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.
Having 2 brands with the same content - will this work from an SEO perspective
-
Hi All,
I would love if someone could help and provide some insights on this. We're a financial institution and have a set of products that we offer.
We have recently joined with another brand and will now be offering all our products to their customers.
What we are looking to do is have 1 site that masks the content for both sites so it appears as there are 2 seperate brands with different content - in fact we have a main site and then a sister brand that offers the same products.
Is there anyway to do this so when someone searches for Credit Card from Brand A it is indexed under Brand A and same when someone searched for Credit Card from Brand B it is indexed under Brand B.
The one thing is we would not want to rel:can the pages nor be penalised by googles latest PR algorithm.
Hope someone can help!
Thanks
Dave
-
Thanks David, will do!
-
Hi Cindy,
Great Question - I'm not sure what to suggest - probably suggest opening up a new question just to be sure you get eyes on it!
Good Luck!
-
I have a similar question (+ one additional one), and if I need to open a new thread, just let me know.
I have a client with 2 websites - one is a trucking and rigging company that specializes in installation / moving / removal of safes (site #1), the other offers a product line of safes (site #2). I originally designed / implemented site #1 and was able to get "safe installation New York", "safe moving New York", and "safe removal New York" in the top 3 search results in. A little over a year ago, client was approached by another marketing company to create the site #2, who also provided commercial services that I don't. It was a business decision, and we remained in good relations. As a result Site #1 went to the new marketing company and they built Site #2.
Fast forward to about 3 months ago - Site #1 was infected with malware, client wasn't happy with new service, and asked me to take back the Site #1 ( and remove malware), and take Site #2, and re-work the SEO. SEO had dramatically fallen off for Site #1, so I've been working the SEO once I was able to get the malware completely removed and reviewed by Google.
Site #1 had been redesigned by the other marketing company, essentially retaining the content that I created. Site #2 has mostly new content, but under "Services", it references the same services that Site #1 provides, but the content is exactly the same, except that references to the company for Site #1 also link to Site #1. So there is duplicate content for 5 pages on both sites. As it happens, Site #2 that SELLS safes, is ranking #2 for "safe installation new york" for exactly the same content as Site #1 that provides the services. Site #1 ranks >50 for the same keyphrase.
Why would this be? Has Site #2 taken the lead on this keyphrase because of the malware situation and now Site #1 is being penalized for duplicate content?
One other major change on Site #1 is that the web technician used Wordpress's built in page nesting (page is set as child to parent page - nested 3 deep in some cases). What are the consequences (if there are any) of having a page listed as (for example) oztruckingandrigging.com/services/safe/safe-installation vs. oztruckingandrigging.com/safe-installation? The reason I ask this is that when I Moz page optimize for the first one for "safe installation" I get a lower grade then when I Moz page optimize for the second one.
-
The way to think about it is as an opportunity, rather than a cost.
Instead of having two competing brands for the same customer, you now have the opportunity to target two segments of potential customers much more effectively.
Plenty of examples exist of multiple brands under the same umbrella targetting different customer groups. For example in drinks, look at how many brands Coca Cola own - and why they'd buy brands like Innocent to get to a different market group....
In finance, you might want to target one brand at younger consumers who will then grow into the other brand.
Or one for those on a lower budget, for example.
And that will naturally lead to different and unique content. I supply a huge amount of content for businesses, and my structure, language and tone has to be different for each one to appeal to the customers they want.
-
Ah-ha! Ok, that makes sense. Realize it sucks to write unique copy for the same products, but I'm not aware of a better solution for that right now...I'll let you know if I come across anything though! : )
Thanks
-
Thanks B,
I'll suggest this as an option - the reason not to do rel can's is because we want to index organically on Google for both brands..
Cheers
D!
-
Thanks Patrick - it all helps heaps!!!
-
Hi Dan,
Thanks for your awesome reply, We have 2 brands that we have to run (coming from executive team - merger agreement). I'll maybe go back about unique content.
Cheers
-
Hi Andy,
Thanks for the reply. We have 2 brands that we have to run (coming from executive team - merger agreementt). Unfortunately both brands have been aligned to have exactly the same products. There are 2 niches (ie personas) but the products are exactly the same, with the same Product descriptions and same terms and conditions, rates and imagery.
Cheers,
Dave
-
Hi David,
Curious why you're not interested in doing rel=canonicals? I think I understand your overall goal and would suggest simply hiring a content marketer or writer to differentiate the content from product A page to product B page.
Hiring a content marketer or writer to differentiate the content from one to the other would be well worth it in this situation. Have the writer re-organize and re-write the content (while maintaining the same message) so that crawlers will view each page as unique.
Cheers,
B
-
Hi there
I wouldn't do this. What I would do is offer both sets of products under one site with distinctive brand names and markup. That way, your products will appear for their branded searches, with their own pages and rich snippets. I would not "mask" anything or try to trick search engines / users, because that's how you get penalized.
Hopefully I am understanding your question. I would really focus on what Dan Thorton said here...
"If there's no differentiation between the two brands, then there's no point in having them. But if one is targeting a different demographic, then there's a reason to create unique content which will appeal specifically to their audience. The actual product and data may be the same, but the benefit of bespoke content for the right audience will be an increase in conversion rates to actually purchase your services, rather than simply avoiding any SEO penalties..."
You have an opportunity here to have content that's targeted to two different audiences, and increase the overall conversion rate of your website by doing so. I would stick to this route and focus on building great content for each product, pleasing it's target audience.
Let me know if this helps or if you have any questions. Good luck!
