Duplicate Theme, different Content, competing keywords?

[EVERWORLD.ENTERTAIMENT]

Hello,

We have 2 versions of a website. Notes: They will be the same theme, and slightly different images but the written content is different. SEO optimization is the same for both sites targeting the same the city and they will be competing for certain keywords mainly vanity keywords.

So we have websites examples: 
http://mycompanytor.com http://mycompanytoronto.com How does google handle 2 websites like this, will one get penalized? Or will it treated as 2 different sites, even though the company name which is the brand shows up on the main url?

Thanks for your help

[EVERWORLD.ENTERTAIMENT]

Sorry for the late reply. The reason why we need a second website is because one has adult orientated images. 
As google places does not allow nude.

http://mycompanytor.com  - Has the Google Plus Business - Non Nude
http://mycompanytoronto.com - Has the Company Branding - Nude.

I hope this is clear.

Thanks for your input.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Everworld,

I'm going to address this purely from a Local SEO perspective. The main issue here is that having more than one website for the same business can lead to NAP+W consistency issues and big confusion for Google. I'll explain this.

As Google crawls the web, what they 'want' to find, in order to be clear about the data they have about your business, is multiple references to your business' name, address, phone number and website address. If we put ourselves in the bots' shoes, let's say we find a listing for your business at YP.com with your name, address and phone number being associated with domain number one. A-okay. But then we go to Yelp and find your name, address and phone number being associated with domain number two. Which of these two references are we, as the bots, supposed to believe?

So, the problem is that you are creating confusion for Google, and, it's vital to mention, probably for your customers, too. You are also creating confusion for any of the major players in the Local Search Ecosystem which draw data from various sources and distribute it to other sources. The fact that the two domains are so similar may even be adding further murkiness to the scenario for the various entities.

When Google becomes confused about your NAP, it is believed that various problems can result, including ranking failures, because of Google's lack of trust in the data they've gathered about your business.

Because of this, I almost never recommend a multi-site approach to any local business. With a few exceptions, it's simply a better idea to build a single, authoritative website for your brand and link all of your various assets to it. If you find it absolutely necessary to keep two websites, my advice is as follows:

• Do not put any part of your NAP in crawlable text on the second domain. No name, address or phone number.

• Do not link to this second domain from any other property, including your own website, your citations, offsite content or anything else in any way that associates this second website with any part of your business NAP

• Do not duplicate any content of any kind between the two websites.

When you look at this list of provisos, it may become even clearer why having two websites just isn't of much benefit. I'm not sure I'm understanding what you've explained about having one of the websites due to considerations about Google+. Could you not just own that second domain and 301 redirect it to your authoritative domain, without having a second website? Just a thought. I hope this is helpful!

[EVERWORLD.ENTERTAIMENT]

The Main reason as to we are having the 2 websites is

http://mycompanytor.com  - Has the Google Plus Business 
http://mycompanytoronto.com - Has the Company Branding.

One thing is though that the phone number is the same.

[Andy-Halliday]

can I ask why concentrate on two different websites, without knowing what you would be selling / listing its a bit difficult, but as Moosa said having the same address / telephone number google might think they are the same business and link them, but more importantly why do you want two different domains.

In my opinion your spending time creating great unique content on two different sites, managing two different domains etc - why not simply put all the content onto one great site (rather than two good sites) and 301 one url to the other. It would be easier to get one great website higher up the SERPs rather than trying to get two good sites to link.

All your efforts would be to get links to one site, rather than two different domains, you would be ineffective splitting your domain authority (doesn't quite work evenly like that).

But if you really do need to have two different websites and are willing to put in the extra work, the best thing to do would be get them listed separately on Google places (ideally at a different address), have different contact details, names on their so that search engines don't try and link them.

[jimthornton]

Will the company name and title tags if your doing company + phrases also match up on both? How different is the content? Same topics and format? What's your reasoning behind having two separate sites from the same company competing for same/similar keywords?

I would try to differentiate as much as possible using separate hosting accounts or c-blocks, or take it even further with separate hosts.

[MoosaHemani]

You got two different domains that have the same themes with slight difference of color and images but the content on both websites are completely different.

If this is exactly what you said then there should be no problem and Google in my opinion should consider those two domain names are two different websites.

Domain sounds like a local business so I believe having the same business address may give a hint to Google that they are actually similar business (if it really is!) but technically they are two different domains in the eye of Google.

Hope this helps!