Combining Two Sites With Similar Domain Authority
-
Hello,
We run two sites with the same product, product descriptions and url structure. Essentially, the two sites are the same except for domain name and minor differences on the home pages. We've run this way for quite a few years. Both sites have a domain authority of 48 and there are not a large number of duplicate incoming links.
I understand the "book" to say we should combine the sites with 301's to the similar pages. I am concerned about doing this because "site 2" still does about 20% of our business.
We have been losing organic traffic for a number of years. I think this mainly has to do with a more competitive environment. However, where google used to serve both our sites for a search term it now will only show one.
How much organic benefit should we see if we combine. Will it be significant enough to merge the two sites. Understandably, I realize the future can't be predicted but I would like to know if anyone has had a similar experience or opinion
Thanks
-
I think that there is a good chance for an increase of total sales by combining the sites. I vote for this because the two sites have diverse link profiles and combining them will make a big gain in the link diversity and domain authority of the site that remains. I would merge them with optimism rather than with fear.
-
Google doesn't tend to like 'clone' sites and if it detects them, one of the web properties will be nerfed. Google wants people to 'add value' to the web, and then reward them with traffic. The path is not supposed to be, build one site - clone it, get double the traffic. This is also to keep Google's search results diverse
Seriously, how annoying would it be if you searched for something and every link was the same site with a different name?
In situations where you gained extra traffic illegitimately, there's not much that you can do (technically or otherwise) to re-capture the traffic that you shouldn't have been getting in the first place.
If I were you, I'd be looking at this decision more in terms of: "this will help to plug a gap and stop further deterioration". If Google think you have been gaining traffic that you shouldn't have been getting, fixing the problem won't cause Google to give you 'bonus points' that see your site(s) return to illegitimate traffic levels
If you are looking for quick and easy ways to succeed in SEO, know that the lifespan of such techniques is limited. In actual fact, you're lucky not to have received a penalty on both sites.
This is not a case of "how can I make some quick traffic again", it's a case of "how can I demonstrate to Google that my behavior is changing, and avoid a penalty for my main site". Sometimes the benefit, is NOT losing everything you have!
Darin Pirkey made some good points, but I don't think it's a case of 'the benefits of moving outweigh the risks of leaving it'. My POV is very similar but slightly different. I think that 'the risks of leaving it as it is are greater than the risks of merging the web properties' (but then... I'm a bit of a cynic)
-
I think you are already seeing that Google is treating these two as the same. I've had this issue with a legal blog and a lawyers main website. We took the blog from it's own domain and put it under the main lawyer website. We did see a dip in traffic for about two months but it quickly recovered and we ended up with more traffic as the overall site seemed to be more authoritative under one roof.
During this merge, I would also check for "thin content" and/or content that is no longer relevant and/or getting traffic. We tend to use the opportunity as a sort of spring cleaning of the site. But, since your sites are pretty identical, a good thorough examination of all the content on both would be beneficial. Make sure you map the "old" site and keep a sitemap just in case something goes wrong. We used a Google Sheet/ Excel to map domains so in the event something went wrong with the the 301's, we had the opportunity to correct everything.
I know there are risks with moving the domain, but I think the positives outweigh them by a long shot.
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
-
Will Reducing Number of Low Page Authority Page Increase Domain Authority?
Our commercial real estate site (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com) contains about 800 URLs. Since 2012 the domain authority has dropped from 35 to about 20. Ranking and traffic dropped significantly since then. The site has about 791 URLs. Many are set to noindex. A large percentage of these pages have a Moz page authority of only "1". It is puzzling that some pages that have similar content to "1" page rank pages rank much better, in some cases "15". If we remove or consolidate the poorly ranked pages will the overall page authority and ranking of the site improve? Would taking the following steps help?: 1. Remove or consolidate poorly ranking unnecessary URLs?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
