Forum Moderators: phranque
I'm in the process of updating 4 sites at the moment. Long story short, what I want to do is have one mysql db sharing out a directory to each of the 4 sites. The sites will otherwise be seperate and the rest of the content unique. The directory listings, however, will be the same on all 4 sites.
From a SEO point of view, is this a bad idea? I understand the SE's will penalise you for duplicating content, and I guess this will count.
Does anybody have any thoughts on this at all? Any ways of getting round the problem? Thanks!
This will avoid any duplicate content issues for those pages, and reader confusion.
More important, it will confine the risk of bad neighborhood problems to just one domain.
So, assuming the directory content will be the same accross 4 sites, will that affect search listings at all?
If it will then I *will* have to consider a different approach, such as biting the bullet and moving to a single domain. But I'd only do that with a very good reason; such as maintaining 4 sites potentially damaging our rankings. Until then I want to explore this model.
Thanks again
- PM
It may come from the the same DB, but it will have (at least) four URLs per page.
I've described the best case scenario; depending on how your db works and how the pages are built, there could be further problems.
No-one really gains from cluttering the web with duplication, that's why it's an SE-unfriendly thing to do.
There's plenty of ways around the issue, depending on your needs, your setup and your audience(s).
