Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I have two websites on the same topic but in different niches. One is larger than another.
For the sake of this topic, let's use cars as a topic.
So I have one big website about 4-door cars that covers related topics such as tyres, extra equipment, etc. Basically, I have (or I plan to have) information about anything that is related to 4-door cars, which includes stuff related to all cars in vast majority.
I have also another website about cabrio cars only. Here I present everything connected to cabrio cars. However, I would also like to add links to topics related to cars in general that are presented on my 4-door cars website. Say, each cabrio car model page would include link to pages about wheels, tyres, equipment on the 4-door cars website.
The question: do you consider it secure?
Basically, I see no reason to create the same content twice. As I have already done the work once and believe the product is of decent quality, I would like to link to it from the other website of mine.
However, as I know the basics of SEO it might be a bit strange for google.
What would you do?
thanks
That would remove all risks, consolidate your page ranking, reduce your marketing needs, and save confusion all round.
Do you think that merging two established sites in a similar niche whould give higher traffic at the end of
the day than keeping the two sites seperate.
Ie lets say two PR5 sites with say 500 visitors each a day.
If these two sites where merged is there a way to transfer the PR to the main site from the redundant?
And would it acually result in more traffic than having the two sites seperately listed in the index?
thanks for your suggestions. I cannot merge the websites as they offer different products in same niche. i also market them under two names and want to keep it that way.
cross linking for user's benefit is luring, especially because both sites are healthy and quite established. but, what user's benefit would it be if search engines penalize both of them for some stupid reason?
On the other hand I don't link from all pages or even from all pages of the small site to the home page or any page of the large site. For example I wouldn't link from every page to say the page on tires or whatever.
What might work well is to write a page on your small site about tires related to the niche (it could be just a couple of paragraphs) then link from that page to the tires or whatever.
I used to worry about writing articles that touch on topics I've already written but I find it brings more visitors and I always make sure each article has a slightly different emphasis. It not only helps with linking but there are times when I have 2 or 3 niche articles in the top 10 on a related 2 or 3 word search. Every article is unique though without even a paragraph or sentence the same.
You don't want to look like you are link spamming plus over linking is a waste of your links and not especially productive.
thanks for your reply.
the solution i see as the most effective is to link to some pages of the large site on selective basis. thanks again
Quadrille - a question then..Do you think that merging two established sites in a similar niche whould give higher traffic at the end of
the day than keeping the two sites seperate.Ie lets say two PR5 sites with say 500 visitors each a day.
If these two sites where merged is there a way to transfer the PR to the main site from the redundant?
And would it acually result in more traffic than having the two sites seperately listed in the index?
No longer relevant to this thread, alas, but a very good question.
If you combined two sites tomorrow, with the 'closed' site using a 301 to forward visitors to the 'double' site, then initially, the visitors would be no different - but, with all new incoming links focussed on one URL, not divided between two, plus a content-richer site, plus you can spend your marketing time/budget on one site, not two - then you can expect to see more visitors after a while.
This assumes the two sites share a target audience - but if there's shared content, then there's shared audience; so you can please that audience (each visitor arrives at a site almost twice the size of the old one), and utterly eliminate duplicate content issues, and avoid any risk associated with interlinking.
If it makes sense, content-wise, then it is undoubtedly the best solution. In so many ways. With no down side.
