Hey, two websites for one business isn’t a good idea for SEO…
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A company talking to us this week is experiencing a major problem with their brand-new website. Well, sites, plural. Inexplicably, they recently decided two websites would be better, investing thousands into design. Perhaps, the effort would bring double the traffic?
To their upmost surprise and dismay, one of the two sites became so far buried in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), even a branded search (search using their exact business name as a keyword) couldn’t keep them from appearing in Google until after page 8! Best place to hide a dead body is Google Page 3 and beyond… 😉
Anyone have an idea as to why the website wasn’t doing so well?
My simple hunch is that Google, in its many efforts to reduce black-hat SEO tactics, has labeled the second website as a spam, or inappropriate copy, site. Many SEOs in the past used a methodology of creating multiple websites with similar brand names and linking back to a central domain as a way to add more domain authority to their client’s sites.
This theory would explain why one of the two sites is appearing normally, and the other remains buried.
Any other ideas?
Comments (2)
Great article Josh. I entirely agree. Duplicate websites are generally never a good idea. If it’s going to cause brand confusion for a person, assume it’ll cause brand confusion for a bot. I like Jay Baer’s quote “SEO should be an afterthought,” and I would add “to your overall marketing strategy.”
You’ll also come across this situation oftentimes when a company like YP manages someones PPC; they create a simple alternate site they can have total control of. That’s nice for CRO, but it’s typically not as converting as the brand’s authentic site and causes branding confusion for return visitors. The result is less conversion, more money spent, and cynicism.
Two websites for one business isn’t a good idea for SEO. It is 100% right. I agree with you. Duplicate websites are generally never a good idea. Google gives penalty duplicate websites all time . Thanks for your great post.