Patrick -
Hi,
Duplicate content issues are created when the same content appears on two different urls. So if your content appears on www.yourexample.com/brandaproduct and www.yourexample.com/brandbproduct, then that's when it's an issue.You can do this by changing dynamic elements via personalisation, but it's not necessarily easy to do, and could well end up risking a penalty for masking/cloaking if there's an error.
Personally, I'd rethink why you're running both brands - are they targeting different audiences/locations?
If there's no differentiation between the two brands, then there's no point in having them. But if one is targeting a different demographic, then there's a reason to create unique content which will appeal specifically to their audience. The actual product and data may be the same, but the benefit of bespoke content for the right audience will be an increase in conversion rates to actually purchase your services, rather than simply avoiding any SEO penalties...
It's an approach which is done by many, many companies. For example, I worked for a major UK publisher with 5 magazines all covering the same topic area, but one was aimed at beginners, one was for advanced users, and others concentrated on specific niches within the market...
-
Hi Dave,
I'm struggling to understand your scenario. So are you looking to have all searches result in landing on pages within one domain, or will they remain on their respective domains?
-Andy
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
-
Will critical error in wordpress for memory limit affect seo rankings?
will critical error in wordpress to increase memory limit affect seo rankings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gamstopbet0 -
Will I be flagged for duplicate content by Google?
Hi Moz community, Had a question regarding duplicate content that I can't seem to find the answer to on Google. My agency is working on a large number of franchisee websites (over 40) for one client, a print franchise, that wants a refresh of new copy and SEO. Each print shop has their own 'microsite', though all services and products are the same, the only difference being the location. Each microsite has its own unique domain. To avoid writing the same content over and over in 40+ variations, would all the websites be flagged by Google for duplicate content if we were to use the same base copy, with the only changes being to the store locations (i.e. where we mention Toronto print shop on one site may change to Kelowna print shop on another)? Since the print franchise owns all the domains, I'm wondering if that would be a problem since the sites aren't really competing with one another. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EdenPrez0 -
Why does my old brand name still show up on organic search but as my new brand name and domain?
Hello mozers! I have quite the conundrum. My client used to have the unfortunate brand name "Meetoo" - which by the way they had before the movement happened! So naturally, they rebranded to the name Vevox in March 2019 to avoid confusion to users. However, when you search for their old brand name "Meetoo" the first organic link that pops up is their domain www.vevox.com. Now, this wouldn't normally be a problem, however it is when any #MeToo news appears in the media and we get a sudden influx or wrong traffic. I've searched the HTML and content for the term "Meetoo" but can only find one trace of this name through a widget. Not enough to hold an organic spot. My only other thinking is that www.vevox.com is redirected from www.meetoo.com. So I'm assuming this is why Vevox appear under the search term "Meetoo". How can I remove the homepage www.vevox.com from appearing for the search term "meetoo"? Can anyone help? AvGGYBc
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Virginia-Girtz3 -
Same content, different languages. Duplicate content issue? | international SEO
Hi, If the "content" is the same, but is written in different languages, will Google see the articles as duplicate content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chalet
If google won't see it as duplicate content. What is the profit of implementing the alternate lang tag?Kind regards,Jeroen0 -
Does collapsing content impact Google SEO signals?
Recently I have been promoting custom long form content development for major brand clients. For UX reasons we collapse the content so only 2-3 sentences of the first paragraph are visible. However there is a "read more" link that expands the entire content piece.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB
I have believed that the searchbots would have no problem crawling, indexing and applying a positive SEO signal for this content. However I'm starting to wonder. Is there any evidence that the Google search algorithm could possible discount or even ignore collapsed content?1 -
CDN for SEO (or not)?
Does CDN impact on SEO or not? There seems conflicting ideas as to whether they impact positively or negatively, I realise that if the page loads quicker this is a good thing for SEO and usability of course. Does Google see CDN as just cheating and a get-around for not doing the work from the ground up and using good hosting etc? Do you have any direct experience? All constructive input much appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman101 -
SEO time
I wanto to be in the top of the google search. I am usiing a lot of SEO tools but... I have done it during one month. Do I have to wait more?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CarlosZambrana0 -
Migrating online store to subdomain using shopify and effects on seo and energy down the road for seo
I'm looking for some clarity... Looking at using Shopify for an existing online store that we have to migrate. Setting up the store with shopify means we will be using a subdomain such as shop.mywebsite.com instead of mywebsite.com/shop. The following are points to consider when responding The client currently has an online store, however it's a proprietary shopping store and CMS that has since gone defunct and they need to migrate to an alternative in order to survive online against new CMS systems that allow the site and its content to be better optimized. There is a lot of existing SEO done on the current site that we don't want to loose PR on. There is roughly 2000 products Client has a fixed budget, dealing with checkout issues, custom work and various other "bugs" seems to be easier controlled with Shopify...thus budget can be used more on content/strategy and migration We want to run the main site in Wordpress and are wanting to use Shopify since it supports a gateway, has great features and seems like it would allow us to get more bang for the buck and can focus more on the main site and content strategy and drive traffic to the subdomain store if needed Or main concern is the effort of migrating 2000+ products to shopify and the traffic and PR it gives the current site will have a negative effect on the main domain itself. Should we really be considering this path? The domain is diveidc.com One main benefit to the subdomain is the ability to clearly segment products from the service portion of the site in the analytics and focus 2 clear strategies and track it in a very defined manner. We're really on the fence with this...any thoughts are welcome.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MAGNUMCreative0