Multiple stores for the same niche
-
I started developing a new niche of products in my country about 3 years ago. That's when I opened my first store. Everything went fine, until a year ago, when someone I thought was a friend secretly stole my idea and made his own competing store. I was pretty upset when I caught him and decided to make it as difficult as possible for him, so I made another 4 stores, trying to get him as low as possible in the search results. The new sites have similar products (although not 100% identical), slightly different titles, images and prices. They look different and are built on different e-commerce platforms. They are all hosted on the same server, have roughly the same backlinks, use the same Google account for Analytics, have the same support phone numbers etc etc. I wasn't thinking that I'm doing something fishy, so I didn't try to hide anything. Trouble is that those sites, after doing fine for a few months, dropped like bricks in the search results, almost to the point that they can't be found at all.
At the moment, the only site that ranks relatively well is the original one and a couple of secondary pages with no importance from one of the other sites.
How did this happen? Does Google have something against this practice? Did they take action by themselves when they realized that I was trying to monopolize this niche, or did my competitor report me for some kind of webspam?
And more importantly, what do I do now? Do I shutdown all but my original site and 301 redirect users to it from the others? Can I report my competitor for engaging in the same practice? (He fought back and now he has 3-4 sites, some of which still rank kind of OKish, also he has no idea about web development, SEO or marketing, he just crudely copies what I do and is slowly but surely starting to do better than me).
-
Thanks for the reply, should I 301 redirect the other sites to relevant pages in the main site, or just let them die off?
My competitor's sites do not link to each other, but have very similar layouts, similar products and same contact numbers. What would be the proper way to report him?
-
Forget about those others sites, focus on you one good site and make it as best as can be.
If it is clear to see that he owns multiple sites in the same niche the by all means report him, especially if they all link to each other.
Focus all your efforts on making your business as best as it can be and try to forget about the people around you.
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
-
Posting same content multiple blogs or multiple website - 2018
Submitting same content on multiple site or blog using original source Links. Its good or bad in term on Ranking and SEO. Can we post same content on multiple website with orginal post reference same like Press release site technique.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | HuptechWebseo0 -
Multiple E-commerce website
Following is a scenario where we plan to have a single database and different sites pulling product information from this. There will be a primary site with all the products listed and then there will be other category based website with the same products. All transactions will happen on respective website. The common factor will be products and its information. Our question is should we have different item numbers for the same product listed on two websites or they can be the same.?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | promodirect
e.g.
Website A: Product - Blue Shoes and item number '123'
Product page url will be: websitea.com/blueshoes-123.html Website B: Product - Blue Shoes and item number '123' or should the item# should be unique e.g. 'B123'
Product page url will be: websiteb.com/blueshoes-123.html
or
If item number is unique the product page url will be: websiteb.com/blueshoes-B123.html Please advise what is the best way forward.0 -
Hosting Multiple Websites Within The Same Server Space
Hi, So, I have a client who wants to host two websites (which you could refer to as sister sites) on the same hosting account. For some reason, I was under the impression that doing as much may be detrimental (for SEO purposes). Am I correct in thinking this? Can I get some back-up documentation or comments here? I look forward to hearing what you all have to say. Thanks for reading!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maxcarnage0 -
Besides description and design optimization, is there any other main factor that we can influence to get better App Store rankings?
Hi there! I do love SEO, the cracking Web Search engine, but when it comes to other Google's search engines like Youtube and Apps Store it's an unknown field for me.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Gaston Riera
So, i'm diving into App Store Optimization, ASO. This is my question: Besides the text and the design in the description of the app, is there any other factor that we can manipulate or influence?(such as linkbuilding, social media or alien magic hehe). Thanks a lot!
GR.0 -
Online Store in trouble - What can I check?
Hello, One of our online stores has half the traffic that it did a month ago. What can I check and what can I do to troubleshoot? I can't list the domain here, but what would you suggest? Could RankBrain be the problem? So far I've Checked the functionality of the site including the checkout functionality Checked rankings for main terms, they seem to be holding Checked competitors, there's some sales but I don't see that cutting us off this much. Added content continuously for the past 2 months - quality, targeted, helpful Updated the home page text to be more helpful recently Checked for structural changes that would effect backlinks - found none. Analyzed Google Analytics, still looking deeper. What would you suggest as further troubleshooting?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Are multiple domains spammy if they're similar but different
A client currently has a domain of johnsmith.com (not actual site name, of course). I’m considering splitting this site into multiple domains, which will include brand name plus keyword, such as: Johnsmithlandclearing.com Johnsmithdirtwork.com Johnsmithdemolition.com Johnsmithtimercompany.com Johnsmithhydroseeding.com johnsmithtreeservice.com Each business is unique enough and will cross-link to the other. My questions are: 1) will Google consider cross-linking spammy? 2) what happens to johnsmith.com? Should it redirect to new site with the largest market share, or should it become an umbrella for all? 3) Any pitfalls foreseen? I've done a fair amount of due diligence and feel these separate domains are legit, but am paranoid that Google will not see it that way, or may change direction in the future.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SteveMauldin0 -
Niche Directories
Hello, I like the concept that a directory is good only if you would still want the link if it passed no link juice. DMOZ and Best of the Web fall into that category. And so do some niche directories. How do you determine whether to go with a niche directory or not? Also, what's the ratio of how many niche directory links you'd want compared to other types of links (being very safe) 3:1? 4:1? 5:1? Does it matter what your other links are? Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW1 -
Multiple doamin with same content?
I have multiple websites with same content such as http://www.example.com http://www.example.org and so on. My primary url is http://www.infoniagara.com and I also placed a 301 on .org. Is that enough to keep away my exampl.org site from indexing on google and other search engines? the eaxmple.org also has lots of link to my old html pages (now removed). Should i change that links too? or will 301 redirection solve all such issues (page not found/crawl error) of my old webpages? i would welcome good seo practices regarding maintaining multiple domains thanks and regards
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | VipinLouka780