Can having similar content on my company's two sites hurt our rankings?
-
We have a very successful website that has been up for a number of years (www.comellaortho.com). We rank high in the natural rankings for that site.
A few months ago, we started seeing patients in another nearby city. I purchased a new domain name, www.dansvilleortho.com, and had our web company duplicate the website under the new domain name. The reality is that the content on these two sites are nearly identical. Some of the pages are different; for example, there are fewer pages on the new site. But the pages that do exist are nearly identical.
My question is: Can having similar content on my company's two sites hurt our rankings?
Based on what I've read thus far, I believe the answer is "Yes". However, I'm curious how bad this may hurt us.
I'm not as worried about the new site (dansvilleortho.com) because our competition in that city is slim to none. But I AM worried about harming the original site/business (comellaortho.com).
Which site(s) rankings may be affected by this, and if so, how bad?
Thank you.
-
Thanks! The problem is, the businesses have two completely different names/branding/logos, etc. I'm trying to create a seamless & separate experience for both cities.
Would an alternative (albeit less desirable) option be to re-write the content on the duplicate site? Or at least change it enough to not be so identical?
-
Absolutely can cause a penalty. I would take down the dupe site immediately.
Also two sites are against Google TOS. Instead of having a second site, create city/state pages for your main site and get those ranked instead.
-
Rewriting or repurposing the content wouldn't hurt you. Thumb rule is to never have identical content on any two pages on the web.
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
-
Is there a good tool for finding Duplicate Content?
Hi! Are there any recommendation voor Duplicate Content finder tools? Is it offered on MOZ (not the one that belongs to 'seo issues') or a different site?
Content Development | | Marketing-SurpriseFactory1 -
How to rank highly without much content?
Many pages on the web rank highly - even though they have no keyworded text. They might have listings, or just images. How do they achieve such high rankings? Is it just by getting lots of inbound links?
Content Development | | GayWelcome0 -
Are Duplicate Bio's Duplicate Content?
I'm wondering if I need to go through all the various bio's our firm has on all the various legal directory and client review sites to make sure they have unique bio's? I really, really don't want to do that, but if they are going to flagged as duplicate content, I will. I'm hoping sites like "findlaw," "avvo," etc, have some built in rel:cannonical or something that says these bio's aren't to be seen as unique content and therefore conflict with what's on our site. Anybody know? Just to clarify, any of the sties that have asked for unique content/bio/about us, I have complied with that. However, a lot don't specifically state it has to be unique, so I've just copy and pasted from our site in those cases. Thanks, Ruben
Content Development | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Is Publishing Content from a Book to your Site Considered Duplicate Content?
It is a book we don't own, either. Would you need to somehow find the original and rel=canonical it? Or is this just all around bad to do? Thanks.
Content Development | | ThridHour0 -
How can i improve my blogger
hi, i have been using blogger for many years now but i have not really been using it to its full advantage, basically because i am not sure how to use it. I would like to know what i could do with my blogger to make it better and for it to stand out. at the moment i just use it to promote part of an article but want it to look nicer and more professional here is my blogger http://showbizgossipandnews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/michael-jackson-family-angry-that.html any advice on this would be great as it is a shame to let it go to waste
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Duplicate Ttile and Duplicate Content
I'm a beginner of SEO. I have a few questions need to ask people to help. The MozPro's Crawl Diagnostics show I have a lot of duplicate titles and duplicate content. However, most duplicate titles are related to Pagination. What should I do? Also, for my duplicate content. B/c we are selling similar products,everything all most the same, only product's item number different. How can I avoid it?
Content Development | | alexsu09100 -
Duplicate content for manually setup blog and wordpress blog
We have a website where the ecommerce will not allow us to host blog. So we created our own manual blog page setup. Will this flag duplicate content on Google? http://www.homesupershops.com/blog and http://www.homesupershops.com/blog-july have same content. How come on a word press the same content on http://www.vizionseo.com/blog/ and http://www.vizionseo.com/blog/2011/05/how-can-your-business-rank-high-on-google-maps/ does not flag duplicate content?
Content Development | | VizionSEO990 -
My Blog pages are out ranking my main website
My blog was on wordpress.com for over 18mnths and I have just moved it to my domain - rankings are charging as a result - up and down! My current concern is my google.co.uk search position for garden art - my home page http://www.gardenbeet.com has been number 2 for over 12 mnths - now my blog is number 2 http://www.gardenbeet.com/garden_design_blog/garden-art/ this is not the best landing page to generate sales from my shop - any suggestions?
Content Development | | GardenBeet0