Microsite and main website alternate in rankings
-
Hi all,
I just noticed a potential issue with our websites. We have two ecommerce websites, one is a very large one selling all sorts of products, while the microsite focuses on a small segment of products. All products sold on the microsite are also sold on the main website. In the beginning of September, we upgraded the microsite to the same script that the main website uses to make it mobile friendly and update the design. They now look very similar.
Before, both websites used to rank on page 1 for a specific keyword. I have noticed that since we upgraded the microsite, the two websites have been taking turns ranking for the keyword. For a few weeks the microsite ranks and the main website doesn't rank for the keyword. Then for a few weeks only the main website ranks and the microsite doesn't.
I think the reason this is happening is that Google understands that the content is the same and the websites are both owned by the same company. Fair enough.
-
I remember reading an article about this phenomenon before but can't remember where. Does anyone know which article I'm talking about (it would have been on an SEO blog/website, e.g. Moz, SEJ, SE Roundtable etc)? I'm not even sure what this phenomenon is called.
-
If we can only have one of the pages rank, we would prefer it to be the microsite at all times. Would a canonical tag on the main website referring to the URL on the microsite fix this?
-
I think at the moment the product descriptions are either very similar or identical. Would it help to make them more different to get both to rank again if that is what we wanted to do? In the end it is still the same product being sold by the same company - after Google has already sort of merged the two, would they "un-merge" them if the content was more different?
Thanks in advance!
-
-
Hi Dmitrii,
Thanks, yeah we have canonicals which are self-referencing for products, so I will need to find out if we are able to manually change it on one URL.
The content on both pages is identical, which isn't great for SEO, I know. We sell a lot of (15k+) products and have one person writing product descriptions so we aren't always able to make sure the content is unique (although we do write our own descriptions, not copying the ones provided by suppliers). For the websites as a whole, the product descriptions on the microsite (where we sell about 30 products) are probably all either identical or extremely similar to the main website, but all other content is unique and of course the main website has lots more content that is unique to it, so there is just a small overlap, but for the page in question, it is probably 99% duplicate.
Personally, I'd be happy if just the microsite ranked for the keyword, but will need to discuss internally whether we want to put in the extra effort of making all product descriptions unique on the microsite.
As for relevant links, I think the microsite should have more, as it generally performs much better for keywords related specifically to its niche (which is why I don't like that it's not ranking at all for this keyword just now).
Thanks again.
-
Howdy.
It seems to me that you have duplicate content issues. Do you guys have any canonicals at all? How close is the content from one website to another?
So, if you want both websites to rank for the same product, which seems a bit pointless to me, since you'll have to double up all the efforts, budgets etc, you would need to have unique content on both sites, unique descriptions, all meta tags etc.
If you want only one to rank, then yes, canonical will do it. Also the link mass will have a lot of effect. Basically, if your large site has let's say 100 times more links with relevant anchor texts and from relevant websites, it can still be ranking over the microsite.
Hope this helps
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 i my site not ranking
I have been building my website www.ubodo.com ( its a property portal ) I have feeds coming in from nearly 200 estate agents and I have just over 26k properties listed all over the world. I have tried to make the site fast, mobile friendly and followed several SEO tutorials but I am looky If I get 10 new visitors a day !!! I have managed to get 1st page ranking for terms like " Property for sale in Hambye" ( less competitve than " Property for Sale in France " ) Can any one see anything obvious I have done wrong, I feel like there is a switch to turn on the traffic and I cant find it. Any help would be greatly appreciated Barry
On-Page Optimization | | Bazconnolly10 -
Should my home page be ranking for services provided?
Hello, Should I be tracking and trying to rank my home page for the services we provide? For example, I have separate pages for services that I will be ranking for, but should I also be adding those same service keywords to my tracking list for homepage? Or just merely mention that we have those services on the homepage and leave the attempted ranking of those for their service page? I hope that is clear... Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | Gavinn1 -
Does traditional linkbuilding work to rank an app in the app store?
Hi all! Im diving into the App Store Optimization (ASO).
On-Page Optimization | | Gaston Riera
So, one of my coleagues told me that traditional linkbuilding works in order to get better ranks in the app store, I am specifically saying about the Google Play Store. (not apple store). Well, any thoughts in linkbuilding? Does it realy work? any study case, blog post or experience in this subjet? Thanks!
GR.0 -
So I know my website needs work, how do I go about fixing it now and improve my ranks?
I thought at first it was going to be as simple as adding a few keywords here or there. But apparently not. I see where I messed up in the errors, warnings, and notices. How do I go about fixing them?
On-Page Optimization | | taychatha0 -
Duplication issue on my website
hi I have a cms website with 2000 pages.my problem is that 1. www.test.com/abc.html 2. www.test.com/abc.html?gallery?123testing it showing duplication page in me seomoz error list. It is a single page. Please suggest solution for it
On-Page Optimization | | wmsindia0 -
Getting access to clients websites for onsite seo
I understand on site seo fine, as I have tweeked up my own website a fair bit. But I am thinking about doing Onsite and Offsite SEO for clients, as I have had a few request now. So my question is what is the best way to get access to clients websites. So I can make the required adjustments. I have one client, who had a company create a website for him, but they have since closed down.
On-Page Optimization | | aussieseoguy0 -
Schema.org for news websites?
So as of late I have been on something of a mission to mark up my news website with as much accurate and detailed Schema and Open Graph data as possible, in order to not only allow the search engines to understand my content properly, but also to ensure everything appears in the most ideal fashion when linked to from Facebook, Google+, etc. Here is an example of a typical article page: http://www.nerdscoop.net/technology/video-games-459 As you'll see I currently have news posts marked up as article because that is essentially exactly what they are, but is there a better way to emphasise that they are news rather than just generic articles? My second question is regarding the category pages and the home page. How would be best to mark these up? With OG the task is fairly simple, because I can specify the homepage as being a website, but not so with Schema from what I can see. Either way, this is an interesting subject to me and I look forward to any discussion as a result. Thanks for looking.
On-Page Optimization | | HalogenDigital0 -
What's the impact of # in the main domain page?
After a little research I did in the Source Code of the root domain page of seomoz.org and searchenginejournal.com , I found that the first one contains no at all and that the other contains like 10 . I though that the was something relatively important on a web page for on page optimisation. Did I missed something? What's you opinion on the subject? Thanks for your help!
On-Page Optimization | | Louis-Philippe_Dea0