Local business with two separate websites...what to do?

[RickyShockley]

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

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Ricky!

If the client is determined to keep both sites, here is the only way to be 99% safe doing so:

1. Only 1 site can list NAP. The other must not list NAP. You do not want any part of NAP shared between 2 sites.

2. Do not build citations for the NAP-less site. Remove them where they exist.

3. Zero shared content between the 2 sites.

4. 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.

5. Do not interlink between the 2 sites.

6. 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.

[BlueCorona]

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!

[Andy.Drinkwater]

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