Duplicate contents

[neh2008]

I have researched about this topic a little bit.

But my case is really a different one.

I am planning to divide my site in to relevant domains, with the same look and feel, different products in all domains, is that "Spam"?

Thanks!

[Susanne]

Personally I would always try to keep it all in one site. It's much easier to promote one big site than several small ones. One example is the tedious work of trying to get other sites to link to you. In this case it is much better to have one site.

And something else: if you try to keep everything under one roof, then that single site will be much bigger, will have many more pages etc than any of the small ones. And we all know that content is very, very important for search engine ranking. So a big site with many pages should do much better than a handfull of smaller ones with fewer pages each.

You can still organise the site as if it's divided into three or four. Just put different products in different directories. Some people say they plan to make several small sites and then link them all together. This can work well to some extent but you will never really know when that type of cross linking goes from "legal" to spam. And then you'll stand there with your beard in the letter box, (as we say in Sweden ;)), and all your hard work might be for nothing if your site it penalised.

To answer your original question: There's some risk involved having sites that look similar, especially if they're on the same IP and are cross linked. I have read a post somewhere that said if round 80% of the content is identical you could say it's duplicate content = spamming. But we will never know for sure.

[vitaplease]

Its as Susanne says,

you will probably crosslink these split domains heavily and with that you enter a grey area - Googlewise.

also see this thread: [webmasterworld.com...]

You could use subdomains.

[neh2008]

Thank You Susanne and vitaplease,

I appreciate the answers, they match with my and google's thinking :).

I haven't uploaded anything yet.

But, I have worked hard on getting this site up. It was a dynamic site which I converted to Static pages and then inserted META , Appropriate titles, ALTs and stuff, all by programming.

SO, I wouldn't like my work to be vanished. I would put it on only one IP-Domain and then make subdomains under that.

Thank you,

[TWhalen]

Actually, I would disagree completely with the above advice: but with an explanantion.

Over a year ago, I took over SEO for a company that had one website, promoting 6 different products. Each product was similar, but each targeted its own set of unique keywords (different uses in different industries), totalling about 60 keywords. The problem was, not only could I not effectively achieve ranking for all those keywords with just one site, but my site's visitors seemed to be getting confused trying to decide which product best suited them (since they were all pretty similar...)

I decided to divide the original site into 7 completely seperate domains (1 for the "corporate" identity, the other 6 for each of the specific products)
Each site had the same look, feel, and navigation, and all the sites were crosslinked (from the main page only - i.e. - "check out our other fine products...").

The result?

7 websites, all achieving high ranking for their own targeted keywords, all producing high conversion rates because of the more individually focused content, and almost 7 times as much traffic as just the 1 original website by itself.

No troubles with Google whatsoever, and like I said - it's been over a year.
Best thing I ever did.

So, "keeping everything under one roof" isn't always the best way to do things, as I've proven here. As long as your individual sites have enough content to warrant their own domains, then by all means do it.

[Susanne]

TWhalen, good point!
It would be interesting to know whether those products are in a very competitive business or not. Natually, having many small sites instead of one single large one is easier with only relatively minor competition for your targeted keywords. I suppose the key is to do solid research on the competition before making the decision whether to go for one or several sites. But then there's the issue of cross linking again which you've used successfully for a year. This is considered risky, especially if the competition finds out.

[TWhalen]

I don't find crosslinking to be risky at all.
I've always crosslinked my own topic-related sites, and never received a penalty for it.

Whether or not the practice is *risky* just seems to me a matter of opinion.

[jimbeetle]

This is considered risky, especially if the competition finds out.

I honestly think there are too many legitimate reasons to cross link related sites and too many examples of such sites, for Google or any other SE to have automatic or algorithmic penalties for such cross-linking.

If TWhalen's example and other companies' sites with different but related products (think about nearly every large manufacturer or service provider), withstand an eyeball test, they're okay.

We all know what spammy cross linking looks like. That's what we have to stay away from.

Just my 2 cents plain...

Jim

[Susanne]

Oh well, we're all at the mercy of the latest algorithm and nobody knows where fine line between "legal" crosslinking and spam is drawn even though using common sense goes a long way. At the end of the day, it's all guesswork and fingers crossed (or should I say crosslinked ;)) that we don't get punished. I definitely agree that there are many legitimate reasons for having several sites instead of one and those sites shouldn't be punished for providing a user friendly experience. Cheers!

[Napoleon]

>> Whether or not the practice is *risky* just seems to me a matter of opinion. <<

Difficult not to smile. I think you will find that the opinion of those who have been around the block a few times is pretty consistant.

It sounds to me that you guys are setting yourself up to learn the hard way.

Of course... it's only my opinion.

[TWhalen]

>>Difficult not to smile. I think you will find that the opinion of those who have been around the block a few times is pretty consistant. It sounds to me that you guys are setting yourself up to learn the hard way.<<

As one who has "been around the block a few times", Napoleon, and has experience in this same situation, I'd say my opinion on this matter is very consistant.

Do you have a specific example of something you've done in this same situation you would like to share?