Two websites in different niches. Should I create separate G+ authorship profiles?
-
I have two different websites. One of them is one of the most authoritative e-commerce websites in its niche. I own forums, installation resource websites and various other sites that provide excellent user information and customer interactions.
There is another e-commerce website that I own which is very young and not as authoritative. I am about to start building it out like I did for my other site.
My question is about whether I should link my G+ profile and become a "contributor/author" to the new e-commerce site(s) or if I should have someone else in the company be the "face" of this website. Since they're in two completely different niche's, I didn't know if it will give mixed signals to Google if my G+ profile is all about niche A, and then I start throwing in rel=author and being a contributor to other sites that have nothing to do with the original niche.
Should I create another G+ profile to contribute to all of the guest posting & 2nd tier site creation for the new niche site or just use the one I have now for the time being?
-
From my interpretation of Google's Patent filing in 2011 on Agent Rank (continuation patent from the original one in 2005), if you are truly writing good content on both fields, one is the way to go. The industry is using the term AuthorRank so I'll use that for consistency going forward.
The idea that you can have higher AuthorRank in one subject vs another, I feel, is completely wrong. AuthorRank will be determined by a number of factors including how often your content is shared, how quickly it's shared, who shared it, how many +1s, likes, etc. It will be a completely query-independent calculation. It's much like PageRank in that respect. PageRank is query-independent because it takes the links pointing to your site, the quality of those links and comes up with a numerical score. I think this is what AuthorRank will do to. It will take the author, the number of shares, likes etc and come up with a numerical score. Google will then implement this score into their Algorithm and produce a SERP.
"...the reputation of a particular agent is a function of the reputation of the content and agents which refer to it." (from the patent) I think what this is saying is they're going to grade you on the quality of the people who like your content.
Basically, what I'm saying is that your "reputation" will depend on how often your content is shared as a whole, NOT on which topics you write about. SEO of the page will still matter when it comes to placement in the SERP but AuthorRank, much like PageRank, will have a major factor.
Let's take this from Google's point of view for a second. Their job is to provide the most relevant content for a given query.
Now, let's say I write articles about SEO all the time, they get shared, promoted on SEOmoz, +1d etc. In general, me showing up high in the SERPs is good for searches because I'm a reputable source on SEO because my peers "voted" for me.
But let's say I start a brand new blog on Cookies (the edible kind) and no one cares about my cookies, no one shares my recipes, no one +1s them on Google+. Just because I had a high AuthorRank doesn't mean I deserve to rank for everything, right.
So here's what I think will happen.
I will start to loose AuthorRank because a portion of my content is not being shared. The percentage of my content that is being shared drops to only about 60 percent or so. As a SEO, I want my SEO stuff to start ranking again so I'll stop writing about cookies and stick to SEO.
Google likes this because the people who do like Cookies didn't like my content enough to share it so I drop out of the SERPs on that end. AuthorRank will FORCE people to create really high quality content or suffer the consequence of it. People will naturally stick to the topics they know really really well so it can be shared and the searcher looking for a particular subject gets a really good experience because the SERPs will provide the most relevant content for a given query.
To answer your actual question...got off topic there a little...of "should [I] link my G+ profile and become a "contributor/author" to the new e-commerce site(s) or if I should have someone else in the company be the "face" of this website." If you are truly passionate about both topics then I would say connect it and run with it. If you are truly writing quality content, it will get shared, liked etc and help contribute to your AuthorRank. You mentioned you were authoritative in your niche. I'm not sure what you mean by that and how that relates to authorship. I do know that for Google+, you can have circles and it's a great way to separate the two fields unlike that on Facebook. You can set up Circles with different niches so you can drive content to those particular people in each niche. That should get you more likes, shares +1s. Not to mention that a lot of Google+ stuff passes link juice too.
I hope this helps. I know it is a little long winded but I hope I conveyed my thoughts clearly.
BTW, here's the links to the Agent Rank patent so you can read it over and determine (predict) what is best.
Original Agent Rank Patent (2005
<address>Agent Rank Patent (Continuation) (2011) </address>
-
I had a client who has the same problem and I advised him the same what i am advising you... Think about the real life and see if a person can talk and talk about two completely different niches and the answer will probably be yes!
I am writing on my SEO blog as it’s my profession and at the same time I have a blog where I write short stories which is kind of my hobby! It is actually good to go with both website with the same author tag as I am actually the person behind it!
Similar is your case, If you are the real face behind the two website from completely different niches then you should go for the same anchor text.
-
There's plenty of room within a profile to write about the stuff you want to write about without having to feel like you're pigeonholed. I don't think G+ profiles should be looked at as restrictive. Rather, just like in the real world, you are as authoritative on a subject as you are able to devote time to it. By splitting your time between two or three or four or ten subjects, leaves you less time to be an authority on any one in particular. But that's a choice we all make everyday. I don't think you are going to dilute any relevance by doing so.
-
Are you contributing to both the websites as an Author ? Do you have real content that is being authored/posted under your name on both the websites ? Do you have people that relate to both industries in your Circles or following you ? If yes, I wouldn't mind using the same G+ Profile. It's what's correct. That's what makes sense.
It's like if I am working for a Pet Supplies company for example and I am posting on it's blog everyday, but then at home I am also a Coin Collector and have a blog about it. They have nothing in common but it would still make sense that I am the author of both the websites since I really do contribute to both of them.
I hope this helps. Most of the times, it's a very easy answer if you try to think search engines don't exist. What would you do ? You get the answer and apply that. That's what is correct, right and the most accurate way of doing it.
