all I am willing to discuss on this topic. There are entire forums dedicated to how to get around Google's quality standards.
"Each of your sites would use different e-commerce systems, different web hosts, the domain owner's names should be different, unique content would need to be created for each domain, etc."
-
Ryan,
I 100% agree with it and felt similar situation. But, we have to drill down issues and get final solution which suppose to help us in retaining of business. What you think about it?
I am here to find out final solution and I think you have gave me such a great suggestion. But, I can't do that or remove first 2 domains' content.
So, What's other alternatives for me that's more important. I can do any thing [Exclude removing of 2 domains ] to sustain my organic ranking as well as do 100% white hat SEO for my website.
-
If I suppose to search black outdoor floor lamps keyword to Google and assume that I got top 3 ranking with my 3 products.
Google's search quality algorithmically prevents that from happening. I have seen cases where two similar websites will rank for a given product, but I have never seen three. The instances where two sites rank for the same product are usually very hit and miss, where it happens to occur on only a few products. It is often presented where the first site will rank as #1 and the second site will rank further down the page. Others might have examples to share but I have not seen it where similar sites like yours rank #1 and 2.
The system isn't perfect and you may find holes. Even so, there are teams of people at Google constantly adjusting their system to close those holes. You are swimming upstream so-to-speak.
I freely share my time at SEOmoz to help others understand SEO. I am glad to do it. I choose not to practice black hat techniques nor will I respond to assistance requests on the topic. I am absolutely convinced every reputable business should pursue long-term, sustainable SEO i.e. white hat. Those sites which cross over to the dark side think they are clever and fooling the system. They spend their time on activities which are not rewarding to users nor the people doing the work. Frankly, it's bs work.
If you try black hat techniques there is a strong likelihood at some point your site will be completely de-indexed, or your rankings will be severely dropped. It can take many weeks to resolve the issues after you are penalized.
Imagine your site traffic drops down to only repeat customers and you need to hire a SEO for emergency work to fix a penalty. The work to diagnose and correct the issues can be costly, but that is nothing compared to the complete loss of sales for weeks. When that happens to you once, you may change your mind.
-
Ryan wants to say in following manner. If I suppose to search black outdoor floor lamps keyword to Google and assume that I got top 3 ranking with my 3 products.
Now, what will happen in users' mind? Users will click on all top 3 result and will find same products.
So, users of Google will irritate and think that, Google is providing me dump result. Google is going to loose own value due to our dump SEO stuff.
Ryan... You are trying to tell in that direction. Right??
-
They are pretty careful because they register the domain with different companies, hosting is on different server with different IPs, so it's completely white hat and Google doesn't recognise that the owner is the same.
Not getting caught doesn't mean it is white hat.
Activities are being performed which offer no value to users nor search engines. These activities are being performed for the express purpose of manipulating search engine results. It defines black hat seo.
-
Yes, I can understand it. But, I am doing marketing of my website for US. I know that, there are huge competition in US so I want to take all steps which prevents me in all factors.
-
In less competitive online markets (like smaller countries) businesses often start 6-8 websites selling the same product or service. They present unique content on each of these websites and they do link building for each website but because the competition isn't as strong as in the US market, they can get first page rankings with directory and article submissions. When it's successful, they are present on the first page with 3-4 different websites.
They are pretty careful because they register the domain with different companies, hosting is on different server with different IPs, so it's completely white hat and Google doesn't recognise that the owner is the same. -
I can't follow option 1. That's for sure. I am going to follow option 2.
You have given me such a nice information and suggestion. But, I want to give one input in your answer.
I don't want to work on First and Second domain. I want to leave it on current situation and focus 100% on Third domain. (http://www.vistastores.com)
I worried about internal competition which was created by me.
Patio Umbrellas - See VistaPatioUmbrellas.com
I have similar category with similar product with similar keyword.
http://www.vistastores.com/69_21/outdoor/patio-umbrellas.html ( I want to get rank for this URL during Patio Umbrellas keyword)
I want to give same example for other keyword.
Outdoor Table Lamps - See LampsLightingAndMore.com and similar page as follow.
http://www.vistastores.com/6_73_74/home-decor/indoor-lighting/table-lamps.html
This is big question for me. How How How can I compete my already ranked pages with same products?
-
Does Selling the Same Product on Different Domains Look Spammy?
No, it does not look spammy. It does look like duplicate content and will be treated as such. In all likelihood you will only rank for one page between your sites. Sometimes a second page can rank "ok".
How can I fix it?
Two options.
1. Focus completely on one site. 301 the pages from the other sites to your remaining site. Then put all your time and focus on the one site to make it great. This is definitely the preferred option.
2. Spend your time and effort in an attempt to manipulate search engine quality. Each of your sites would use different e-commerce systems, different web hosts, the domain owner's names should be different, unique content would need to be created for each domain, etc.
In every regard a person should look at the two sites and not be able to link them together. While you are spending your time, money and energy on implementing this second option, you have competitors working on the first option who will dominate you in SERPs.
Like most things in life, it is quality vs quantity. Search results are improving every month and quality is consistently improving. There are definitely growing pains and bumps along the way. For the most part, the bumps are being taken by those who are attempting to manipulate the system.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Rankings are different in Different Geographical are with in the same country
Hello , I observed my ranking are different in same country but different geographical areas.Is this nature is common or we missing something. How long will it take to come to the same rankings.
