Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Is it: 1/the result of a good linking strategy tolerated (supported) by Google; 2/ the result of a good linking strategy which usually does not last long because Google does not permit selling products of the same company; 3/ Google allows/supports selling the same product through various channels if the pages look (sound) differently - one company can have more websites; 4/ Google allows selling the product via various channels, but the other channels should/must be owned by other companies / affiliates?
Knowing this, we could decide whether we should invest into more differently-looking websites or whether we could afford having affiliates who will sell our widgets without unnecessary risks for both parties. Did you notice any clear policy on this subject?
I noticed that many sites do it in this way. But is not the result that it is easier to dominate the SERPS? Does the customer profit from the search then? In my opinion, not.
In the current situation we would need to launch three sites with three unique contents for the same product to keep pace with the companies who manage several sites without interlinking them and are high everywhere. Every company including ours will create new and new sites. There will be one product, 20 various sellers, but those sellers with 20 pages will always be on the safe side. Will it not lead to clogging of the Internet searches?
OK, in this situation we have to build more sites. Did you ever notice that Google would ban all the unique content sites belonging to one seller or their affiliates?
Why compete against yourself for SERP's?
Why risk being banned for duplicate content?
Why risk being seen as a link farm?
Why risk being seen as a scam?
Why risk beeing seen as a SPAM organisation?
Why risk getting your product a bad name?
Why not just write ONE site for your product with LOTS of pages so you can cover ALL your keywords, and spend your time and effort making it a better site than anyone elses - i.e. spend your time and effort making your site THE AUTHORITY on your product?
On Yahoo it was even worse and someone from Yahoo search sent me a sticky about it. It's also 2 out of 10 now.
One is .com the other is .co.uk
Quite frankly, that is a load of cat chocolate in a sandbox...
Example: One seller can have maximum 1 site or 2 sites with unique content + one best superb affiliate site in the top 20 results.
That is the problem...
Think about the GM lines of cars, where they are slightly rebranded at different price points and for different demographic markets.
If you are selling something that will appeal to new mothers, engineers and even artists, would it not make sense to put up different sites that are designed to appeal to each of those demographic groups?
Of course, most people that do this are only doing it to crowd everyone else out of the SERPs, but that is not the ONLY reason.
In real world you are limited by location and there must be many stores. In virtual world, boundaries are where you want to see them or (in the case of SEOs) the desert begins after the first one/two pages of the search engine results.
You can sell one Nokia in a gold box or in pinky kinky plastic. The price and the buyers are different, while the gadget is the same - but it's product, not company. GM probably has various selling points that differ in order to attract various customers, but the cars these customers tend to purchase usually differ as well. But online you have the same product at the same prices.
I think that the best online shopping sites are/must be universal. You just have to look very universal in many different ways to rank well for all keywords. The methods to rank well are from what I read here quite infantile.
I think that the best online shopping sites are/must be universal.
That sure would be a neat trick. It is virtually impossible.
Just from a store size/selection standpoint there are huge differences in taste. Obviously, stores where you can order just about anything, such as Amazon have their appeal to may people. But there are just as many people that absolutely have that sort of experience, and want a small specialty store.
Here are a couple of non-analogies for you:
You can have a giant everything-I-stock-store to appeal to those that want one stop shopping, then you might also set up your "Everything Barbie" site just to carry all your barbie stuff, where there parents could spend time shopping with their daughters. You aren't likely to use a sparkly pink theme on your main store, but you would be foolish not to use it on your barbie site.
What about setting up two stores that sell the same items, one that has lower prices and charges shipping, the other with higher prices and "free" shipping? Those different stores would appeal to different types of buyers.
Since the example is different layout and different content, I think it is quite possible that the sites are going after different markets.
The kind of regulations of search engines I am lacking is against having several sites offering the same range of products with different descriptions and different design. (thus the pages are not "duplicate", not "doorway", do not "cloak") Or having a host of affiliates or quasiaffiliates who have the same offer like the mother company competing for the same serps. The customers do not have any profit from that.
One should not stop affiliate activity as their pages can turn to be better than the site of the company which provides the "widgets", but there could be some kind of overtly declared limitation.
