Similar web sites - good or bad?

Not affiliates...

[Chris_1]

We have a domain with good traffic on certain keywords. However, we are looking at rolling out a new "entry" domain for a new product. As it is, our current domain is not affiliated with our products - but we have great name recognition.

For example, if we were selling Rodeo Tackle, and our domain was "johnsmith.com" – which many people know of because of our name recognition. However, if we were to start selling Show Saddles, our current domain wouldn't mean much. As such, we are looking at rolling out a domain like "showsaddles.com"

The shopping cart will still be on "johnsmith.com" - but our goal is to really market (through ads and search engines) the new "showsaddles.com" entry – which will have a lot of good, informative information about “show saddles”.

My question: since we will use the same drop down menu and templates on both sites, will google penalize us for this? We will have some navigational crosslink’s, but hopefully not tons. The content will be rather different, but NOT the design and header/footer images (it’ll look almost identical).

Thanks,

Chris

[stuntdubl]

Why not just redirect the new domain name to the old domain and add the content to the old site?

This would save ambiguity, and accomplish what I think is your purpose. (To establish the new domain name in association with your new products)

[stuntdubl]

Why not just redirect the new domain name to the old domain and add the content to the old site?

This would save ambiguity, and accomplish what I think is your purpose. (To establish the new domain name in association with your new products)

[Damian]

For what it's worth, from my experience doing similar things I think you have a good strategy which will not be penalized.

[Chris_1]

Thanks for the info Damian. I figured it would be safe because our goal is good content on a domain (instead of a subpage on our current domain which won't mean anything to our current customers).

stuntdubl - we currently have the info on our main domain, but the name doesn't mean anything to our new clients. Also, it would be hard to advertise a www.domainname.com/subpage to get targeted traffic. With our new address we'll advertise the new domain and people will remember it better.

My only concern was using the same template file for both (with totally different content).

Thanks again,

Chris

[WindSun]

"My only concern was using the same template file for both (with totally different content)..."

There are something like 30,000 Yahoo stores. All use basically the same template.

However, I would question your strategy of making a whole new domain and site for a product that you are selling to basically the same market.

[Chris_1]

WindSun,

It's actually a whole new product line for a new, different, but somewhat related, industry.

Good point on the yahoo stores. I realized we'll be forced to "cross link" between our two sites for navigational purposes - guess we'll have to keep an eye on whether that effects things or not.

Thanks,

Chris