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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 #1provides, 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.

Over the past couple of months I have seen a couple of my campaigns have key phrases that change from week to week from being in the top 3 to being >51.  I worked pretty hard on the sites to get them mostly #1 for their preferred key phrases, and haven't been working that hard lately, but not sure what to make of it.  It looks as though those keyphrases that dropped this week to >51 will probably be back in the top 3.  Makes it diffuclt when you are trying to prepare a report for your client.

Any suggestions are welcomed, and Happy New Year!

I am having the same problem on one of my campaigns - The site is on WP-Engine, and the campaign has been in place since November with SSL, and with no prior issues with an 804 error until this most recent crawl.   Help!?

My apologies - I should have referenced "our-services" instead of "services", no minor detail.

1. Are you using a particular WordPress hosting company?
   I host the sites on my dedicated server and provide wordpress maintenance
2. Do you have a specific plug-in that you're using to create redirects?
   I do, but I did not redirect these URLs
3. Do you create redirects by using either PHP, Apache, Nginx or Varnish?
   I use a redirect plugin - but good point, it's possible that the previous developer added 301 redirects in .htaccess.  I believe, though, that this is done by native Wordpress based upon the relationship between the primary domain, and the parent pages.
4. How familiar are you with your database?
   Familiar enough to find issues in it via phpadmin.  Again this is a Wordpress site, and it's not a frequent requirement that I modify the database directly
5. Did you do a search and replace when you moved or migrated the site?
   The structure, domain and navigational URLs of the site did not change.  I received a zip file of the database from the previous site manager, and I FTPd the files from the original location.

***ACTUAL QUESTION: I am not having a problem with the "function" of the site.   My question relates to best practices for SEO - would it be better to have the URL be simply oztruckingandrigging.com/safe-installation or is it basically equivalent to have the URL be as it is, oztruckingandrigging.com/our-services/safes/safe-installation/ ***

Again, the site works the way it is supposed to - I do see a few 404s unrelated to this question that I need to clean up, and I very much appreciate the additional resources you have provided me.  You put together a very thorough answer, but I think it wasn't clear the question I was actually asking.  I do already have the free version of Screaming Frog, but I am unfamiliar with the others.

I still am not sure of the answer for the initial question regarding duplicate page content across two different sites and whether there is a penalty.

Thank you!

It does.  I was sceptical when I was told that it had something to do with Moz Local.  I'll take a look at the video - thanks for the suggestion!