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
-
Should I delete older posts on my site that are lower quality?
Hey guys! Thanks in advance for thinking through this with me. You're appreciated! I have 350 pieces of Cornerstone Content that has been a large focus of mine over the last couple years. They're incredibly important to my business. That said, less experienced me did what I thought was best by hiring a freelance writer to create extra content to interlink them and add relevancy to the overall site. Looking back through everything, I am starting to realize that this extra content, which now makes up 1/3 my site, is at about 65%-70% quality AND only gets a total of about 250 visitors per month combined -- for all 384 articles. Rather than spending the next 9 months and investing in a higher quality content creator to revamp them, I am seeing the next best option to remove them. From a pros perspective, do you guys think removing these 384 lower quality articles is my best option and focusing my efforts on a better UX, faster site, and continual upgrading of the 350 pieces of Cornerstone Content? I'm honestly at a point where I am ready to cut my losses, admit my mistakes, and swear to publish nothing but gold moving forward. I'd love to hear how you would approach this situation! Thanks 🙂
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ryj0 -
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 | | 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 -
How would you optimize a new site?
Hi guys, im here to ask based on your personal opinion. We know in order to rank in SEO for a site is to make authority contents that interest people. But what would you do to increase your ranking of your site or maybe a blog post? leaving your link on blogs comment seem dangerous, nowadays. Is social media the only way to go? Trying to get people to write about you? what else can be done?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | andzon0 -
Why does expired domains still work for SEO?
Hi everyone I’ve been doing an experiment during more than 1 year to try to see if its possible to buy expired domains. I know its considered black hat, but like I said, I wanted to experiment, that is what SEO is about. What I did was to buy domains that just expired, immediately added content on a WP setup, filled it with relevant content to the expired domain and then started building links to other relevant sites from these domains.( Here is a pretty good post on how to do, and I did it in a similar way. http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2297718/How-to-Build-Links-Using-Expired-Domains ) This is nothing new and SEO:s has been doing it for along time. There is a lot of rumors around the SEO world that the domains becomes worthless after they expire. But after trying it out during more than 1 year and with about 50 different expired domains I can conclude that it DOES work, 100% of the time. Some of the domains are of course better than others, but I cannot see any signs of the expired domains or the sites i link to has been punished by Google. The sites im liking to ranks great ONLY with those links 🙂 So to the question: WHY does Google allow this? They should be able to see that a domain has been expired right? And if its expired, why dont they just “delete” all the links to that domain after the expiry date? Google is well aware of this problem so what is stopping them? Is there any one here that know how this works technically?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Sir0 -
A site is using their competitors names in their Meta Keywords and Descriptions
I can't imagine this is a White Hat SEO technique, but they don't seem to be punished for it by Google - yet. How does Google treat the use of your competitors names in your meta keywords/descriptions? Is it a good idea?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PeterConnor0 -
Rollover design & SEO
After reading this article http://www.seomoz.org/blog/designing-for-seo some questions came up from my developers. In the article it says "One potential solution to this problem is a mouse-over. Initially when viewed, the panel will look as it does on the left hand side (exactly as the designer want it), yet when a user rolls over the image the panel changes into what you see on the right hand side (exactly what the SEO wants)." My developers say" Having text in the rollovers is almost like hiding text and everyone knows in SEO that you should never hide text. "In the article he explains that it is not hidden text since its visible & readable by the engines.What are everyone's thoughts on this? Completely acceptable or iffy?Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | DCochrane0 -
Site being targeted by hardcore porn links
We noticed recently a huge amount of referral traffic coming to a client's site from various hard cord porn sites. One of the sites has become the 4th largest referrer and there are maybe 20 other sites sending traffic. I did a Whois look up on some of the sites and they're all registered to various people & companies, most of them are pretty shady looking. I don't know if the sites have been hacked or are deliberately sending traffic to my client's site, but it's obviously a concern. The client's site was compromised a few months ago and had a bunch of spam links inserted into the homepage code. Has anyone else seen this before? Any ideas why someone would do this, what the risks are and how we fix it? All help & suggestions greatly appreciated, many thanks in advance. MB.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MattBarker0 -
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 | | ConversionChamp0