Two businesses with the same adress
-
Hi Guys,
A client of mine took over an competitors site 12 months ago. They sell almost the same products and both websites now list the same address on their contact page. Local search isn’t really important to them (webshops). They aren’t really active with Google plus reviews. but I’m still wondering.
Could this cause any ranking problems? A lot of online citations still mention the old competitors address and two almost identical company’s with the same address sounds like an bad idea. Any suggestions about this topic?
Just as a side note: the competitors site lost a lot of traffic, which is caused by a lot of different problems (double site migration were they didn’t think about SEO). So I would love the hear your thoughts about this specific ranking problem.
Thanks a lot!
-
Whaha that's the goal actually Thanks for you responses!
-
Fair enough! I think the duplicate address issue won't cause any problems as long as your content is unique...I wouldn't sweat it! Worse case scenario, you start competing with yourself for page 1 rankings
-
Yeah it will probably take 6-12 months to recover (or to get near the previous traffic). Redirects are on the road map and a lot of other stuff as well. Actually I wrote an whole report about the problems some time ago, but a lot of points haven’t been implemented by the developer. So that’s why we’re taking on the project again since the current situation clearly doesn’t resolve itself.
The address situation is just an point I stumbled upon just now. At the time I wrote the report both brands had their own unit number within the same complex.
-
Hey Bob,
It would almost be easier if it was spam or thin content related. My suggestion would be to drop your ill performing site completely...or get ready for a bit of a wait. Because of the double site migration/poor user metrics...there is no fast recourse. Once this damage has been done, it is going to take some time for it to regain its rankings. Essentially you are dealing with a fresh start.
Is there no way to access the old URLs to perform some redirects? That would be your best bet in restoring this baby to its glory.
-
Hi Christopher,
Thanks for your response!
I totally agree with you. Local is a chance an webshop should take. In this situation however local is a small issue, my main concern is recovering the 80% traffic loss in the last year during to a double failed site migration and bad user metrics. In this case I want to keep both shops separated since historically they both performed great.
Merging both now would mean we take the traffic loss as it is. I believe it’s possible to recover at least to a certain point in this situation since these problems aren’t spam / thin content related.
-
Hi Bob
Sounds good, it's hard to be certain on this when you have the other issues and variables in play. Would first look at cleaning other issues first.
But I do also agree with the guys above you might also need to consider the value against the cost of trying to rank with 2 positions on search engines or whether it's more cost effective to merge and focus all efforts on 1 site.
Let us know how you get on.
Cheers
Dan
-
Hi Dan,
Thanks for your answer! Our situation is exactly the same. Different brands, social channels, unique content etc. it's like coca cola and pepsi on the same adress. Both selling the same, but different.
Good to hear your story. In this case I will just start cleaning up all the other mess of the site migration first and will see what happens.
Thanks a lot!
-
We've had situations similar where a client has multiple ecommerce stores both with the same physical address on contact page and they weren't penalised or hurt by any traffic loss, however although they were selling products from same catalogue, there were distinct differences within the content.
2 separate brands were used, and unique product descriptions & category descriptions for example. Individual social media channels with unique content also.
So these other factors perhaps need to be taken in consideration and context is important?
Is all the content on the sites the same?
Cheers
Dan
-
Well, if local search isn't a concern then this might just fly. But I think neglecting local SEO (even as a webshop) is a poor decision. There could be an abundance of untapped local traffic - why ignore any relevant (and easier to rank for) traffic? My only concern here is the indexing of NAP information...not sure how Google will handle it...but they generally are not fans of a duplicated company presence (ie.multiple Google+ pages, duplicate content, etc.)
If you really want to prevent any issues and strengthen the performance of their site...I say merge these bad boys together. As you said, they sell almost the same products - and one is performing poorly. Why even attempt to split the traffic?
