We have two different websites with the same products and information, will that hurt our rankings?
-
We have two different domains, one for the UK and the other for the US, they have the exact same products, categories and information. (the information is almost the same in 400 products)
We know that Google could recognize that as duplicate content, but will that actually hurt our rankings in both sites?
Is it better if we create two completely different versions of the content on those pages?
-
Apologies if I am jumping in, but I just wanted add something to the mix. I also have a very similar situation and I posted this question on this forum earlier today. So I was wondering, does it not matter that each website has geographic targeting for different countries on Google Webmaster? For example, we have a brochure website, and we are selling the same service in multiple countries. It make sense to have country specific domains. And it is very difficult to describe the same product 3 different ways. It just doesn't make sense. However, are you saying that the sites would need to have unique content or different content from each other even though their geographic targets are set to different countries.
By the way my sites are starting small with around 10 pages each.
-
For your case I recommend two possible solutions. The first one: write unique descriptions of your products. The second one: set up canonical urls from one domain on another, for example from uk domain to us domain. It will be the sign for Google that content on uk domain is duplicate and original on us domain. Of course your uk domain will not rank well, but you will avoid duplicated content problems. As you see much better solution will be just write unique content. And it will give you more freedom for domain targeting and will be much more smarter solution.
-
Definitely better to create unique content for each site. It doesn't have to be 100% (but the more unique the better)
If you don't already, I would follow Google WMT on YouTube. Matt Cutts just did a video on this.
Here's another video from a few months ago talking about unique content for e-commerce sites.
Personally, if you have the same content on both sites and nothing separates one another, you'll have a hard time ranking them. You aren't helping Google's users by providing good, fresh content. Google doesn't know you aren't a fly-by-night site and therefore won't rank you. If that was the case, I would just copy any site ranking for my keywords and I could rank too. It doesn't work that way.
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
-
Does product environment have impact on main website's SEO
We have two environments - product, where login is necessary and where the customers are working. We also have there our help desk, Q&A and knowledge base. Pretty sophisticated page regarding information on a specific topic. We also have our main page where we promote our products, company and events, etc. Main page is www.example.com, where product environment is login.example.com . Does this product environment have an impact on my main page's SEO?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NeringaA0 -
Information Architecture/URL Structure of a Consolidated Website
I am working on a project for a company that is going through a major transition. They are deciding to move from a subscription publisher to a digital membership content site. They are ALSO consolidating their sub-brands into one, becoming a branded house. They are a publisher of a niche-hobby, whose base is extremely passionate about the overarching topic. Currently, each sub-brand has its own website with its own branded content. Their new "mega-site" will have all content combined on one domain. Their goal is to appeal to a new user who has overlapping interests in one core topic, while also allowing their existing users and brand loyalists to be able to navigate the site by brand if they want to . If users land on the main domain HP, they will see a simple global navigation where they can navigate the content by topic OR select a brand. Each sub-brand will have it's own sub-navigation. We are currently at the phase where we are working on information architecture and trying to figure out the global nav and the nav for each individual brand. I am A) looking for advice on the best analytics reports to use to help inform navigation decisions and how to categorize content, and B) trying to decide if I should keep the BRANDED content in a sub-folder, or if I should categorize the content by topic and then tag branded content. I'm not concerned about how users will be able to filter the content because that will be easier to figure out. I'm just trying to decide what the main URLs should be when content can be navigated to in multiple ways. Would it be easier to redirect brand1.domain.com > domain.com/brand-1....? Are there benefits to doing it that way?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | triveraseo0 -
My site is not ranking at all.
Can anybody check it what is the main culprit behind my website's growth?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | anshu14320 -
What's the best way to A/B test new version of your website having different URL structure?
Hi Mozzers, Hope you're doing good. Well, we have a website, up and running for a decent tenure with millions of pages indexed in search engines. We're planning to go live with a new version of it i.e a new experience for our users, some changes in site architecture which includes change in URL structure for existing URLs and introduction of some new URLs as well. Now, my question is, what's the best way to do a A/B test with the new version? We can't launch it for a part of users (say, we'll make it live for 50% of the users, an remaining 50% of the users will see old/existing site only) because the URL structure is changed now and bots will get confused if they start landing on different versions. Will this work if I reduce crawl rate to ZERO during this A/B tenure? How will this impact us from SEO perspective? How will those old to new 301 URL redirects will affect our users? Have you ever faced/handled this kind of scenario? If yes, please share how you handled this along with the impact. If this is something new to you, would love to know your recommendations before taking the final call on this. Note: We're taking care of all existing URLs, properly 301 redirecting them to their newer versions but there are some new URLs which are supported only on newer version (architectural changes I mentioned above), and these URLs aren't backward compatible, can't redirect them to a valid URL on old version.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | _nitman0 -
Site re-design, full site domain A/B test, will we drop in rankings while leaking traffic
We are re-launching a client site that does very well in Google. The new site is on a www2 domain which we are going to send a controlled amount of traffic to, 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% to 100% over a 5 week period. This will lead to a reduction in traffic to the original domain. As I don't want to launch a competing domain the www2 site will not be indexed until 100% is reached. If Google sees the traffic numbers reducing over this period will we drop? This is the only part I am unsure of as the urls and site structure are the same apart from some new lower level pages which we will introduce in a controlled manner later? Any thoughts or experience of this type of re-launch would be much appreciated. Thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | leshonk0 -
My website is not indexing
Hello Experts As i search site :http://www.louisvuittonhandbagss.com or just entering http://www.louisvuittonhandbagss.com on Google i am not getting my website . I have done following steps 1. I have submitted sitemaps and indexed all the site maps 2.i have used GWT feature fetch as Google . 3. I have submitted my website to top social book marking websites and to some classified sites also . Pleae
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | aschauhan5210 -
Furniture company with 1 website or a few different ones?
Hello everyone. We are a furniture company, selling sofas, mattress, outdoor furniture, many BBQ's in the future - Separate things, but all related in a way. I was thinking it would make us look like an 'authority' to have a separate website for everything and be more specialised and also look more specialised. What would be better for SEO?? Also (sneeking in a second question!), I have around 50 sofa designs - is it ok if the Meta description is the same for each one or should I change a word or 2 around? Many thanks!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cowhidesdirect0 -
Shall I fix "most Common Errors" for a website that ranked top 3 on Google (difficult KW)?
How can SEOmoz "most Common Errors*" under "Crawl Diagnostics" advice can be right for a good site organic? Site is well ranked top 3 on Google (difficult KW). If I go ahead and fix these errors, I might hurt my SEO , no? like: Too Many On-Page Links 302 (Temporary Redirect) Title Element Too Long (> 70 Characters) Missing Meta Description Tag
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Elchanan0