Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
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?
-
Hi there,
The first question, as the others have stated, is whether the content has been duplicated. If so, that's a problem no matter where the websites are located.
However, if you have two totally different websites from a content point of view on the same topic, hosting them together should not be a big problem. The only issue would be Google's understanding that the two resources were owned by the same entity, and therefore ranking them together might not constitute the most diverse user experience for people searching on the topic. Google reads registration information as well, and also understands that some servers / hosting services host hundreds of thousands of websites so some topic cross-over is natural without the sites being owned by the same person or company. If you had two sites selling pet food on the same dedicated server for the sole purpose of having two sites rank for the same pet food queries, I'm not 100% sure Google would ignore their hosting though.
-
Yeah whether they exist on the same server or not is irrelevant.. If they are separate domain names selling the same product/service from the same company with the same content then you're lookin' for trouble.
If it's all unique no problems.. they'll have separate IP addresses and domain names no matter.
-
Hey,
How similar are they? Is the content the same? If you have the same website and content then it can be considered duplicate content. In my opinion same server or not i would make changes so that are unique, layout, images and content. 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
-
Inbound links to internal search with pharma spam anchor text. Negative seo attack
Suddenly in October I had a spike on inbound links from forums and spams sites. Each one had setup hundreds of links. The links goes to WordPress internal search. Example: mysite.com/es/?s=⚄
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Arlinaite470 -
What is the best strategy to SEO Discontinued Products on Ecommerce Sites?
RebelsMarket.com is a marketplace for alternative fashion. We have hundreds of sellers who have listed thousands of products. Over 90% of the items do not generate any sales; and about 40% of the products have been on the website for over 3+ years. We want to cleanup the catalog and remove all the old listings that older than 2years that do not generate any sales. What is the best practice for removing thousands of listings an Ecommerce site? do we 404 these products and show similar items? Your help and thoughts is much appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JimJ3 -
Hiding Elements on Mobile. Will this effect SEO.
Hey guys and gals, I am hiding elements with @media sizes on the mobile experience for this site. http://prepacademyschools.org/ My question is when hiding elements from mobile, will this have a negative effect on rankings for mobile and or desktop? Right now it is a hero banner and testimonial. My interest is because I feel responsive is now working against conversions when it comes to mobile because desktop typically has the same info several times where mobile it can be repetitive and only needed once. Thanks,
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | brightvessel1 -
Hosting Multiple Websites Within The Same Server Space
Hi, So, I have a client who wants to host two websites (which you could refer to as sister sites) on the same hosting account. For some reason, I was under the impression that doing as much may be detrimental (for SEO purposes). Am I correct in thinking this? Can I get some back-up documentation or comments here? I look forward to hearing what you all have to say. Thanks for reading!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maxcarnage0 -
My website is coming up under a proxy server "HideMyAss.com." How do I stop this from happening?
We've noticed that when we search our web copy in Google the first result is under a proxy server "HideMyAss.com," and our actual website is no where in sight. We've called Google and they really didn't have an answer for us (well the 2-3 people) we spoke with. Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AAC_Adam0 -
Recovering From Black Hat SEO Tactics
A client recently engaged my service to deliver foundational white hat SEO. Upon site audit, I discovered a tremendous amount of black hat SEO tactics employed by their former SEO company. I'm concerned that the efforts of the old company, including forum spamming, irrelevant backlink development, exploiting code vulnerabilities on BB's and other messy practices, could negatively influence the target site's campaigns for years to come. The site owner handed over hundreds of pages of paperwork from the old company detailing their black hat SEO efforts. The sheer amount of data is insurmountable. I took just one week of reports and tracked back the links to find that 10% of the accounts were banned, 20% tagged as abusive, some of the sites were shut down completely, WOT reports of abusive practices and mentions on BB control programs of blacklisting for the site. My question is simple. How does one mitigate the negative effects of old black hat SEO efforts and move forward with white hat solutions when faced with hundreds of hours of black gunk to clean up. Is there a clean way to eliminate the old efforts without contacting every site administrator and requesting removal of content/profiles? This seems daunting, but my client is a wonderful person who got in over her head, paying for a service that she did not understand. I'd really like to help her succeed. Craig Cook
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SEOptPro
http://seoptimization.pro
info@seoptimization.pro0 -
Ever seen a black hat SEO hack this sneaky?
A friend pointed out to me that a University site had been hacked and used to gain top Google rankings. But it was cloaked so that most users wouldn't notice the hack. Only Googlebot and visitors from Google SERPs for the spam keywords would see a hacked version. See http://www.rypmarketing.com/blog/122-how-hackers-gained-an-easy-1-google-ranking-using-a-university-website.whtml (my blog) for screenshot and specifics. I've dealt with hacks before, but nothing this evil and sneaky. Ever seen anything like this? This is not our client, but was just curious if others had seen a hack like this before.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AdamThompson0