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
-
301 a website to mine within a subfolder
Hey there Mozzers, I have purchased a very amazing Social Media Related Plugin. I already have a business website about digital marketing which pretty much falls in the same category. I am thinking of transferring that plugin into a subfolder of my own website. Is there anything I should keep in mind when I do that?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AngelosS1 -
Strange rankings on new website
HI All My website is 10 years old, and has decent rankings. The domain is www.advanced-driving.co.uk I have recently had a major overhaul of the site, before it was very outdated, with lots of duplicated content. My main keywords are "advanced driving course" and "advanced driving courses" both of which I am on page 1. However, since I have been live with new site - (5 days) I am not ranking for some easy win keywords. I have submitted new content thought webmaster tools, and whilst some content is ranking, others are not. The content not ranking is fresh and unique ( have used copyscape on all new pages). For example my homepage is on page 1 for "advanced driving courses london" - around rank 6. So I hand made some content titled advanced driving courses london to provide more of an exact match, outlining our courses in London and the routes we take - http://www.advanced-driving.co.uk/defensive-advanced-driving-courses-london/ However, this page which is unique does not rank at all....I have done this with another website and it worked well, but google is not understanding this at all. Also I am now on page 1 for "advanced driving course" but not for "advanced driving courses" - well I am but the page for the plural keyword is a page not really related - surely Googles semantic search should realise course and courses are the same! I suspect that Google is still getting used to my new website? No errors or anything in Webmaster tools... Can anyone confirm this - or outline if I have done something awful..!! Thanks Rob
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | robert780 -
Duplicate site (disaster recovery) being crawled and creating two indexed search results
I have a primary domain, toptable.co.uk, and a disaster recovery site for this primary domain named uk-www.gtm.opentable.com. In the event of a disaster, toptable.co.uk would get CNAMEd (DNS alias) to the .gtm site. Naturally the .gtm disaster recover domian is an exact match to the toptable.co.uk domain. Unfortunately, Google has crawled the uk-www.gtm.opentable site, and it's showing up in search results. In most cases the gtm urls don't get redirected to toptable they actually appear as an entirely separate domain to the user. The strong feeling is that this duplicate content is hurting toptable.co.uk, especially as .gtm.ot is part of the .opentable.com domain which has significant authority. So we need a way of stopping Google from crawling gtm. There seem to be two potential fixes. Which is best for this case? use the robots.txt to block Google from crawling the .gtm site 2) canonicalize the the gtm urls to toptable.co.uk In general Google seems to recommend a canonical change but in this special case it seems robot.txt change could be best. Thanks in advance to the SEOmoz community!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OpenTable0 -
Followup question to rand(om) question: Would two different versions (mobile/desktop) on the same URL work well from an SEO perspective and provide a better overall end-user experience?
We read today's rand(om) question on responsive design. This is a topic we have been thinking about and ultimately landing on a different solution. Our opinion is the best user experience is two version (desktop and mobile) that live on one URL. For example, a non-mobile visitor that visits http://www.tripadvisor.com/ will see the desktop (non-responsive) version. However, if a mobile visitor (i.e. iOS) visits the same URL they will see a mobile version of the site, but it is still on the same URL There is not a separate subdomain or URL - instead the page dynamically changes based on the end user's user agent. It looks like they are accomplishing this by using javascript to change the physical layout of the page to match the user's device. This is what we are considering doing for our site. It seems this would simultaneously solve the problems mentioned in the rand(om) question and provide an even better user experience. By using this method, we can create a truly mobile version of the website that is similar to an app. Unfortunately, mobile versions and desktop users have very different expectations and behaviors while interacting with a webpage. I'm interested to hear the negative side of developing two versions of the site and using javascript to serve the "right" version on the same URL. Thanks for your time!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | davidangotti0 -
Tips to Merge Two Domains?
Hi all, my client assigned me to merge both their two domains. To cut the long story, at the moment they have, for example, domain1.com and domain2.com. Practically, they sell quite the same products but with different content and layout. This has been happening for several years: domain1.com came first then domain2.com a couple of months after. They noticed that domain2.com has now more traffic than domain1.com. Another reason is they want to use one placeholder to avoid brand confusion (as expected because the products are actually the same). So, they are planning to merge the brand into domain2.com. I think this is just the same as moving domain, isn't it? I have been preparing all things as per SEOmoz SEO Guide: How to Properly Move Domains and Google's moving your site . Do you have any other tips to include? I want to make sure that the domain moving will be successful and the link juice on domain1.com can be transferred to domain2.com . Many thanks for your help! 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ci3reR0 -
Best Keywords for my local niche
Hello, I'm a health coach helping people with multiple sclerosis. Here's my website: bobweikel(dot)com What do you think the top 4 local keywords would be for my niche? I'm in Boise ID. I'm thinking MS Boise MS Boise Idaho Multiple Sclerosis Boise Multiple Sclerosis Boise Idaho With your intuition, do you think these are valuable keywords for a coaching site? Also, can you think of any other keywords? I want this 100% white hat (no cloaking, for instance)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Regional websites
Hi, I run 4 websites London, New York, Singapore and Dubai. Same company but some of our products are different in each region. Each domain is registered in the relevant region and I have google webmaster tools set so they know the location of each website. The problem is that our Dubai and US websites are appearing higher that the UK website in google.co.uk organic. Does anyone have any ideas why? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | markc-1971830 -
How to check a website's architecture?
Hello everyone, I am an SEO analyst - a good one - but I am weak in technical aspects. I do not know any programming and only a little HTML. I know this is a major weakness for an SEO so my first request to you all is to guide me how to learn HTML and some basic PHP programming. Secondly... about the topic of this particular question - I know that a website should have a flat architecture... but I do not know how to find out if a website's architecture is flat or not, good or bad. Please help me out on this... I would be obliged. Eagerly awaiting your responses, BEst Regards, Talha
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MTalhaImtiaz0