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
-
Why is my website not ranking for it's brand name in SERPs but has been indexed by Google?
The website https://christchurch.crowneplaza.com has been live for a couple of months but is not being found in Google search results - even when searching for it's own brand name 'crowne plaza christchurch.' Google has indexed the site - but we are still not showing - https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fchristchurch.crowneplaza.com&rlz=1C1NHXL_enNZ735NZ735&oq=site%3A&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j69i58j69i59l2j69i65.896j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Any ideas as to why? I think it may be because their are two versions of the site, http and https, both with their own rel=canonical tags. Could this be the cause? Any help much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Timmy30 -
Ranking Spanish website in Spain, but I'm based in Australia!
| Hello guys,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wajdisawaqed
I hope you all doing well.I just signed up to this great forum to get some answers on my current SEO campaign, I hope I can find some help in here. I have very important question I hope some of SEO experts can help me please, it will mean the world to me. SO I'm trying to rank this clean,originally Spanish expired domain that I bought in Auction for big money. I added a lot of original content, some keywords start ranking already without any backlinks as the website has huge authority and a lot of quality backlinks, so now I want to start building backlinks to get my keywords on the first page. My question:
I'm a bit worry about installing Google analytics on my site as I will be using gmail account thats based in Australia as I had to use Australian phone number to verify the account. What do you think? is it safe to do that ? (having google account based in Australia linked to website that I'm trying to rank in Spain) I would really appreciate an accurate answer, if you are not sure or if you have never done it before, please don't give me any expectations, as I'm investing a lot of money in this project. Any help would be extremely appreciated my friends. The other question is:
I have bought couple of "new domains" and added some content, to add those domains to my PBN, just to mix up the link profile on my money site. How long do you wait on new domain name before you build any backlinks? I've already added content and social profiles to the new sites, I just need to know when can I start building backlinks to them to power them up as they are new. Thank you so much in advance, I'm looking forward to hear some opinions from experts. Thank you |1 -
I want my website to rank on the first page for a very competitive keyword
I am a WordPress designer and can service national clients. I want to rank on the first page for the keyword WordPress designer. This is a highly competitive keyword MOZ gives it a 68% difficulty. I rank locally in nj for WordPress designer nj and a multitude of local WordPress based key words. I rank on page 10 of serps doing a private browsing session. Some of my national competitors rank on the first page with not many links in. How could i be so low on the serps for the base keyword WordPress Designer but for local WordPress designer nj be number 1 everytime? What should be my best plan of attack if i want to Rank much higher for this one specific keyword hopefully page 1. I think this one keyword could increase business greatly so it is a top priority for me. I appreciate all advice 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | donsilvernail0 -
Website Isn't Ranking & I'm Not Sure Why Based On The Data
Hi Moz Community,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ErrickG
I am having an issue that has been killing me for some time and I could really use another opinion. One of my client’s websites hasn't been ranking for some time and I can't put my finger on it. There are no issues showing up in the webmaster tools. If you compare the site with the tops ranking sites for the websites number one keyword, the website is just as good as everyone else. My clients website is the first one on the left in the attachment. We have better quality content but instead of showing up on page 1,2,3 the site is on page 21. I am just at a lost. Anyone have any thoughts outside looking in. Thanks,
Errick rrLJZ2G0 -
Multiple product hierarchies (creation of refurbished products section) - best solution?
Hi all, I'm in discussion with a client who wishes to introduce a 'refurbished' products section to their website. This section will effectively replicate the structure of the 'brand new' products section. Unusually the key difference will be the fact that the 'refurbished' products section will feature significantly more products than the 'brand new' section, in the region of four times as many. As a guide the website currently stocks approximately 200 products across 8 core product areas. We have recommended that the two sections should be combined in order to prevent the creation of two separate product hierarchies. With 'brand new' / 'refurbished' products segmented via filter functionality. However the client is set on having two separate product hierarchies, i.e. a 'refurbished' section within a completely separate directory. Just wanted to crowd source opinion, in additionally to gaining insight if anyone has experience of a similar request. What solution did you implement? My feeling is that there is a high likelihood over time of the 'refurbished' section growing in authority and starting to outrank the 'brand new' products section. Not to mention a key missed opportunity to group and build authority / content within one product hierarchy. All thoughts and opinions much appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 26ryan0 -
2-websites focused on different markets but similar content
Hi all! I have a client who wants to branch out to another market (currently in Northern California and wants to open an office in Southern California), what would happen if we put up a second website that has similar content, but is exclusively for Southern California, with a different office address, and all the content geared towards Southern California market? There would be NO linking between the sites. Would that generate a penalty? Thanks! BB
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BBuck0 -
Not ranking in Google - why???
This will be a bit long, so please bare with me. I have a client in the auto parts industry who wants to rank their homepage for 13 different keywords. We are ranked first page for all keywords in Yahoo! Mexico and Bing Mexico, but not ranking first page at all in Google Mexico. My client's competitor, however, is clearly outranking my client in Google. When comparing both pages, my client's, while not 100% optimized, looks better optimized than their competitor's. Looking at all metrics using Moz, SEMRush, ahrefs, etc... my client's site looks MUCH better on all fronts. I know ranking a single homepage for more than 10 keywords is a difficult task. Our competitor is however, ranking for them, so it's not impossible. The keywords are not even that competitive according to Moz's analysis. I decided to create an optimized page for each keyword to try to rank these pages, but still my client wants the homepage to rank (again, if the competitor is ranking, then it's possible to do this) and I am afraid these pages I created could result in keyword cannibalization ultimately affecting the homepage's possibility to rank. My client had a previous SEO agency working for them and basically all they did was create fake blogs and have lots of keyword rich links directed to the site's homepage. I got the complete link profile from several tools and submitted a disavow requests for as many fishy links I could find, but that hasn't shown any results so far. Note: when looking at the competitor link profile, they have basically just a few links and no external links of real value whatsoever. My client is obviously very frustrated, and so am I. In my SEO experience, it shouldn't be such a difficult task to accomplish, however nothing seems to work even though everything seems to point that my client should rank higher. So now I'm running out of ideas regarding what to do with this site. Any insight you could provide would be SO helpful to me and my client. If needed I can provide my client's homepage URL and also their competitors homepage for you to review. i can also give you any extra information you need. Thanks a lot!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EduardoRuiz0 -
Product discontinued
Hi there, We have ranking top 3 for a competitive keyword, however the product linked to that keyword has just been discontinued, normally if we have alternatives to this product I would keep this page live and direct users to those alternatives products. What is best practice here? keeping the page live and telling users that this product has been discontinued and offering a helpline number? or just removing the page all together? (404) Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780