Guidelines for a second website business domain
-
Hi There,
A client is setting up a second website selling the same products from a separate domain with the same descriptions etc. The site will have a separate URL, but will administered from the same CMS. The only difference is the new site has only one brand instead of several on the main site.
E.G The main site sells all plumbing brands, the second site just one brand.
Your thoughts and advice for best practise would be much appreciated.
Andy (Marz Ventures)
-
Guess we have to set up a second CMS, content etc.
OK... submit to them.
If I ran a plumbing site and one brand tried to tell me how to run my biz I would do an analysis and determine where they fall into the market importance. I might decide to....
A) quit selling their CrappyBrand Plumbing Supplies
B) quit selling all other brands and focus on their CadillacBrand Plumbing Supplies
C) continue as I am and see if they cancel me
D) build a little outhouse to sell their crappy stuff
E) keep my current site and put a lot of effort into a site that sells only their brand
Consider doing an analysis before you spend any effort to kiss their feet. My crystal ball says there are going to be hundreds of sites selling their CrappyBrand Plumbing Supplies and nobody is going to be making good money from them.
The aim is not to manipulate the rankings,
Your client might not be trying to manipulate rankings. But the plumbing manufacturer is trying to flood the SERPs and manipluate vendors. My decision making would not be.... "Yes Sir".... or even binary.
-
Hi EGOL,
Thanks for your time on this. The reason for the second site is the company have been approached to represent a specific brand as an official brand distributor who want the products on a specific website.
I concur with your thoughts although I do feel my client is not attempting to manipulate Google, but the opportunity to be an official representative for a brand is one they are understandably keen to take.
Guess we have to set up a second CMS, content etc.
Thanks again.
Andy.
-
HI Andy,
The default answer would be this is not advised. The reason being is even though the second site is more focused you still are competing with yourself for rank on all the focused items. What is also alarming is that the statement "with the same descriptions etc". Now you are running into duplicate content issues. Search Engines try to give credit to the original author, when you put duplicate content on the web the search engines get to pick who the original author is. Lastly, you said it is going to be managed by the same CMS, which can mean that it maybe on a different domain but it will be on the same server, making it far more likely that it will considered duplicate content.
That is the default answer, but there are cases where it can make sense to run two websites that sell the same product. In fact that is what I manage. In our case, we are the manufacturer and a distributor. The manufacturing site doesn't sell products just explains how they are made and refers to the distribution sites for low volume orders. While the distribution site acknowledges the manufacture's site and refers custom applications back to them. These are two different classes of customers.
Another example would be in the service industry, lets say you run a concrete and cement mixing service. You may sell certain brands of concrete and cement and also physically deliver this product to job locations. Delivering cement can be an industry in and of itself, if you offer this service as standalone (bring your own cement) then it would make sense to run two websites, one offering the deliver service and one offering the actual product. In both cases you can cross reference each other for potential vertical integration.
Okay, now for standard practices. If you're going to run two domains pick two completely different host. You want your domains on different C-blocks. Second it is very strongly suggested that you do NOT use the same descriptions, write new content for each site. Lastly evaluate if the time and effort you spend to create a second site could not be better spent updating, optimizing, promoting your first site, it just may turn out that re-focusing efforts on a single site wins in the long run.
Remember Google is getting smarter every day they want to provide the very best results for every search that is entered into their system. If you can be creative and make your site the go to site for "whatever" then Google will eventually recognize that and return you as #1. Google is being proactive looking for business and people who are trying to trick them into serving erroneous top results. Gone are the days of "build it and they will come" now it is "build the best and they will come".
I hope this helps you,
Don
-
Thanks Tim,
The aim is not to manipulate the rankings, but that a brand have asked them to sell products for them on a separate domain. Many businesses have duplicate trading names, but we are saying Google does not account for this and my client can be penalised.
Tricky one when you are not intentionally trying to manipulate rankings.
If we go the root of canonical tags would I be right in assuming we kill any chance for the new domain to rank?
Thanks for your time.
Andy.
-
a second website selling the same products from a separate domain with the same descriptions etc.
Duplicate content. BAM! One site will probably be filtered from the SERPs.
If they are linked together Google will spot that and totally kill one site almost immediately. Google has been killing duplicate content sites, linked together for about ten years. Ten years.
Even if the sites are not linked together google will realize that there are two identical product pages competing in the SERPs and filter one of them.
Your thoughts and advice for best practise would be much appreciated.
If client's original site is not absolutely dominating the SERPS. The time and money spent on a second site usually returns a lower ROI than working on the original site.
This client is attempting the lazy approach. Just toss up duplicate pages and think they will make buckets of money. Google figured that out ten years ago. Everybody was doing that. Google figured that out to keep their SERPs clean.
I bet if client improved the current site by sharpening optimization, improving product descriptions, adding better photos, adding "how to do it" articles. This client is in plumbing, the perfect business to produce informative content for accomplishing a repair and recommending the parts, tools, supplies and books needed. There is where I would spend my time.
-
Although it may be a one product site, personally I would avoid running your new website whilst using the same content as this is going to start causing you duplicate content issues, this dupicate content is then possibly going to land your sites with penalties and may cause you to drop in the organic serps.
If you are adamant in doing this I would suggest marking your new sites content with rel canonical tags that reference your current site as the orignal authorative content location.
rel="canonical" href="http://www.domain.com/product-page/" />
However; my absolute personal recommendation would be to create your new site on a seperate host with a seperate CMS, and provide it with absolutely unique content this way the site will stand on its own two feet and likely do well with incurring duplicate penalties.
