Why does Google treat my two different sites almost exactly the same?

[proboscis]

I am still trying to recover from the June 4th traffic loss, I read and re-read the webmaster guidelines, went over the whole site fixed everything that could be wrong, checked all the links, finally filed a reconsideration request in Aug, and started to see some recovery, but all progress was lost through Nov - Dec, I have been seeing a small amount of recovery again now since January.

What is bothering me is that I have a second site that I did nothing to, no clean up, no checking, no reconsideration request, yet the traffic patterns are exactly the same as the first site.

Why?

[tedster]

Maybe Google knows that you are the owner of both and has them linked up behind the scenes - is that what you're thinking?

[proboscis]

Yes Google knows, I have them both in my webmaster tools account.

So, if Google has linked them together then if there is something wrong with one site it will affect the other?

Could my second site, the one I haven't been working on at all have the problem that is affecting my main site?

[Quadrille]

Do the sites share many link sources?

That could be part of the equation.

[proboscis]

They do share some link sources, and I link from the big site to the small site a few times.

I guess I was just wondering why I do everything for one site and nothing for my other site and then the traffic goes up and down almost exactly the same for both.

So Google links sites together behind the scenes if they have the same owner? I don't think it's a problem by itself because I know of at least one search term where both sites show up on the frist page of results.

Anyway I guess I'll go over the small site now and see if I can fix anything, if I find something maybe traffic will come back for both. Thanks for listening :)

[CWebguy]

Maybe it's a sign that the reconsideration request did nothing.

[Quadrille]

I wouldn't read too much 'Google conspiracy' into this; two sites developed in parallel, with shared links sources and some interlinking, may, quite reasonably, perform in a similar fashion.

I'd look at BOTH sites, and develop separate promotional programs, based on the niche and needs of each site.

Where Google is concerned, many problems are 'link based' - and Google can spot patterns at 5000 miles - that's how Google works, after all :)

Do check that you are getting Quality links; weed out bad links, and look VERY carefully at any reciprocal links.

BTW, I'd NEVER do a reconsideration request until you are pretty confident the problem has been linked, else any later request may get little sympathy - any human intervention is - for an algo-based SE - very expensive; don't let them think you are wasting their time.

[proboscis]

No, probably no conspiracy. I have both sites in my WMT account, I've run adsense on both sites and everything else.

My best guess is that the two sites are linked together as if they were one site spread over two domains. I think that's okay since they really are different, even though they overlap in subject occasionally.

Even if it's not okay, I don't think there's anything I can do other than continue to develop separate promotional programs and the other things that Quadrille said.