Technical SEO | | medhahostingpr0 -
Move from 4 Domains to 1
Hey Moz Community We are running 4 domains at the moment. www.rapturecamps.com www.surfcamp.travel www.surfcampbali.com www.surfcampinportugal.com We started of our business with 1. after a view years in business we got the option to buy the other 3 domains which have ranked quite well with certain keywords. As its quite allot of work maintaining all these websites with two languages, we where thinking of actually moving number 2, 3 ,4 all to number 1. All domains receive still some good rankings as well as daily hits. So we kinda like would like to keep the SEO Juice. Therefore we where researching for some time what would be the best practice todo so. For us there are two possible options We go trough all posts/pages on the domain 2,3,4 and copy the content over to domain 1. After thats done we create 301 redirects on the domains 2,3,4 linking them back to domain 1 posts/pages. We do do so by manually adding the 301's into the htaccess file, so we are able to delete the Wordpress installations. Our we just copy the Pages/Posts from the domains 2,3,4 to the domain 1 and then kill the 2,3,4 domains afterwords, and let google index these Pages/Posts on the new domain. This way we think we would loose the whole SEO Juice from the old domains. The reason we are asking this one here, we have been reading that this method could lead to red flags at google if we redirect to much Pages/Post back to Domain 1. Hopefully someone here can help us answer that question.
Technical SEO | | 5Gates0 -
Goals for Sub Domain
I have created separate account for my sub domain and created goal for that, we have sales force data base to capture the leads.The problem which i'am facing is comparing to the goals and Sales force leads is very much difference.Goals leads are showing huge than sales force leads. 2) When lead is creating from organic source but in goals it's showing referral lead.
Technical SEO | | Anshul.S0 -
How to redirect subfolder on different domain to another but same ftp
Hi i was wondering how can we redirect all subfolder under language repertory from a domain name to another domain name. The thing is that these 2 domain are on the same IP. Exemple Domain1.com/en to Domain2.com/en Domain1.com/fr to Domain2.com/fr I already redirected my domain with this code RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.olddomain\.com$ RewriteRule (.*) http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^olddomain\.com$ RewriteRule (.*) http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L] Should i apply this code in my .htacces in the subfolder fr and en?
Technical SEO | | bigrat950 -
Will Links to one Sub-Domain on a Site hurt a different Sub-Domain on the same site by affecting the Quality of the Root Domain?
Hi, I work for a SaaS company which uses two different subdomains on our site. A public for our main site (which we want to rank in SERPs for), and a secure subdomain, which is the portal for our customers to access our services (which we don't want to rank for) . Recently I realized that by using our product, our customers are creating large amounts of low quality links to our secure subdomain and I'm concerned that this might affect our public subdomain by bringing down the overall Authority of our root domain. Is this a legitimate concern? Has anyone ever worked through a similar situation? any help is appreciated!
Technical SEO | | ifbyphone0 -
Forum on toplevel or sub domain?
Hiya all I am building a site for the expansion of a facebook fan page that will be sending a fair bit of traffic to the site. One feature of the site is a forum plus a store and i have to make the dissuasion on if i should have the forum and store on the main domain or on separate subdomains for each. domain.com forum.domain.com store.domain.com So my question is would it be better to keep all of these elements on the main domain or each on a separate sub domains? Will
Technical SEO | | wildwill0 -
Old Domain - What to do?
A client recently bought an older domain that is keyword-rich to an aspect of his company. The main website has both e-commerce and call-to-action elements. Our team is split on whether or not to create a micro-site on that domain focused on that aspect of the work that he does or to simply redirect the old domain to his main website. I have not had the opportunity to look at the link profile of the recently acquired domain nor do I have any idea of how many times it's changed hands (which would seem to now be a possible indicator of doorway pages). If any clarification would help, please let me know and I'll do my best to answer.
Technical SEO | | MountainMedia0 -
Multiple Domains, Same IP address, redirecting to preferred domain (301) -site is still indexed under wrong domains
Due to acquisitions over time and the merging of many microsites into one major site, we currently have 20+ TLD's pointing to the same IP address as our "preferred domain:" for our consolidated website http://goo.gl/gH33w. They are all set up as 301 redirects on apache - including both the www and non www versions. When we launched this consolidated website, (April 2010) we accidentally left the settings of our site open to accept any of our domains on the same IP. This was later fixed but unfortunately Google indexed our site under multiple of these URL's (ignoring the redirects) using the same content from our main website but swapping out the domain. We added some additional redirects on apache to redirect these individual pages pages indexed under the wrong domain to the same page under our main domain http://goo.gl/gH33w. This seemed to help resolve the issue and moved hundreds of pages off the index. However, in December of 2010 we made significant changes in our external dns for our ip addresses and now since December, we see pages indexed under these redirecting domains on the rise again. If you do a search query of : site:laboratoryid.com you will see a few hundred examples of pages indexed under the wrong domain. When you click on the link, it does redirect to the same page but under the preferred domain. So the redirect is working and has been confirmed as 301. But for some reason Google continues to crawl our site and index under this incorrect domains. Why is this? Is there a setting we are missing? These domain level and page level redirects should be decreasing the pages being indexed under the wrong domain but it appears it is doing the reverse. All of these old domains currently point to our production IP address where are preferred domain is also pointing. Could this be the issue? None of the pages indexed today are from the old version of these sites. They only seem to be the new content from the new site but not under the preferred domain. Any insight would be much appreciated because we have tried many things without success to get this resolved.
Technical SEO | | sboelter0