2. Update content on poorly ranking URLs that are important?
3. Create internal text links (as opposed to links from menus) to critical pages? A MOZ crawl of our site's URLs is visible at the link below. I am wondering if the structure of the site is just not optimized for ranking and what can be done to improve it. THANKS. https://www.dropbox.com/s/oqchfqveelm1q11/CRAWL www.nyc-officespace-leader.com (1).csv?dl=0 Thanks,
Alan0 -
Merging Two Unrelated Sites into a Third Site
We have a new client interested in possibly merging 2 sites into one under the brand of a new parent company. Here's a breakdown of the scenario..... BrandA.com sells a variety of B2B widget-services via their online store. BrandB.com sells a variety of B2B thing-a-majig products and services (some of them large in size) not sold through an online store. These are sold more consultatively via a sales team. The new parent company, BrandA-B.com is considering combining the two sites under the new brand parent company domain. The Widget-services and Thing-A-Majigs have very little similarity or purchase crossover; so just because you're interested in one doesn't make you a good candidate for the other. We feel pretty confident that we can round-up all the necessary pages and inbound links to do proper transitioning to a new, separate third domain though we're not in agreement that this is the best course of action. Currently the individual brand sites are fairly well known in their industry and each ranks fairly well for a variety of important terms though there is room for improvement and each site has good links with the exception of the new site which has considerably fewer. BrandA.com DA = 73 - 19 years old
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OPM
BrandB.com DA = 55 - 18 years old
BrandA-B.com DA = 40 - 1 year old Our SEO team members have opinions on what the potential outcome(s) of this would be but are wondering what the community here thinks. Will the combining of the sites cause a dilution of the topics of the two sites and hurt rankings? Will the combining of the domain authority help one set part of the business but hurt the other? What do you think? What would you do?0 -
SEO connectivity between domains and sub-domains
Hi, My web site georgerossphotography.com and my ecommerce site store.georgerossphotography.com each reside on different servers. georgerossphotography.com has a domain authority of 30 store.georgerossphotography.com has a domain authority of 30 Clearly, they are considered two individual sites but is there any way that I can boost the performance of the primary domain by passing along some for that good SEO juice from the sub-domain? Any input would be gratefully received. Regards,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sirgeorge0 -
301 Pandalized Domain to Authority Domain?
Hello, If I redirect a Panda penalized domain (DA 65, bad link profile) to another authority domain (DA 35, clean link profile), will it still carry a penalty? I've heard cases where a panda penalized domain moved to a brand new domain carried the penalty.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mashoid0 -
My site falls more than 50 in two days, help me!
My site appeared in the top 10 for that link (http://www.vipgoldrj.com/paginas/ensaios.html) and not by this (http://www.vipgoldrj.com), was well at 2 months, and he suddenly disappeared, I wanted to know if he had been penalized and Google told me it was not. What should I do? The. Sorry my English, I am Brazilian and I'm using Google translator. Warning from SEOmoz staff: this is an escort site with full frontal nudity and is not safe for most workplaces.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebMaster0210 -
Panda/Penguin & Ecommerce Sites in similar niches
Hello, We have a few online stores that are in similar niches. How do we make sure that we don't get penalized for this (Panda/Penguin) We have the sites interlinked, but our newest one is not going to be linked to the others. Also, will rewriting descriptions help if the product is on more than one site? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Should I 301 a penalized domain to another domains subfolder?
I have a niche domain seems to have been hit by Penguin. It had very good rankings before the update, and I think at least a good part of the penalty might be due to overoptimized anchor text. So here is the question; If I decide to take this site down, should I 301 the entire domain to a relevant sub-folder of another site? i.e comtemporaryfurniture.com to domain.com/category/modern-furniture.html Will the penalty get passed onto the new domain? If the penalty is partly due to anchor text, then pointing it to another site's subfolder would mean the tartget URL has more varied anchor text and could boost rankings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
On-Site Optimization Tips for Job site?
I am working on a job site that only ranks well for the homepage with very low ranking internal pages. My job pages do not rank what so ever and are database driven and often times turn to 404 pages after the job has been filled. The job pages have to no content either. Anybody have any technical on-site recommendations for a job site I am working on especially regarding my internal pages? (Cross Country Allied.com)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Melia0