Should I Split Into Two Websites?
-
I'm creating a website for a new company that offers several related services. They want to have a main corporate website that has pages for all their services. However, they want to have a second website that only features a subset of those services. So they would have the same company name, same website template, but the smaller site would have a different domain name, different text/photos on the home page and be missing some pages from the main corporate site so that site would make them look more specialized.
They would have separate marketing materials (brochures, business cards) that would have the website address and email address using the different domain name. They also want the smaller second site to come up on search results related to the services for that site and not the main site.
Can this be pulled off without having a significant negative effect on ranking potential for either of the two site and also not risk a duplicate content penalty?
It would seem you would have to add a robots.txt file that excludes indexing of the pages on the main site that are duplicating on the smaller site.
However there is a potential big issue. The company is a local business. Nowadays the local results (Map + 3-pack) are as important if not more important, than the traditional organic results below the 3-pack (although I acknowledge they are related). For their Google Business Places, since they have two websites for the same company, they can only list one of the website. So if they list the corporate site, their not going to get in the local 3-pack for their specialized site for search terms. They may be able to live with this though since the main site will show ALL services.
Comments? Ideas? Issues? Strategies?
-
Hi There,
Good question! Short answer here is: no, a Local SEO is seldom going to suggest a multi-site approach to represent different services a business offers. Here are some of the reasons why:
-
You will only be able to build local business listings for the main business at the physical location, so there is no local pack ranking advantage to having two different websites, as you can't build additional listings for one of the services offered - this would violate Google's guidelines.
-
Simultaneously, what you worry about with the multi-site approach isn't so much a duplicate penalty/filter (unless you duplicate content between the two sites) but, rather, the accidental creation of duplicate listings. If Google (or another local business index) gets confused by finding shared partial NAP (name, address, phone) on two different websites, it can confuse them and lead to the accidental duplicate listings being created, which can then sap the strength of the main listing for the main business. It can also confuse consumers. The way to reduce the likelihood of this would be to be sure that the physical address isn't on the second website and that you either have a) a unique phone number for the second website or b) put the phone number in image text. Even so, these things can get referenced off the website and pulled in that way, so it's not really foolproof, but it is a best-effort attempt.
-
Finally, a major drawback of the multi-site approach is that, instead of every marketing effort you make adding to the strength of the brand, and therefore all aspects of what the brand offers, you are dividing this in half while doubling the management efforts that have to be expended trying to market two websites, instead of pouring all of that marketing goodness into a single entity. This really matters when it comes to your organic rankings. If you have an absolutely awesome website with high authority, you should be able to get your pages that surround the topic of this particular service the business offers to rank very well. With a second website, you'll be starting from scratch, trying to rank an unknown newcomer instead of simply building on the strength of the existing website by building great content and earning links to it, all under the umbrella of a single brand.
So, hopefully these are points you can bring to the company to help them see why in both organic and local marketing, a single site approach is generally preferred. Particularly as we've moved into the era of RankBrain, the ability to become an authority in a certain topic has become a central marketing mindset. You might even show the client this website (Moz.com) as an illustration of how a brand can become associated with a topic (SEO) that then helps it to rank for a multitude of related facets (linkbuilding, on-page SEO, local SEO, content development, etc.). Rather than creating a website for each of these areas, there is just one Moz, and that has helped the brand to become known, overall, for all of these things.
Please, let us know if you have any further questions!
-
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
-
HOW DOES MOZ FILTER ISSUES ON WEBSITES?
Good day My company is trying moz for the first, and I am their web developer, I looked through the moz report and found something confusing when checking the issues. For example, I have URL:https://www.cham-training.co.za/free-skills-development-assessment.php and the mentioned URL can have parameters as follows: 1. https://www.cham-training.co.za/free-skills-development-assessment.php?target=Internship 2. https://www.cham-training.co.za/free-skills-development-assessment.php?target=Learnership the target parameter is just used to hold a value regarding the clients actual request, learnership, internship etc. However moz seem to recognize the same link with different parameters as different links and this makes the issue count to go up. For me, then this becomes false report. Please take a look at the attached image for reference. I got issues regarding duplicate title, but the truth is there's no duplicate titles its just that moz picks up the page as different because of the url parameters. Can someone please clarify why is that so or if there's any reason moz does that. I hope to hear from you guys soon. Thank you open?id=15uTf6Wn3jQWxELQodLgtlkswZKOtNSol
Local SEO | | chamberlinksales20 -
One company, two audiences. Ok to make two sites?
