Local business with two separate websites...what to do?
-
Hey Mozzers!
I have a client that I'm helping with some online ad campaigns for lead generation, but they recently had an SEO issue pop up I'm looking into for them.
For whatever reason, they have 2 websites. Those are:
http://www.healthsourceofroyalpalmbeach.com/ (newer site)
http://www.healthsourcedecompression.com/ (older site)
Their local listing is connected to the older site (above) and that's where they have all of their reviews. I know the BEST solution is probably to nix one of the sites and setup proper redirects, but how can they keep BOTH sites without damaging their SEO efforts?
Currently, BOTH sites rank on page one for their primary kw target "chiropractors royal palm beach fl"
Appreciate the help!
Ricky
-
Hi Ricky!
If the client is determined to keep both sites, here is the only way to be 99% safe doing so:
-
Only 1 site can list NAP. The other must not list NAP. You do not want any part of NAP shared between 2 sites.
-
Do not build citations for the NAP-less site. Remove them where they exist.
-
Zero shared content between the 2 sites.
-
Define a totally different purpose for the existence of the second site. If site A is about the business, site B could be about something else, like maybe a community information portal about health care or something.
-
Do not interlink between the 2 sites.
-
If it's necessary to have a phone number of some kind on site B, it must be unique and must be answered with a different brand name than that for site A
The above should remove concerns about loss of authority, citation inconsistency and duplicate content. Quite a bit of trouble, though, and may not be worth it unless the client can think of a really good, different purpose for the site B, other than promoting his business on it.
-
-
Hi Ricky!
I have to agree with Andy. If Google realizes that these two websites are promoting the same company with similar information on each site, your client could go from seeing both their websites on Page One to not at all.
I understand why you would prefer to keep both sites without damaging their SEO efforts—doing so would help you maximize your online real estate. But in fear of being dinged by a Google algorithm update I would go through with the process you listed above that gets rid of the one site and put all the necessary redirects in place. There are plenty of other ways to maximize your listings on the SERPs (i.e. YouTube, online directories, etc.) that don't run the risk of hurting your SEO results.
Hope this helps—good luck!
-
Hi Ricky,
how can they keep BOTH sites without damaging their SEO efforts
The simple answer to this, is that you can't. If Google catches on with what they are doing, they are likely to get a swift boot. In Google's eyes, they ask they question:
"Why have you got 2 sites when you can say all you need to in just 1?" Keeping both is only to try and game Google and they won't like that.
OK, you could make sure that all content is unique and hope for the best, but long term, this isn't much of a business strategy for them.
Sorry, no solution to this really - at least not a particularly good / safe one.
-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
-
Website Not Performing after switch to HTTPS
We recently switched our client's website to HTTPS but after the move, we've experienced a huge decrease in rankings (off the map), and traffic. Our metas for the homepage are not being picked up by Google, although it was appearing correctly before the switch. We've implemented all redirects, resubmitted URL to Google, and updated GSC. GSC is also reporting errors in our XML stating there are no URLs to crawl. Has anyone had any issues similar? What do you all recommend? Help greatly appreciated
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SMRTCHInteractive0 -
AMP pages for a responsive Ecommerce website?