Hope that helps.
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
-
Cleaning up a Spammy Domain VS Starting Fresh with a New Domain
Hi- Can you give me your opinion please... if you look at murrayroofing.com and see the high SPAM score- and the fact that our domain has been put on some spammy sites over the years- Is it better and faster to place higher in google SERP if we create a fresh new domain? My theory is we will spin our wheels trying to get unlisted from alot of those spammy linking sites. And that it would be faster to see results using a fresh new domain rather than trying to clean up the current spammy doamin. Thanks in advance - You guys have been awesome!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | murraycustomhomescom0 -
I'm a newb, built a website with Wix want to redirect it to a domain I own, but am reading that Wix is bad for this
Hi, I am building this site for my boss http://charlesfridmanpr.wix.com/real-estate and am still working on it. I'm getting close to the stage where I want to redirect it to the URL we want to use, but in reading these forums, it says that because all of subpages (?) have a # in them, they will not be read or indexed by google. I am very new to this, and while it may not look like it, the website has taken me quite a while to design. Is there a way to fix this? We want to appear high up for a non competitive keyword. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Charlesfridmanpr0 -
Does using a sub-domain lessen the effectiveness of your main domain?
For example a website without a blog and is a simple html site with no blogging capabilities. We go out to Blogger or Wordpress and set up the blog portion of the website using something like blog.yourdomain.com. Does this make a difference SEO wise? Is is more effective to be sure that you are using the main domain and not a sub-domain? I have heard both sides before but can't seem to find the concrete answer. Thanks for any advise out there.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | d25kart0 -
Managing Multiple Websites via Add-On Domain
Hey SEOMOZ community, I've always been curious about whether or not hosting multiple websites through an 'add-on' domain has positive/negative effects on SEO for websites. Currently, I'm hosting 5 sites through an add-on domain at Hostgator.com. Is this a poor way to set-up my sites or is this OK?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NiallSmith0 -
Domain with a Virus History
Hi, I have a domain that I am working on that has a past we did not know about. Doing a bit of research it appears that back in 2010 the domain had a link to a virus or had a virus on the domain – because of this certain anti virus sites are blocking the domain. Interestingly Google, Norton, Firefox say the domain is fine.... IE, Kaspersky and a few still block it. I am going through and manually searching and trying to get them to agree the site is safe BUT I am having a problem with mywot.com. They refuse to take down the “reviews” staying its a virus site. Anything I can do? Any suggestions? Any legal action we can take? Is there anything else I can do or should be doing to check else where? Thanks in advance Fresh Fire One
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK0 -
Domain buying
hello Mozzers - a bit shout out to all of you. Question - I have a 3 keyword, and the domain is available - the only thing is it has a hyphen example: black-book-covers.com Is it worth getting this domain? There is a fair amount of traffic to this domain. Thank you all - we love you, Best, Vijay
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vijayvasu0 -
"Original Content" Dynamic Hurting SEO? -- Strategies for Differentiating Template Websites for a Nationwide Local Business Segment?
The Problem I have a stable of clients spread around the U.S. in the maid service/cleaning industry -- each client is a franchisee, however their business is truly 'local' with a local service area, local phone/address, unique business name, and virtually complete control over their web presence (URL, site design, content; apart from a few branding guidelines). Over time I've developed a website template with a high lead conversion rate, and I've rolled this website out to 3 or 4 dozen clients. Each client has exclusivity in their region/metro area. Lately my white hat back linking strategies have not been yielding the results they were one year ago, including legitimate directories, customer blogging (as compelling as maid service/cleaning blogs can really be!), and some article writing. This is expected, or at least reflected in articles on SEO trends and directory/article strategies. I am writing this question because I see sites with seemingly much weaker back link profiles outranking my clients (using SEOMoz toolbar and Site Explorer stats, and factoring in general quality vs. quantity dynamics). Questions Assuming general on-page optimization and linking factors are equal: Might my clients be suffering because they're using my oft-repeated template website (albeit with some unique 'content' variables)? If I choose to differentiate each client's website, how much differentiation makes sense? Specifically: Even if primary content (copy, essentially) is differentiated, will Google still interpret the matching code structure as 'the same website'? Are images as important as copy in differentiating content? From an 'machine' or algorithm perspective evaluating unique content, I wonder if strategies will be effective such as saving the images in a different format, or altering them slightly in Photoshop, or using unique CSS selectors or slightly different table structures for each site (differentiating the code)? Considerations My understanding of Google's "duplicate content " dynamics is that they mainly apply to de-duping search results at a query specific level, and choosing which result to show from a pool of duplicate results. My clients' search terms most often contain client-specific city and state names. Despite the "original content" mantra, I believe my clients being local businesses who have opted to use a template website (an economical choice), still represent legitimate and relevant matches for their target user searches -- it is in this spirit I ask these questions, not to 'game' Google with malicious intent. In an ideal world my clients would all have their own unique website developed, but these are Main St business owners balancing solutions with economics and I'm trying to provide them with scalable solutions. Thank You! I am new to this community, thank you for any thoughts, discussion and comments!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | localizedseo0 -
301 from penalized domain to new domain
I have a client whose site isn't necessarily penalized since they still show for many terms in the SERPS, however at one point they did an xrummer blast of 13,000 links for two anchor texts they were trying to rank for. They have purchased a new domain and have gone white hat and want to 301 some of the old site to the new purely for the users sake so past visitors still find them at t the new location. Will creating 301 redirects pass on to the new domain any bad Karma from the old one in Google's eyes? Thanks for the help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JoshGill270