Competitor owns two domains which are essentially duplicates. Is this allowed?
-
Hello everyone,One of my competitors has two E-commerce sites that are almost exactly the same. The company re-branded a few years ago (changed the company name, changed the domain name) but kept the first domain live which is still fairly successful. Their re-branded website is a Top 1000 retailer.The thing is, both websites are essentially the EXACT SAME. They have the same products (with the same item #'s), the same pricing, the same copy and product descriptions, the same contact info, same layout, etc. The internal search bar on the first domain even redirects to their current site! The only real difference are the brand names. Currently, both sites are ranking very well for some very competitive keywords. For the past two years, I kept waiting for Google to penalize one (or both) of them for duplication. But for some reason Google seems to have not noticed. **Is there any way to "show google" site duplication they might be missing?**Thanks!
-
Thank you for your responses. I will look into maybe calling attention to this via the webspam report.
-
I agree with you Sorina. As I said, what Bryan is reporting is not really an issue of web spam, but using the Google web spam report might bring the two sites to Google's attention to at least look at the issue.
Without being able to see able to see the two sites and compare them to see if the content on both of them is substantially the same as Bryan has suggested this is a bit of a head scratcher. We can only speculate about, but I guess Bryan may not be too keen on a public forum to post the URLs.
Peter
-
Two websites with the same content is not web spam... I don't think this approach will work.
Maybe the content is not really the same - what we see as "the content" may not be the same for Google. Maybe the older website ranks because it has authority and the newer one, even if it has the same products and descriptions maybe it has a lot of client reviews that makes Google not consider it duplicate since the reviews add value and original content... -
Hi Bryan
Have you tried reporting through Google's web spam report?
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport
It's not quite the issue you have but it may at least bring the issue to Google's attention.
Peter
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 google sandbox aged domains too?
Hello, i have a question. Recently i bought a domain from godaddy auction which is 23 years old and have DA 37 PA 34 Before bidding i check out the domain on google using this query to make sure if pages of this website are showing or not (site:mydomain.com) only home page was indexed on google. Further i check the domain on archive web the domain was last active in 2015. And then it parked for long about 4 years. So now my question does google consider these type of domain as new or will sandboxed them if i try to rebuild them and rank for other niche keywords ? Because its been 4 weeks i have been building links to my domain send several profile and social signals to my domain. My post is indexed on google but not showing in any google serp result.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Steven231 -
Dealing with links to your domain that the previous owner set up
Hey everyone, I rebranded my company at the end of last year from a name that was fairly unique but sounded like I cleaned headstones instead of building websites. I opted for a name that I liked, it reflected my heritage - however it also seems to be quite common. Anyway, I registered the domain name as it was available as the previous owner's company had been wound up. It's only been in the last week or two where I've managed to have a website on that domain and I've been tracking it's progress through Moz, Google & Bing Webmaster tools. Both the webmaster tools are reporting back that my site triggers 404 errors for some specific links. However, I don't have or have never used those links before. I think the previous owner might have created the links before he went bust. My question is in two parts. The first part is how do I find out what websites are linking to me with these broken URL's, and the second is will these 404'ing links affect my SEO? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mickburkesnr0 -
Duplicate Content for e-commerce help
Hi. I know I have duplicate content issues and Moz has shown me the issues on ecommerce websites. However a large number of these issues are for variations of the same product. For example a blue, armani t-shirt can be found on armani page, t-shirt page, armani t-shirt page and it also shows links for the duplicates due to sizing variations. Is it possible or even worthwhile working on these issues? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | YNWA0 -
Bad for SEO to have two very similar websites on the same server?
Is it bad for SEO to have two very similar sites on the same server? What's the best way to set this up?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Do you choose PA/DA over PR when purchasing expiring domains?
Hey guys, So a lot has been said about private blog network. I have but only 1 question: Do you choose PA/DA over PR when purchasing expiring domains or PR is most critical? Thanks a lot!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | nicenike0 -
Keyword Specific Domain | Outranking trend
Hey everyone, i looked for a similar question but didnt found anything. Ive been having a lot trouble competing with other websites that use the "exact-keyword" domain (www.keyword.com), then they just stuff some mediocre content and rank 1-3 in Google SERP for that keyword I wasnt worried before because i thought they were going to be penalized or decreased in ranking. But they bought several keyword domains and outrank everyone in almost every word. Their conversion rate cant be that good because of the mediocre content, but still i dont like the fact that they rank better just because of the keyword. Any comment on this? , what would you do? Regards
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JesusD0 -
Competitor frustration
I've tried to be completely "white hat" in my SEO efforts and my site ranks pretty well. However I'm being consistently beaten in the rankings by sites that pull every trick in the book and never seem to get penalised. One of my main competitors has 100s of near identical pages (just the town name different on each) and ranks close to or at the top for many searches, and has done for a couple of years now! Another uses massive keyword stuffing without any apparent adverse results. I don't want to follow their example, but my business is suffering as a result. Why can they get away with it and is there any way to "complain" to Google about it?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MagicianUK0 -
What does Youtube Consider Duplicate content and will it effect my ranking/traffic?
What does youtube consider duplicated content? If I have a power point type video that I already have on youtube and I want to change the beginning and end call to action, would that be considered duplicate content? If yes then how would this effect my ranking/youtube page. Will it make a difference if I have it embedded on my blog?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | christinarule0