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
-
Blog hasn't ranked since reposting.
Hey Moz fam! I had a blog that was doing pretty well for the target keyword. Unfortunately, to make a long story short, we had an image in it we weren't supposed to so I unpublished it for a few days while we got that sorted out. Since republishing (with all the same content) it has not gotten a single impression. I inspected the URL and it is totally eligible but nothing in the way of organic traffic. Any ideas on how I can recover?
Content Development | | danieldaher1 -
Blog.site.com vs site.com/blog
Which is better for SEO: blog.site.com or site.com/blog. In other words, is it better to have the blog running in a subdomain or as a director within the main site? Right now we are running as a subdomain, but want to be sure Google isn't considering that a separate site. The blog shows up separately on Google Analytics, which makes me think site.com/blog is better if for no other reason, it would give our domain greater traffic. Not sure if this matters, but some site info: our site is a sharing economy tool for renting your stuff we are running the blog on Wordpress blog traffic is about 5% of total traffic
Content Development | | TapGoods0 -
How do I properly sitemap a site with static pages + Wordpress in it's own directory?
I apologize for the awkward wording in the headline. No to the issue, I have a site with static pages that are created as follows: url.com, url.com/page1, url.com/page2, etc. I then have WordPress install at url.com/blog. What is the proper method for creating a comprehensive sitemap for my entire domain. I like the sitemap feature provided by Yoast SEO plugin but I assume it will only index the wordpress directory (url.com/blog). Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Content Development | | Qcmny0 -
How can i export al my text to 1 file ?
I like to export al my website text to 1 file, to check if the are any errors in it. How is this possible ?
Content Development | | Jorianp0 -
Duplicate content - 6 websites, 1 IP. Is the #1 site knocked down too?
Yes I know, running multiple websites on 1 IP isn't smart. 6 Websites with duplicate content on 1 IP is even worse. It's a technical issue we can't solve quickly. Thing is, our #1 website, which has the highest DA and PR, was the first website with all this content. All other websites we're running were launched a few months, and some a few years, later. All content was copied from the #1 website. I'd say the other websites would get knocked down by Google, because they duplicated the content. Google should see that our #1 website was the first that uploaded this content. Therefore our #1 website should rank normally. Questions is: What does Google think of duplicate content when all websites are on 1 IP? Is, or will our #1 website get punished as well?
Content Development | | Webprint0 -
Wordpress Ping List, does pinging Google Help? Could it hurt?
So I was looking at updating my ping list in WP. Some of the lists I have come across have a lot of "blogsearch.google" What does a WP site risk in pinging all of these google properties?
Content Development | | Thos0030 -
How do you get your content ideas?
What kind of research tactics are the best for finding great ideas for content or articles? What tools are the most helpful?
Content Development | | MichaelWeisbaum0 -
Blog Posts Not Getting Indexed by SERP's
Our blog posts are typically indexed rather quickly, sometimes within 10 minutes or so. Lately it seems like it is taking much longer, and a post from yesterday afternoon isn't appearing in any of the search engines. Can anyone give me an idea why this may be happening? http://www.360dwellings.com/2011-denver-parade-of-homes-luxury-home-tour/
Content Development | | 360ryan0