Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to make second site in same niche and do white hat SEO
-
Hello,
As much as we would like, there's a possibility that our site will never recover from it's Google penalties.
Our team has decided to launch a new site in the same niche.
What do we need to do so that Google will not mind us having 2 sites in the same niche? (Menu differences, coding differences, content differences, etc.)
We won't have duplicate content, but it's hard to make the sites not similar.
Thanks
-
I'm sorry to hear that I would recommend requesting the people linking to your existing site that are using high quality powerful links to update the back link to point to your new site.
the advantages of dealing with people with legitimate sites are they are much easier to find and will actually help you with these types of things. It's not the nightmare that it is trying to get a hold of a blackhat webmaster.
Outside of creating a 100% legitimate website with a slightly different niche may be content, inbound marketing whatever buzzword you want to use for the very short time I hope it takes you to get your most powerful white hat links to point to your new website.
Removeem.com It is a wonderful tool for finding the names and contact info of webmasters you can use it to make a polite request saying that you have a new domain and you would appreciate if they would please update the link pointing at your site.
After you have taken the best Backlinks away from your existing site I would move to your new site.
I would also be upfront about moving place text saying you are changing domain names in a conspicuous location on your site.
If you feel that your livelihood is being jeopardized by this I definitely can understand I would then really put 110% into creating some top-notch content and user friendly/mobile design on your new brand. When you go live you want to really have something better than what you had before.
I'm sorry I don't know any methods that would be instant but I would consider using pay per click to soften the blow.
I hope this is of help,
Thomas
-
Tom,
I appreciate the responses and they make sense. I don't see a solution. I don't see our current site ever pulling out of penalty no matter what I do and we've got an income off of it.
Any ideas?
-
this is older but
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/11/best-practices-for-running-multiple.html
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4557285.htm
and this discussion of tactics used to do what are considered now black hat
http://www.nichepursuits.com/should-you-host-all-your-niche-sites-on-the-same-hosting-account/
it is no ok in Google ad words either
sorry for all the posts,
Tom
-
with all that said I think if you go after a slightly new niche or offer things from a different angle you're obviously doing twice the work.
Are you concerned that if you 301 redirect you will be bringing the penalty over?
sincerely,
Tom
-
talking about taking the new site and building it using white hat tactics that were implemented after the penalty in which the original site has yet to return from. I know that creating sites that are essentially going to be the same but contain unique content just to get better rankings is against the rules.
if you remove the first site after building the first site using white hat methods currently employed on the existing site
( I should say domain because that's what's coming down to right?)
it would be in your best interest to remove the first site when the second website goes live.
I know this is not the ideal situation because you probably have some good Backlinks on the original but having two sites that are competing for the same niche owned by the same person/company would be competing for the same place in the SERPS I believe would be considered a method of rigging the system.
if you have one site that is completely fine if you have one that is going to go after different niche that is completely fine.
I am basing this on an e-commerce client of mine who had competitor selling the exact same product with unique content across three domains.
The client reported this to Google and the spam team acted or there was an incredible coincidence because two months later sites reported could not be found in Google's index.
I that is of help,
Tom will
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
-
Negative SEO - Spammy Backlinks By Competitor
Hi Everyone, Someone has generated more than 22k spam backlinks (on bad keywords) for my domain.Will it hurt on my website (SEO Ranking)? Because it is already in the top ranking. How could I remove all the spammy backlinks? How could I know particular competitior who have done this?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Apr 24, 2018, 5:10 AM | HuptechWebseo0 -
White H1 Tag Hurting SEO?
