Duplicate ecommerce domains and canonical
-
Hi everybody!
I'd like to discuss the SEO strategy I've thought regarding a client of mine and ask for help because it's a serious case of duplicate content.
There is a main website (the business model one) where he compares the cost of medicines in several pharmacies, to show the cheapest shopping cart to the customer. But the shopping has to been made in another domain, within the selected pharmacie, because my country's law in Europe says that is compulsory to sell the medicines only on the pharmacy website.
So my client has started to create domains, one for each pharmacy, where the differences between them are only some products, the business information of the pharmacy and the template's colour. But all of them shares the same product data base.
My aim is to rank the comparing website (it contains all the products), not each pharmacy, so I've started to create different content for this one. Should I place rel=canonical in the pharmacies domains t the original one? For instance:
www.pharmacie1.com >> www.originaltorank.com
www.pharmacie2.com >> www.originaltorank.com
www.pharmacie1.com/product-10 >> www.originaltorank.com/product-10
I've already discuss the possibilities to focus all the content in only one website, but it's compulsory to have different domains in order to sell medicines
By the way, I can't redirect 301 because I need these websites exist for the same reason (the law)
He is creating 1-3 new domains every week so obviously he has had a drop in his SEO traffic that I have to solve this fast.
Do you think the canonical will be the best solution? I dont want to noindex these domains beacuse we're creating Google Local pages for each one in order to be found in their villages.
Please, I'll appreciate any piece of advice. Thanks!
-
Thanks very much for your answer Dirk!
Yes, I'm not totally sure this is going to work but canonical is the best solution that came to my mind... It's a difficult situation. This is why I want to be totally transparent to Google to show that I don't want to do spam, but only searching for a solution.
Your idea regarding the products it's really smart, thanks!
Please if somebody thinks that it exists a better solution I want to know it!
-
You could start with putting a canonical url like you mentioned. Not sure if it's going to work - the way you describe the situation it seems like an old spam technique - creating thin content sites to create links to the main domain. Canonicals could still be considered as "links" to the main domain.
As you want to have the products indexed on the main domain you could noindex the product part on the individual pharmacie sites (noindex doesn't have to be done on domain level). That way you could still have the sites having Google Local pages & on the other hand be sure that Google will only index the products on the main site.
Dirk
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
-
How do I remove a Canonical URL Tag?
Some of my report cards say I have too many canonical URL tags. However, there is no information no how to delete one. Can someone give me a link or explain? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | dealblogger0 -
Rebranding and Domain Name Changes
Hi All, One of my clients wants to rebrand http://indiaretailnews.com/ so that it's clear that the site is under the operational umbrella of http://tradebriefs.com/. indiaretailnews.com has a lower domain authority of 20, but because of the domain name it ranks number #2 for the keyword "retail news" for Google India. The client's question: Can we change the site names to TradeBriefsRetail.com orTradeBriefsIndiaRetail.com without affecting the SEO on each site? How do we do this – redirect from TradeBriefsIndiaRetail.com to IndiaRetailNews.com and so on or simply put all the content on the new sites and get rid of the old domains or some other way? Do long domain names cause a problem? Another option is TradeBriefsRetail.in, etc with the domain extension showing the country that the content is for.. In a year or two, we will be expanding to markets outside India. My opinion: Keep the old domains and redirect to something like http://tradebriefs.com/india-retail-news Or perhaps a subdomain: http://indiaretailnews.tradebriefs.com In the short term, I'd imagine rankings will drop, but if we wanted to consolidate domain authority, I was thinking that http://tradebriefs.com/india-retail-news would be the best bet. Thoughts? Kenji
On-Page Optimization | | KenjiCrosland0 -
Plagiarism or duplicate checker tool?
Do you know a plagiarism or duplicate checker tool where I can receive an email alert if someone copies my content? I know there's a tool like this (similar to http://www.tynt.com/ though people can still remove the link from the original source) but I forgot the name or site. It's like a source code that you must insert in each of your webpage. Thanks in advanced!
On-Page Optimization | | esiow20131 -
ECommerce URL's
This is based on a clothing retailer, eCommerce site. In an effort to reduce the length of our product names, we are considering removing terms like long-sleeve, short-sleeve, etc., but leaving that information in the URL. Now, the concern is that we would lose some traction in the SERP's if those descriptive words are left out as the product name is also our page title. Then I think keywords as broad as long-sleeve shirt wouldn't serve us well anyways. One idea we have is that the alt tag on the product image could still display the longer product name that would include long-sleeve, etc. thus having the keyword on the product page. Any ideas or suggestions? Hope this is clear. Seems redundant from a user standpoint to state long-sleeve, etc. in every product name. Thanks - your answers are always so helpful!
On-Page Optimization | | kennyrowe0 -
Duplicate content
the report shows duplicate content for a category page that has more than one page. how can we avoid this since i cannot make a different meta content for the second page of the category page: http://www.geographics.com/2-Cool-Colors-Poster-Board-14x22/c183_66_327_387/index.html http://www.geographics.com/2-Cool-Colors-Poster-Board-14x22/c183_66_327_387/index.html?page=2 thanks, Madlena
On-Page Optimization | | Madlena0 -
Duplicate Page Titles and Keywords
Still new to this SEO world, so please bear with me. I have an eCommerce site so one of the issues is duplicate content and page titles. So what I was thinking was this...for each product that I sell I have 4 or 5 keywords that I have targeted. For example for personalized iPhone cases I have decided on: iphone 4 case personalized, monogrammed iphone 4 case, personalized and monogrammed iphone case, preppy phone case, personalized iPhone case, monogrammed iPhone case For each of my products I was going to a product description (ie: trendy color block diagonal stripes) and a targeted keyword. But I was going to rotate the keywords through so as to try to avoid the duplicate page title issue. Will that help? Thanks much, Shara
On-Page Optimization | | Confections0 -
How would you deal with eCommerce sorts?
I am reviewing a website that has different activities, and there are many ways to sort them. The issue is that the website is essentially displaying the same information, but in different sorts. Take a look at this search page: http://www.kijubi.com/AC-Fishing You are looking for fishing trips here, but you can sort it by city, region, and category. I have decided to "no index" some of these sorts, but I am afraid they might be picking up some long tail traffic on the city and region sorts. For example, "newport beach fishing trips", something like that. Any suggestions on how to deal with removing all of these duplicate sorts, while still maintaining the traffic that may be received by sorting with some long tail terms?
On-Page Optimization | | CindyAlbright0 -
My Domain Name - short vs relevant
I'm creating a website for my new web design company in Vancouver. I'm looking to target such keywords as "Web Design Vancouver", etc. I have another company with a hyphenated domain name which is terrible when I'm on the phone and my client asks me for my domain (hard to say, always spelling it out). Also I wanted to have a good snappy name for my new business so I found a 6 letter .com and matching .ca for my company. My question is: is it best to use a short domain name or is it better have my keywords in the domain name? eg. xyz.com vs xyzvancouverwebdesign.com Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | VebianWebandMobileDevelopment0