Best,
Christopher
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Best address to use on Google business listing for youth sports program
Hello, Moz Community! I'm helping a friend with some local marketing for his youth sports program. He trains his kids at a community center and a public park where court times are managed by the city. His address in his Google business listing is currently the community center, but that is shared with multiple businesses including the community center itself. I know he needs an address that is unique to his business, but he lives outside of the city in which his program is located. Our goal is to boost exposure in the city in which his program is located. Since 1) his business address is located outside of the city in which he conducts business and 2) the addresses at which he conducts his business is utilized by multiple businesses including the actual property owner, what options do I we have for an address that Google will recognize as valid and won't cause ranking issues? If there is nothing we can do in the current situation, what are steps we can take to address this issue for his business? Thanks a lot!
Local Listings | | Tony_GP0 -
Is having two websites with the same NAP equal to the local search visibility issues?
My company works in two directions: printing and website design / development. I have one website for both printing and website development but it doesn’t have “printing” in domain name (velvdesign.com) I would like to rank higher for printing related keywords. Do you think I should have two separate websites, one for printing (velvprinting.com), another for website design /development (velvdesign.com)? If yes, am I going to get into NAP’s issue because my company has only one location? I can get the second phone number to improve local search visibility. Thank you very much in advance for your time!
Local Listings | | VELV0 -
Google My Business Multiple Listing
Can a specialist doctor who operates out of several locations have multiple GMB listings? She operates under her company brand name if that makes a difference. Thank you community!
Local Listings | | Crystal.w0 -
GMB best practice for chiropractic office (individual vs. business pages)
For a chiropractic or other doctor's office with multiple doctors, should each have their own personal Google My Business page page AND a business page for the practice? If they just have a business page now, is it worth creating a page for each of the individual doctors? And what if some of them have different focuses (like a acupuncturist and chiropractor), does that mean you should make individual doctor pages when you otherwise wouldn't bother? And IF we should create pages for the individual doctors, should they all have the same address and website since they work in the same practice. Curious if there is a best practice for this... has anyone seen positive or negative results with or without the individual doctor pages? Thanks!
Local Listings | | Mike-i0 -
Someone Hi-Jacked my Clients Business Listing and online presence, What to do?
I have a new client and I discovered that someone has ripped off the business and established it in Texas (business resides in New Jersey) My client is ssscustomclosets.com/ the hijack artist has created forms and business listings such as this https://wirykanaird.wufoo.com/forms/zivaxni09ew6nb/ There is no google listing for Texas however, I have to think that this is causing some seo issues. Any ideas how to rectify this? I have never come across this situation before. Thanks, Don Silvernail
Local Listings | | donsilvernail0 -
International customers for local business
Hi I have a vacation rental in France. My customers come from the UK/US, France, and Spain and as such i have three domains. www.domain.com (French) en.domain.com (English) es.domain.com (Spanish) I first set up a Google+ page which was tied to my French website and it's descriptive text and KW are in French. I subsequently set-up 2 more Google+ pages (English and Spanish, each with their respective domains and language specific KW) for the purpose of showing up in local searches in the UK and Spain, which is starting to working. I'm I going in the right direction? is this a crazy idea since they all have the same local address? Thank you for sharing insights regarding how to handle a local business with multilingual customers.
Local Listings | | pgcosson0 -
Google Business Categories: Criminal Justice Attorney
Google has updated their business listings dashboard and are cleaning up categories. Let's come to a consensus on what should be obvious: Who else agrees with me that a lawyer who practices criminal defense law should be categorized as a Criminal Justice Attorney using Google's new business categorization? BoulderCriminalDefenseAttorney.jpg
Local Listings | | Rich_Coffman0 -
What to do if the domain name is very different from real business name for local listings
Hey guys, any advice is very welcome , I m´ ranking locally a website in the bay area for cabinets www.cabinetsbayarea.com we picked this domain name more for SEO purposes because it has the two most important keywords that we want to rank. My issue is that the real busniess name is HEMA DESIGN CENTER, so i dont know if we should change the name in the chamber of commerce to CABiNETS BAY AREA or list the business as HEMA DESIGN CENTER, with this website www.cabinetsbayarea.comr. We only mention the real name in the About Us. CABINETS BAY AREA it is more as a deparment of the real business name HEMA DESIGN CENTER What should i do? Thanks a lot, David
Local Listings | | conexion330