How to fix duplicate issue among multiple root domains

[CommercePundit]

Hello,

I’m doing SEO for one E-commerce website which name is Lily Ann Cabinets & I’ve around 300 different root domains which having same linking structures, same design & even same product database for all 300 websites, but currently I’m focusing only on Lily Ann Cabinets website & trying to get ranking on some targeted keywords, but website is not performing well in Google.com

For Example:

http://www.lilyanncabinets.com/ (Main Websites)
http://www.orlandocabinets.com/
http://www.chicagocabinets.org/
http://www.miamicabinets.org/
http://www.newyorkcabinets.org/
http://www.renocabinets.org/

So please can anyone tell that Will it create duplicate issue in search engines or may be due to this reason website doesn’t have good ranking in search engines, then how can I fix this issue? Do I have to make different structures for Lily Ann Cabinets?

[Everett]

Hello CommercePundit,

I'm going to recommend Justin Taylor's first reply as the best solution here. You want your cake and you want to eat it too, but unfortunately that is against several of Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

Either give each of those sites their own content, which would mean not using the same database, which would mean investing a LOT of money, which is probably not scalable or doable - OR - Give up the idea of having a mirror-site on multiple geotargeted domains and instead 301 redirect those to the primary / canonical domain at www.lilyanncabinets.com . You could also use the cross-domain rel canonical tag as suggested by Justin, but I find that does best on content websites. Due to the nature of an eCommerce site (e.g. secure shopping carts, etc...) I think just redirecting the domains would be best.

You can put up a landing page for each location if you have a good reason to, such as having office or warehouse locations in those areas. But if you have no presence in those areas and are just trying to get traffic because they are big markets I wouldn't do that either. Go for the national market instead. I see on the Orlando site that the contact address is in Toledo, Ohio.

You don't have to take our advice, but you asked for it and despite your other sites getting traffic I think getting rid of, and redirecting, all of those mirror sites is the best long-term option if you want to continue getting business from search engines. Let's assume that you can get local traffic with those other domains and business does really well for a few months or even a year or two. You hire more people and buy a bigger house/warehouse/infrastructure... only to have Google wipe out every one of your sites completely with a single algorithm update. Now you're firing people, selling your house and looking for a job. It's not worth it, IMO.

[CommercePundit]

Justin,

We can go with this way, but again there is one issue, as I told you that I don't have only one page on root domains, have entire same structure & all pages on root domains, then how can i all redirect to one sub folder, If I would have single page or landing page then I can redirect to new created sub folder.

And let's say I don't want to change anything in other root domains, then Do you have any other solution for the same..?

[CommercePundit]

Yeah, Justin Thanks for your reply. 2000 visits per day is huge visits, that's why I am looking proper solution for the same & at the same time traffics which are coming from root domains should not be affected..

[JustinTaylor88]

If you decide to go this way, it would be better to use subfolders instead of subdomains, as subdomains don't pass on link juice to their parent domain, where as sub folders do

so redirect to:
http://www.miamicabinets.org

to

http://www.lilyanncabinets.com/miamicabinets

[rafaelmontilla-24049]

2000 visits per day from all 300 different root domains, it not much.

I would do 301  as Justin said or create subdomain.

Sample:

1. redirect http://www.miamicabinets.org to miamicabinets.lilyanncabinets.com

2. create a landing page for miami-cabinets.lilyanncabinets.com

3. targeting the keywords Miami Cabinets with unique text.

[JustinTaylor88]

That does put a different slant on things...

2000 visits per day is a lot and i would be wary of doing anything that would effect this.

Your best and safest route forward may be to change Lily Ann Cabinets so that the text etc is unique and different to the other sites, that way you can still maintain the traffic from other domains, but at the same time you can look to optimise Lily Ann Cabinets and get it performing well in SERPs without it being dragged down by duplicate content.

Justin

[CommercePundit]

Thanks Justin for your quick reply,

But still I would like to share one thing to you that currently i am getting 2000 visits per day from all different root domains as I've customized Google e-commerce tracking code to track visits from all domains & if i will put canonical tag in other domains as you said, then Is there any chance to down the traffic from different domains which are coming right now, because I am getting huge traffic from those domains, so isn't it risky..?

So what can i do in this case? Should i do try with canonical tag or what.? What is your opinion in this case..?

[JustinTaylor88]

Yes duplicate content will almost definitely be affecting your rankings and the links above seem to have identical contnet

If you are focusing on Lily Ann Cabinets why not either 301 or better still rel=canonical from the other domains to Lily Ann Cabinets

That would solve the issue with minimal work.

See article below for info on redirects
http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection

Or this one for info on rel=canonical http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/canonicalization

As a side note, regionalised domain names offer little if anything from an SEO perspective and in this case they are most likely harming your SEO because of the duplicate content.