Howdy guys, I'm wondering if AMP is worthwhile intergrating into a responsive e-commerce site? I'm under the impression that the benefits of AMP would be focused around speed, however it may come at the cost of conversion rate if it was to be delivered for product pages, etc. I'm presuming that even if AMP was on every page across a responsive ecommerce site, Google would only display AMP pages in the carousel for news articles, such as on the integrated blog? Any advice would be awesome! Thanks guys 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JAR8970 -
SEO Considerations for merging two brand website into one
Hello fellow Mozzers, We have two websites for two similar brands at my place of employment, the two brands currently serve slighly different products but could be held quite happily under one branded site. As part of a potential group merger into one sole brand, we will have to create one joined up website which will then feature all our products. The newly merged site will also have more scope to allow us to expand our product range where as currently one brand is kind of specific to a particular market due to its name. So as part of the Merge, I have to consider the potential implications for our search traffic, as this is an integral part of our business. Brand A - older, more authorative, great content, good organic positions - top 10 for pretty much all terms we favour. Brand B - younger, but has more marketing scope due to name, still good site and lots of content. Unfortunately Brand B has more in terms of potential lifespan, but is currently the less authorative of the two sites we run. it has lower DA and PR according to my Moz Analytics, a lower number of quality links and less content. In order to give the Brand B website the boost that is needed and in effect replace Brand A in the serps which has great organic positions, I need to make sure all bases are ticked for an action plan. So far this is what I have. Transfer all exisiting Brand A web pages to Brand B website. Rel canonical all Brand A pages to now point to Brand B websites new pages. 301 redirect all pages on Brand A to Brand B during the transfer. Once 301 redirects are in place then request external sites to actually repoint to Brand B website for any links. Update xml Sitemaps Update any content that mentions Brand B to now be Brand A. resubmit sitemaps to Webmaster tools Update all social profiles Update all local search profiles and listings Update all review sites with new brand name / merge any with both brands On a supplementary note for customer information, looking to also keep the older Brand A Home page up for a short time to help people understand the transition rather than a complete redirect which to our demographic could confuse and alienate people. Will also look to send a mass email to roughly 400K people informing them of the move abd how it affects them. I have no doubt there will be some glaringly obvious additions, any further advice would be much appreciated. Hope you are all well. Tim
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TimHolmes1 -
Website not coming up properly on Google
Hello, our website (http://www.roguevalleymicro.com/index.php) is not coming up properly on Google search (for example, when you search for Rogue Valley Microdevices on Google). We believe that there is something wrong with the website source code, and Google cannot index it properly. However, your Crawl Test results did not indicate any such problems. Can someone help us with some advice please?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | medved441 -
Local Listing Question
We will be starting local SEO efforts on a medical practice that has 4 locations & 15 doctors each location (so 60 listings total). I will submit each doctor & each location to InfoGroup, LocalEze, Axciom & Factual. Also, I will only submit each location (not doctors) to Google. The problem I'm seeing is the fact that each listing would have the same exact phone number - it all goes to one main routing center. What kind of problems could come of this? Do we need a separate phone numbers for each of the four locations (at the very least)?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnWeb120 -
International Version of Website
Our website is AluminumEyewear.com and we're considering launching a specific version for Australia, naturally I want to avoid any dupe content issues but the content would largely remain the same. I have read through this post and wondered if the options given here are still relevant? I'm currently leaning towards using a sub-domain, i.e. au.aluminumeyewear.com or should I go for aluminumeyewear.com.au? Will there be dupe content issues if I do that? Confused and hoping for help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | smckenzie750 -
Mobile Website Converters
Hey everyone, has anyone had a good experience with a mobile website converter software? I do web design, but I'm looking for something that would quickly convert a site to be mobile friendly. I want it to be SEO friendly and be on the same domain.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnWeb120 -
Local + National seo for a new website
Hi, Look for idea for a website owner selling training courses on painting , he wants to be ranked locally first but also national on google Serp (only one physical address available). His domain name is rather a branded one (no kw in it), and the website is recent (1 year) . An audit will be focused on competitor rankings to find niche KW. I 'd advise : - For local : optimized Google address listing + local business directories + optumized page with local emphasis (shema.org ..) For national : to make unique relevant content pages with keywords geographically targeted (according audit), for instance for a specific town, to include terms related to this particular local market etc.. 1/ What 's else could i suggest to start a national ranking ? 2/ Have you heard of a tool to make distant queries on Google ? I mean , i leave in Madrid (spain) and want to see google serp as if i was in Barcelona ? (seems difficult as google uses Ip). Tks in advance for your advices...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mlc0