One Brand, Several Countries - what would you do?

[atlantis76]

Hi All

Assaf is here. I'd appreciate thoughts and comments :)

I have a brand, MyBrand.com (30+ page indexed, very good positions)

Also, I have MyBrand.co.uk.

Both sites are identical, and running for some 8 months now.

I also have MyBrand.fr and many more - which are each in its own native language.

1. If you were me - would you run two identical sites (both are indexed) ?

2. At Fri, June 20 2008, MyBrand.com lost all it's good positions for virtually all keywords (including for "My Brand")in GOOGLE.COM. I haven't really done anything too aggressive or otherwise black-hat-y with this site.

Do you think this is some latest algo update of G to cause this (I've read the thread about it) - or can it be a punishment for duplicate content?

I'd love to hear any thoughts and comments!

Thanks in advance
Assaf

[tedster]

The only time duplicate content becomes an issue is when it's in the same language. If your two English language sites are word-for-word identical, then what usually happens is that one or the other gets filtered out on certain searches for users from given countries. Whether the search is done on google.com or google.co.uk is another factor. But a true penalty from duplicate content is pretty rare.

It's much better to change the language and spelling to UK English for the .co.uk domain, and US English for the .com. In the Hot Topics [webmasterworld.com], which is always pinned to the top of this forum's index page, you will see a section about geo-targetted search. I think those threads will give you some ways to think about your international bundle of domains.

Now - losing virtually all your good keyword positions at one time does sound like a penalty, but it's not likely to have much to do with duplicate content.

A couple questions:

1. Where do you rank on the search for "MyBrand.com" - not just "MyBrand"
2. You say you lost your good positions. Have you located where you currently rank for those searches?

[atlantis76]

Thanks tedster (like always :)

1. For "MyBrand.com" I'm still #1.
2. I'm ranked on 40-60 positions.

These 1 + 2 make it feels quite like a kind of -35 penalty, isn't it?

I took a deeper look, tedster, and found 5 (!) more duplicate sites to MyBrand.com. My course of action:

* I took one of them off
* I added to one of them "noindex, nofollow" Meta tag
* I made a redirection to the other 3 sites to MyBrand.com

Also, I have bought some links (well, who doesn't). I took almost all of them off.

Do you think, tedster, I'm ready now to contact Google and kindly ask for reconsideration (explaining them how I resolved the duplicate content issue)?

Much appreciated!
Regards
Assaf

[edited by: tedster at 3:07 pm (utc) on June 24, 2008]

[tedster]

Do you think, tedster, I'm ready now to contact Google and kindly ask for reconsideration

Only you can know about that for sure. When you request reconsideration, your site gets a manual review. So don't try to sneak anything past the reviewer - you may only extend your challenges. But if you've honestly cleaned up everything you know should be cleaned up, then go for it.

[atlantis76]

Hi tedster (and all)

I did contacted Google via Webmaster Tools at 24/6/08.
Still haven't heard back from them.

Any ideas when I am supposed to hear from them, assuming I will hear from them...

Thanks a lot
Assaf

[tedster]

It's not usual to get a personal response. Either you see a change in the rankings or you don't. This is the challenge of scale for Google.

Direct feedback is nice when it can happen, but can you imagine how many requests they see in a day, or even an hour? Then consider how easy it would be for some employee to accidentally share "too much information" about their algo. These are the very real limits on how much Google can offer in their free service to webmasters.

[atlantis76]

Thanks tedster

I heard somewhere that if Google's team do decide to bring your site back, it should be in a time frame of 2-3 weeks from your "reconsideration request".

Would you agree to that?

I know that in the end of the day there's no way to tell it for sure, but just to get the feeling.

Thanks a lot
Assaf

[tedster]

That sounds about right as a rule of thumb, but I'm pretty sure it also depends on the workload. I've heard reports of waits that were several weeks longer than that.