Hi, We're having an issue with a client not wanting the H1 tag to display on their site and using an image of their logo instead. We made the H1 tag white (did not deliberately hide with CSS) and i just read an article where this is considered black hat SEO. https://www.websitemagazine.com/blog/16-faqs-of-seo The only reason we want to hide it is because it looks redundant appearing there along with the brand name logo. Does anyone have any suggestions? Would putting the brand logo image inside of an H1 tag be ok? Thanks for the help
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Aug 16, 2017, 9:40 AM | AliMac261 -
Is toggle Good For seo
Hi there, I have Client Who dont want to show his content to publicly, So team decided to use toggle, So Google can also See Content, But i want bu sure. Does Google will really cache that Content?? Does it down my website Ranking?? Please any one can Help, I need urgent basis Thnx in advance Falguni
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Jul 13, 2017, 8:09 AM | iepl20010 -
Site Footer Links Used for Keyword Spam
I was on the phone with a proposed web relaunch firm for one of my clients listening to them talk about their deep SEO knowledge. I cannot believe that this wouldn’t be considered black-hat or at least very Spammy in which case a client could be in trouble. On this vendor’s site I notice that they stack the footer site map with about 50 links that are basically keywords they are trying to rank for. But here’s the kicker shown by way of example from one of the themes in the footer: 9 footer links:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Aug 31, 2016, 12:03 AM | RosemaryB
Top PR Firms
Best PR Firms
Leading PR Firms
CyberSecurity PR Firms
Cyber Security PR Firms
Technology PR Firms
PR Firm
Government PR Firms
Public Sector PR Firms Each link goes to a unique URL that is basically a knock-off of the homepage with a few words or at the most one sentences swapped out to include this footer link keyword phrase, sometimes there is a different title attribute but generally they are a close match to each other. The canonical for each page links back to itself. I simply can’t believe Google doesn’t consider this Spammy. Interested in your view.
Rosemary0 -
Off-page SEO and link building
Hi everyone! I work for a marketing company; for one of our clients' sites, we are working with an independent SEO consultant for on-page help (it's a large site) as well as off-page SEO. Following a meeting with the consultant, I had a few red flags with his off-page practices – however, I'm not sure if I'm just inexperienced and this is just "how it works" or if we should shy away from these methods. He plans to: guest blog do press release marketing comment on blogs He does not plan to consult with us in advance regarding the content that is produced, or where it is posted. In addition, he doesn't plan on producing a report of what was posted where. When I asked about these things, he told me they haven't encountered any problems before. I'm not saying it was spam-my, but I'm more not sure if these methods are leaning in the direction of "growing out of date," or the direction of "black-hat, run away, dude." Any thoughts on this would be crazy appreciated! Thanks, Casey
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Mar 27, 2013, 2:47 PM | CaseyDaline0 -
Does posting on Craigslist damage our SEO or reuptation?
We have a website that's a single person barbershop. She has been promoting on Craigslist, and that is outranking the website in the SERPs. However, the craigslist results showing up are actually expired and don't link to anything. They just seem to be cached by Craigslist. My question is, is Craigslist considered to generally not be a good avenue for directing inbound links for services on your site? Or is it a good strategy to use Craigslist to build link traffic for service businesses? I get mixed responses when I search for this. Thanks eYtdHtg.png
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Mar 14, 2013, 12:58 AM | smallpotatoes0 -
How Is Your Approach Towards Adult SEO?
I would like to know how SEOMoz community members approach adult SEO. How do you approach a project when you get one (if you do it that is). If you dont do adult SEO, why do you not do it? Is it because it's much more difficult than normal SEO or do you not want to associate yourself with that industry?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Feb 28, 2013, 4:42 PM | ConversionChamp0 -
How do I find out if a competitor is using black hat methods and what can I do about it?
A competitor of mine has appeared out of nowhere with various different websites targetting slightly different keywords but all are in the same industry. They don't have as many links as me, the site structure and code is truly awful (multiple H1's on same page, tables for non-tabular data etc...) yet they outperform mine and many of my other competitors. It's a long story but I know someone who knows the people who run these sites and from what I can gather they are using black hat techniques. But that is all I know and I would like to find out more so I can report them.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | May 4, 2011, 6:25 PM | kevin11