Two domains, one unique design?

[ChristopherM]

Hi Mozzers,

There are lots of articles on using multiple domains for a company and we all know the story behind that. I have a different question though - I designed and built a really great WordPress theme for my company and it runs on xyz.com and has run on their for well over a year and has decent authority. I would now like to expand my business and offer a different service and I'd like to market the new service on abc.com

My question is: If I use unique content on the second domain, but the same WordPress theme, will it have a negative SEO effect on either site?

I should mention: I have my reasons for not just using the same domain for both services.

I'd love to see what everyone thinks

[ChristopherM]

Yes, but if the two sites are running off the same hosting environment, Google might get a little unhappy with that. But, all in all, I agree about the premise of hundreds of people using the same themes.

[ChristopherM]

@Federico - I understand what you're saying and to a degree I agree, but for this case I want the two sides of the company to be very much visually linked. The services are different, however, they fall under the same umbrella. Think actual services (web, seo, etc.) and then consulting. Similar, but different. I'll take your thoughts into account though, I don't want to make a snappy decision. Cheers

[FedeEinhorn]

If they are totally different services (that you need separate domains) I would go with different themes. Not because of a SEO penalty (there's none that I am aware of) but just because of user experience. Each Website offering a specific service would work better having the design matching the service, IMHO.

[Esaky]

You can see many premium or free themes are using for different blog by many users.

Kindly do not make it as Twins, however there will be some minor difference in them !

[Branagan]

Maybe on extreme cases where you have little content and a very high code to content ratio and 100% duplicated code (not PHP but actual 'source code') from another site it might be taken into account?
I don't know, but then I guess the design would be the least of the problems!

If it helps, I can tell you from personal experience that I've used site structures that I've refined over time in different sites and I've seen very good results until now.

[ChristopherM]

@Branagan That's exactly what I thought, but I'm fairly confident that I've read about duplicate design penalties over the years, so I just wanted to checkin and see what everyones opinion is. I did spend some time Googling for the answer and couldn't come across anything worthwhile. I'm starting to think that it won't have an effect, provided the content is unique and of high quality.

[Branagan]

That shouldn't cause any problems whatsoever. It wouldn't make sense to penalize a site for having the same structure or design as another. Just think of how many millions are using the same CMS and/or the same template/theme!

Treat it as any other website!