Does Google penalize duplicate website design?
-
Hello,
We are very close to launching five new websites, all in the same business sector. Because we would like to keep our brand intact, we are looking to use the same design on all five websites. My question is, will Google penalize the sites if they have the same design?
Thank you!
Best regards,
Tiberiu -
To tell you the truth we are already ranking with our main domain for some of the keywords we are after but we're just trying to speeding things up a bit. We've tried the strategy with exact match domains before for some different keywords and, after just 1 week and like 60 listings in different local business directories, the domains ranked for the exact match keyword somewhere between position 3 and 7. The designs were different though.
As long as we don't have to invest more than the actual domain price and we get about 20 bookings per month for each domain, it still counts as profit.
Well, thank you very much once again for your answer. Your oppinions have been more than helpful for me.
Best regards,
Tiberiu
-
Often you're better off ,putting your efforts into a single domain and getting that to rank, rather than splitting your efforts between all those other domains--I mean, what are you going to do with those new sites that is going to get them to rank that you couldn't do with your original domain? If they're exact match domains, I wouldn't count on their effectiveness for the long term--or even for the short term.
-
Hello!
We already have a main website which ranks well for some of the keywords, and not so well for others. The new websites are targeted on the keywords that don't rank so well.
I forgot to specify that we have separate offices for each of the new websites. The websites are already registered with TPH(Taxi and Private Hire) as branches of the main business.
Thank you!
Tiberiu
-
Do you already have a main site that is ranking for all the main keywords and you're just about to roll out these five new ones or are these five new sites your first ones and your business plan revolves around those five?
-
Good morning and thank you all for your answers!
As to respond all questions, we are launching the websites to have more keyword targeted domains. The main business area of the company I work for is "airport transfers". As London has five main airports we have created an website for each of them. We will not be doing any link crossing between the fivem while the content on each of them is different. On the other hand they will be hosted on the same server and will probably have the same contact info.
One tactic I had in mind in order to dodge any possible penalty for duplicate website design was to talk to my developer and ask him to specifically rename the files he will use for architecture of the sites so they are named different for each website in particular. But that is a pretty time consuming task.
If you have any more suggestions I`ll be more than happy to hear them.
Thank you once again!
Best regards,
Tiberiu
-
Bad idea to launch 5 sites for the same company addressing the same targets. One site representing your company (if same product) is the rule.
If you can use different IPs, private domain registrars, no interlinking, different contact info, and different content you can get away with it. If you're just throwing up 5 sites on the same server with similar info you're asking for trouble.
-
Think of the gazillion Wordpress sites out there--they're all the same architecture and they can rank. Your tactic used to be more prevalent, back when linking between sites (you won't be doing that, will you?) with thin content (they won't have that, will they?) helped lift all of them in the rankings.
While there are plenty of examples of multiple sites owned by the same company showing up in the same page-one search results, there are as many, or more, examples of them all showing up at the bottom of the results. It seems to me that if you're asking the question you're asking --at this point in the project, you may not be well enough informed to keep yourself out of the later group. I'd kindly recommend doing some additional homework before you launch.
-
Hi Tiberiu
No, a site won't be penalised because it has the same site structure, design or architecture as another site. For example, I've worked with a number of companies that have multiple websites for different countries. To establish brand consistency and awareness, the designs are all kept the same.
Of course, your website might get penalised if it contains duplicate content, so obviously it's important to ensure all your content is unique before launching. Google may also look negatively on your site if it contains a lot of ads above the fold, or tries to use ad-space too aggressively, so be wary of this.
Hope this helps!
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
-
What type of website is best for seo.
I need a new website for my health insurance business. What type is best for SEO? Many thanks
Web Design | | laurentjb0 -
Sitemap and Privacy Policy marked for duplicate content?
On a recent crawl, Moz flagged a page of our site for duplicate content. However, the pages listed are our sitemap and our privacy policy -- both very different: http://elearning.smp.org/sitemap/ http://elearning.smp.org/privacy-policy/ What is our best option to address this issue? I had considered a noindex tag on the privacy policy page, but since we have enabled user insights in Google Analytics we need to have the privacy policy displayed and I worry that putting a noindex on the page would cause problems later.
Web Design | | calliek0 -
SEO Tips for Affiliate Website
Hi all , I would just like to have an expert Opinion on SEO for Affiliate Website . Basically if I list all Third party products (Amazon/Affilate Window etc ) on my website and then the customer will be redirected to the Affiliates website to make a Purchase will there be an issue with SEO (Lots of Outgoing Url's) and Will the website not rank for Important keywords or will it be hit by any penalty ? I heard it's not good for SEO , any work around this ? If this is case How come cashback Sites rank well with no issues , although the concept is basically the same ? Any Tips or Advice appreciated as how to get this done safe . My Preferred Option would be with Magento Shopping Cart or second option would be with Wordpress Cart only in case this provides some SEO benefits over Magento by some plugins .
Web Design | | Aus0070 -
Responsive Site has "Not Found" Errors for mobile/ and m/ in Google Search Console
We have recently launched a new responsive website for a client and have noticed 2 "Not Found" errors within Google Search Console for /mobile and /m Both these URLs are not linked from anywhere within the site. However Google is reporting them as being linked from the homepage. This is not the first site we have seen in which Google has reported this error, however the other site was not a mobile friendly site. My thoughts are to 301 them back to the Homepage. Anybody else have any thoughts on this? or have recently received the same errors?
Web Design | | JustinTaylor881 -
Managing website content/keywords for wordpress site
We are in the midst of redesigning our website and have been working with freelance blog/content writers to increase the unique content on our site. We are finding it increasingly difficult to manage the topics/keywords as we continue to expand. Googledrive and google spreadsheets have been our primary tools thus far. Can anyone recommend a good tool that would allow us to manage content and blog posts for our site?
Web Design | | Tom_Carc0 -
Did i got hit from some google updates.
Hello everybody, i got a problem and i hope someone can clear it up for me. my root domain authority is 42 and home page is 52 (jumped there only yesterday) ,while my google page rank is still PR2 (same for 3 month already). 1 month ago i changed my home page design (not the text) and since then my home page just disappeared from the search engines. can somebody look on my website www.kspiercing.com , and tell me if i got hit by some panda ,koala,penguin or some other sweet Google animal . thank you very much.
Web Design | | kspiercing0 -
How can the Web site designer and the SEO strategist work together peacefully?
The organization I work for has decided to re-design or re-develop the existing company Web site. My part in this project is to come up with new features to add to the site, as well as making the site SEO-friendly (copywriting, link-building, keyword research, etc.). I don’t know a thing about Web site design, coding, format, etc., and I guess I will have to work with a designer on this project. How would I go about finding a Web site designer? Should they have some SEO knowledge? How much designer, coding and site structure knowledge should I have? And how do we not infringe on one another as we work together? (Sorry so many questions.)
Web Design | | Obie0 -
How long does Google take to re-cache a site?
Specifically, I just redesigned my site. I'm reading Danny Dovers book, and learned about checking the cache version of the site to see what google is REALLY seeing . . . . . . which evidently is my old site. Obviously, my sites not going to make any real progress with SEO as long as the site is out of date. It says it last checked the site on 5/5 and I launched the site on 5/9. Obviously, it does not do these things immediately, but anyone have any ideas on how long it should take before google starts to show me some love?
Web Design | | damon12120