I have researched and researched on this question, and I'm still not satisfied. Most of the answers on the Moz forum and otherwise are all from 2013, as well. So, I thought I'd bring it up again. I have two distinct audiences for a real estate business I'm working with (very different needs and interests): Farm Buyers Residential Buyers My client is wanting to expand their presence in the farm market. Their main competitor is ranking for, more or less, an exact domain name match. They want to spin up a site focused only on farm buyers. Here are the pros/cons in my mind of creating a separate site: Pros: Reaching/targeting a specific audience (better user experience), having domain name with keywords (I won't keyword stuff...promise), a site completely devoted to content regarding farms, a blog completely devoted to farms (we have a content strategy in place) Cons: NAP issues (same address), splitting up domain authority, a bit of brand confusion (though the same logo/brand will be on both sites) In my mind, the pros outweigh the cons. Any ideas on how to address the cons? I could just not include address and phone, but that seems ridiculous...catering to the bots and not the user. Thanks, everyone!
Local SEO | | Gabe_BlueGuru
Gabe2 -
Correct setup: One business, one website, two bricks and mortar locations
Hi all, we have a furniture business with two physical stores and one website, which has the ability to sell online but we hardly sell anything but we're just about to start Google PLA on a few products, let's say our website is at: nicefurniture.co.uk We have nicefurniture.co.uk/first-location and nicefurniture.co.uk/second-location set up with all the store info, a Google Map, contact info, etc. This is linked to from the footer on all pages. Issue 1: I have been told conflicting things about how to best set up our Google My Business page. One person says set the URL for both to our homepage, nicefurniture.co.uk and the other says point each GMB listing to the store location pages OR we should buy www.furniture-first-location.co.uk as our URL and point the GMB listing to that. To me, that doesn't make sense as we'd be spreading our domain equity with a new domain, surely? Issue 2: How do I get each GMB location to show up in Maps, etc when people search for 'furniture location' or even 'sofa location' or 'dining table location'? Would I need to optimize the store pages on our site? Issue 3: Years ago we did set up another URL, let's say nicefurniture-cornwall.co.uk and on it there are about 500 pages, all with links pointing to our main website. Google Search Console for our main website lists this other website as one of our top linking domains. Does that mean if we remove nicefurniture-cornwall.co.uk we'll risk a drop in rankings? Many thanks for your input.
Local SEO | | Bee1590 -
Website pages for different cities
HI, Is it ok to have pages on my website that are specifically targeted for one town? Does Google frown on this? is there any thing I should know about doing this, like, does it hurt my seo efforts in anyway? I would be making each page as resourceful as possible to the reader., by Including unique content etc Thanks in advance:)
Local SEO | | MissThumann0 -
Local SEO same company two different locations
I have a client who has 2 locations approx 20 miles apart. He wants to reach new customers at the second office location. He is an owner of a law firm he practices elder law, in the second location he has an attorney who practices injury law. The second location is in an area where targeting prospects for elder law could also be lucrative. We currently have two separate websites for each area of law. My question is... Would it be suggested to create another elder law website to target the potential clients in this second location. Also for the first location we have put in place a content marketing strategy that has increased revenue considerably. Basically creating content (blog posts) that resonate with the target audience. If a new website is in order can the blog post be posted here too with a canonical referencing the original website. Im thinking a slow redistribution of content on the new site. Advice here is greatly appreciated as this new market for my client could increase revenue even more.
Local SEO | | donsilvernail0 -
Backlinking for small service oriented websites
I am a newby to the SEO world. We are a graphic/web design/development company that has been pulled into the SEO world. We work for a lot of clients that are sensing the need for websites but they don't have the capital to invest in a large website. So after building simple sites for them they come to us wanting to be ranked better in the SERPS. I can go through and do the basics of meta tag info but with small sites, there isn't a lot you can do. I feel I need to learn to do backlinking but am completely lost. When I read about backlinks a lot of people talk about blogging websites, not service industry websites. Does anyone have tips to learn backlinking for small service companies that want to target their local area? loggers, woodworking shops, landscape companies, cabinet shops, home cleaners, bulk food stores, etc. I'm interested in maybe blogposts, or tutorials to read/watch, or software to help me out, etc. Thanks in advance for your help!
Local SEO | | Olvtr0 -
Two Companies Same Address
A client has two businesses running from the same address. Both businesses will operate out of Unit 1. Would it be safe to go for Unit 1 and Unit 1A. Will that distinction be enough for Google local and has anyone had any specific experience with this issue?
Local SEO | | MickEdwards0