Similar Websites, Same C Block: Can I Get a Penalty?
-
One of my website has been heavily hit by Google's entire zoo so I decided to phase it out while building a new one.
Old website: www.thewebhostinghero.com
New website: www.webhostinghero.comNow the thing is that both websites are obviously similar since I kept the branding. They also both have content about the same topics. No content has been copied or spinned or whatever though. Everything's original on both websites. There were only 3 parts of both websites that were too similar in terms of functionalities so I "noindexed" it on the old website.
Now it seems that Google doesn't want you to have multiple websites for the same business just for the sake of occupying more space in the search results. This can especially be detected by the websites' C block. I am not sure if this is myth or fact though.
So do you think I'm in a problematic situation with this scenario?
It's getting ridiculous all you have to watch for when building a website, I'm afraid to touch my keyboard in fear my websites will get penalized!
- Sorry for my english btw.
-
It appened the same to me. I used everything disavow, link removal, everything so like you i decided to do a new website that now is ranking well and bringing me the good traffic
although it as been almost a year and in the first 6 month the old one penalized still reported better conversions
Know they are ranking almost the same on alexa, as the site as been penalized for especific keywords, and not for long tail wicht old web still on first position, but for content old web still ranking first on lots of long tail searches althought will never rank well for main keywords.
It is hard to leave an old domain with lots of years that was a reference and with good authority to one with no authority
And harder is to take all content of it.
Keep working man
Note: i have my websites propdental.com (old) and propdental.es (new) on different servers with no linking i just placed a no linking banner telling people to go to new website. I time i will plan to remove all content, but for know as i dont need it i did not remove it, and besides lots of websites as copied my content so if i change to my new site maybe i will have the content copied that was first copied from me. It is a risk i am not willing to
But with time you will see that the money from the old site will dropp as the one for the new one will rise
Best wishes
-
Sorry this is taking me so long to respond. So the first website was penalized. And you find new domain and essentially started bringing over other quality content that is fresh and has nothing to do the other site except for the three parts which we spoke about earlier right?
I would keep your posting apartment simply to be safer then be sorry. I would also not just no follow the content I would rewrite it immediately I don't know how much content you're talking about but regardless is well worth it to make shorts rewritten completely new and fresh. Do not link the websites together in any way shape or form. Even using the no follow will get you in trouble.
I'm sorry to hear that you had to go through this. And I think you're smart to do what you're doing. Do you have any interest in removing the penalty?
If so there is a tool from a company that is endorsed by Moz called http://www.removeem.com
It may help you get Google off your back. As it allows you to determine which links are malicious and then ask the webmaster if there they will delete it. Rather not the webmaster will delete it it will be all put into a recorded spreadsheet that you would then give to Google.
Showing Google that you have tried to remove the links rather their successful or not is extremely important. This cool will help you do that if you are interested in doing that at all.
http://www.removeem.com/faq.php
However I would keep them separate. I think what your separate now is doing will be fine. And then it will allow you to rebuild the website remember the content is probably not what you were penalized for. So if you were to delete the oversight once the new one gets up there in the search engines and place the content on the new site from the old site you could do that and be okay however I would go over very carefully prior to doing that. Just remember do not 301 redirect or 302 redirects to your new domain
I wish I had better news for you sincerely,
Thomas
-
It is only one of several factors Google could take into account. Same registrar owner, interlinking, shared assets etc are all factors used by Google to determine having more than one horse in the race for same keyword targets. If hosting location is the only interconnectivity you're probably alright, but if the site is completely nuked and you're phasing it out you might just want to noindex it and then you will automatically be fully compliant.
-
I left the old site there because it still brings in a little income which is essential but I don't maintain it anymore.
I didn't want to move everything over to the new domain as the old site has been penalized left and right.
My idea was to remove the old site completely once the new one starts getting traction and generating income.
-
Can I ask you why you using to websites is there one? After reviewing them they are very similar however I don't quite understand why you wouldn't put all the content onto one website?
If both target the same keywords that is fine you can have two websites that are separate sites targeting similar things however I don't understand why you would not turn them into one website if you own both of them?
-
All this information I have obtained below. Gives me a glimpse into your website.
"There were only 3 parts of both websites that were too similar in terms of functionalities so I "noindexed" it on the old website."
The part you referenced above. The three parts on both websites that are too similar I would definitely rewrite them and not worry about anything after that as long as you do not interlink and do not have duplicate content or spun you're in the clear
When Google indexes your website is able to find out who is information so much more than anything I could ever find. And it will be able to figure out who is the owner.
http://www.distilled.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Will-Critchlow-linklove-2013.pdf
http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/the-potential-pitfalls-of-competitor-analysis/
http://www.distilled.net/blog/events/searchlove-2013/searchlove-boston-2013-day-two/
http://seogadget.com/proxy-caching-for-seo/
http://builtwith.com/thewebhostinghero.com
http://builtwith.com/webhostinghero.com
-
But what if both websites target the same keywords?
-
I don't believe that Google does not want you to have multiple sites on the same host. For instance using a different C Block yes will definitely let Google know what you're doing and who you are much more easily. However they're going to figure it out regardless of rather not you're on different Hosts not most likely there's too many other things including the Mac address on your computer and about 100 other things including your ISPs IP address
My advice would be do not just no follow the content that is too close rewrite it professionally from scratch even if it is the best description possible unfortunately it should be 100% unique and should be done regardless of where is hosted or what C Block it's come from.
I believe many successful companies and I know I myself host multiple websites on different topics somewhere similar but I'm sure I cannot link just for the sake of linking unless it is completely irrelevant and useful. I am no danger of Google penalizing me for anything because I use the same web host for multiple websites I would not worry about this unless you know you were doing something wrong.
I hope I have been of help sincerely,
Thomas
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Some of my website urls are not getting indexed while checking (site: domain) in google
Some of my website urls are not getting indexed while checking (site: domain) in google
Technical SEO | | nlogix0 -
How do I setup sitemaps for an international website?
I am adding translated versions of my sites to a subdomain for example es.example.com. Will I add each subdomain into Google Webmaster Tools? Will each need its own sitemap?
Technical SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
Can hreflang replace canonicalisation ?
Hi Im working with a site that has ALOT of duplicate content and have recommended developer fix via correct use of Canonicalisation i.e the canonical tag. However a US version (of this UK site) is about to be developed on a subfolder (domain.com/uk/ & domain.com/US/ etc so also looking into adopting the hreflang attribute on these. Upon reading up about the hreflang attribute i see that it performs a degree of canonicalisation too. Does that mean that developing the international versions with hreflang means there's no need to apply canonicalistion tags to deal with the dupe content, since will deal with the original dupe content problems as well as the new country related dupe content, via the hreflang ? I also understand that hreflang and canonicalisation can conflict/clash on different language versions of international subfolders etc as per: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Igbrm1z_7Hk In this instance we are only looking at US/UK versions but very likely will want to expand into non english countries too in the future like France for example. So given both the above points if you are using hreflang is it advisable (or even best) to totally avoid the canonical tag ? I would be surprised if the answers yes, since whilst makes logical sense given the above (if the above statements are correct), that seems strange given how important and standard best practice canonical usage seems to be these days. What best ? Use the Hreflang alone, or the Canonical tag alone or both ? What does everyone else do in similar situation ? All Best Dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
How to change primary language of the website?
Problem: there is a domain.com which primary language is Lithuanian, we want to switch it to English. The English content is on the website fully translated under domain.com/en/english-url. Question: How do i switch English content to domain.com while moving the Lithuanian one to domain.com/lt/lithuanian-url The purpose of course is NOT to loose neither English nor Lithuanian organic traffic Possible solution: the only solution I though of is to 301 English /en urls to domain.com ant to 301 the Lithuanian domain.com urls to /lt. Is that everything I should do or is there some other meta tags, server side or other stuff i should be worried about?
Technical SEO | | SEO_MediaInno0 -
How do I get out of google bomb?
Hi all, I have a website named bijouxroom.com; and I was in the 7th page for the search term takı in google; and 2nd page for online takı. Now, I see that in one day my results seem to be on the 13th and 10th page in google respectively. I made too much anchor text for takı and online takı. What shall I do to gain my positions back? Thanks in advance. Regards,
Technical SEO | | ozererim0 -
Can I put the tag in the MasterPage of my ASP.NET website or does this need to be specific to each page?
Hi Moz Community, I am a designer/junior SEO'er and have been working with our web developer to setup SEO oriented redirects and the rel canonical tag on our ASP.NET page running MasterPages - www.tisbest.org. I know setting up an incorrect canonical tag can be devastating so I'm hoping for some guidance. Can we put the <title> </span>Charity Gift Cards | Donation Gift Ideas | TisBest Philanthropy</p> <p style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #5e5e5e;"> </span></p> <p style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #5e5e5e;"></title> Thanks! Chad
Technical SEO | | TisBest0 -
Multiple pages - Similar keywords
I'm working on a site with a parent page and two minor pages all dealing with the primary/root keyword "log siding" - How do I optimize all three pages without bastardization of the primary keyword? Parent page - keyword: half-log-siding and log-siding Child Pages (linking from the parent) cedar-log-siding and Pine-log-siding. They all feature "log-siding" and grade well for that keyword (as well as their own long-tail keywords), yet I think based on my rank tracking that Google is unhappy with the multiple pages all (seemingly focused) on log-siding. Any ideas how I can effectively target all the long-tail keywords within their respective landing pages and not draw a penalty from Google towards my parent page and the root keyword? Thanks, Bill
Technical SEO | | Marvo0 -
What are SEO factors in re-doing a website?
Most of my work now involves converting older websites to CMS-based sites (in Wordpress) and I'm wondering about best practices here. If I create a "dev" or "sandbox" directory for my development work how do I keep the pages from being indexed while I am working on the new site? Can I "noindex" a directory? What do I do with the old html files when the new site goes live? I'm assuming I will do a 301 redirect from domain.com/index.html to the new domain.com/, and also on all of the inner pages that have equivalent pages in the new site. But there will be a lot of old files left that have no equal in the new site. Do I just delete these, or noindex nofollw them?
Technical SEO | | bvalentine0