Content spinning or duplicate content — a potential penalty or a safe technique?
-
Currently I’m working on the local UK business website www.londonlocksmith.london and I have to say a few practises of the competition got me confused.
For example websites like these:
http://lambeth-trusted-local-locksmith.co.uk/
http://clapham-trusted-local-locksmith.co.uk/
http://streathamhill-trusted-local-locksmith.co.uk/
http://hernehillse24-trustedlocallocksmith.co.uk/All of them rank decent for the main regional keyword (e.g. Lambeth locksmith) and have an ok-ish DA. But as you scroll through these websites you see that the content is the same for all of them except for the location name, plus they all link to each other (see the footer).
Now my question is: can this be a good technique for higher local ranking by creating dedicated websites (not just landing pages) with the target keyword in the domain name?
And also: what is your experience with such ways of keyword targeting; what do you think in general about content spinning for local services with high competition?; what are your suggestions?
-
K
Andy is correct. The practice used by your competitor is outdated and against google guidelines. From our experience we often see (looked at one last week) exact matching domains rank highly without any other metric being strong or comparable to competitors. However it is counter intuitive as if you were today to buy an exact matching domain and then expect it to rank well without hard work - well it simply does not happen anymore. They seem like relics, and panda updates have passed them, likely thin content as well.
For some reason often exact matching domains that breach google guidelines still rank well - in my observation in low competition spaces. Your examples are all local. The key is not to attempt any bad practices, even though they are ranking for them as it will hurt your site.
So in answer to your questions. 1. It is not good technique - in fact usually penalized. 2. content spinning is not a good technique - in fact usually penalized.
You have an awesome opportunity. One dedicated site with a single site approach. As distinct from his 4 sites. All work undertaken on your site (Creating unique content, testimonials, obtaining awesome links) goes to benefit all of of your store locations at once, if your site is well structured. Your website obtains maximum 'juice' out from your hard work and the site authority strengthens over time. You can smash those 4 sites with a bit of work.
Hope that assists.
-
Hi Kateryna,
What they are doing there is something that is very much against Google's TOS and isn't something I would advise anyone try to perform. I would say that this is something that will catch up with them at some point and they will get a kick from Google for their trouble.
Content spinning is never going to be a long-term solution but what I would suggest, is having a watch of MOZ's recent Whiteboard Friday by Rand.
Longevity for any SEO campaign will come from a great user experience, great unique content and not going against Google's TOS.
-Andy
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
-
Which are the best off-page SEO techniques for 2020?
I have just published an awesome website or blog, and i really worked hard keeping everything perfect. Do you think it’s enough? Having a perfect blog, website or business is just enough. i need readers for my blog, visitors to my website, and customers for my business. So, what to do?
Local Website Optimization | | boxinghunter0 -
Duplicate Schema Syntax
Is having both JSON and Microdata markup on one site detrimental to SEO? I'm unsure if Google would read it as spammy to have both.
Local Website Optimization | | GoogleAlgoServant2 -
Does having 2 separate domains with similar content always = duplicate content?
I work for a global company which is in the process of launching their US & European websites, (just re-launched Australian site, migrated from an old domain) all with separate domains with the purpose of localising. However, the US website content will essentially be the same as the Australian one with minor changes (z instead of s, slightly different service offerings etc) but the core information will be the same as the AU site. Will this be seen as duplicate content and Is there a way we can structure this so that the content won’t be seen as duplicate but is still a separate localised website? Thank you.
Local Website Optimization | | PGAUE0 -
Migrating to new website with new name and new content
Hi for the past few years I have been running a personal training company from the following domain name www.smpt.me. This has done well in the past and so has some authority in google as it was ranking well on page 1. Over the last 6 months I have set up a new website with some new business partners using the domain name www.healthbyscience.co.uk. This new website, whilst still a personal training website, has different content to the original. We want to use the new website rather than the old one and therefore my question is how I can use the old website to assist with the new website. Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | Health-by-Science0 -
How do I set up 2 businesses that work together but are ran seperately with two separate websites but similar content?
How do I set up these sites so that they will not be negatively affecting their SEO efforts? I have 2 businesses with the same owner. Business A manufactures nurse call systems and Business B installs them. They are run separately with two websites. The content is very similar because the business that installs them describes the different products on their website. These are the two sites: intercallsystems.com and nursecallny.com , My thought was on nursecallny.com when you click on the nav link "Nurse Call Systems" you would be directed to the intercell website. Would this be the best method? Thank you for your help!
Local Website Optimization | | renalynd270 -
Mobile Friendly Penalty?
My website, http://www.stephita.com/ used to appear on the first page of my "locally" searched terms on www.google.ca. Specifically, when users searched for "wedding invitations", we would appear between 1-3 on the rankings. Sadly, I "ignored warnings" of making my site "mobile friendly" for too long, and only recently made drastic changes to my site to get it to "mobile friendly" status. So, I've fallen far in the SERP, down to the dreaded second page, for my keyword search: "wedding invitations". The "mobile friendly" version of my site has been up and running for about 1 month now. My site's home/index page has a PR3, compared to all the other sites that have leaped frogged mine are all at PR1. Does anybody know the likelihood that my site will ever see the page 1 daylight again? 😞 Or has Google Penalized my rankings 😞 Very much appreciated any help the community can provide!
Local Website Optimization | | TysonWong0 -
Implementation advice on fighting international duplicate content
Hi All, Let me start by explaining that I am aware of the rel="canonical" and **rel="alternate" hreflang="x" **tags but I need advice on implementation. The situation is that we have 5 sites with similar content. Out of these 5: 2 use the same URL stucture and have no suffix 2 have a different URL structure with a .html suffix 1 has an entirely different URL structure with a .asp suffix The sites are quite big so it will take a lot of work to go through and add rel="alternate" hreflang="x" tags to every single page (as we know the tag should be applied on a page level not site level). 4 out of the 5 sites are managed by us and have the tag implemented so that makes it easier but the 5th is managed in Asia and we fear the amount of manual work required will put them off implementing it. The site is due to launch at the end of the month and we need to sort this issue out before it goes live so that we are not penalised for duplicate content. Is there an easy way to go about this or is the only way a manual addition? Has anyone had a similar experience? Your advice will be greatly appreciated. Many thanks, Emeka.
Local Website Optimization | | OptiBacUK0 -
Duplicate content question for multiple sites under one brand
I would like to get some opinions on the best way to handle duplicate / similar content that is on our company website and local facility level sites. Our company website is our flagship website that contains all of our service offerings, and we use this site to complete nationally for our SEO efforts. We then have around 100 localized facility level sites for the different locations we operate that we use to rank for local SEO. There is enough of a difference between these locations that it was decided (long ago before me) that there would be a separate website for each. There is however, much duplicate content across all these sites due to the service offerings being roughly the same. Every website has it's own unique domain name, but I believe they are all on the same C-block. I'm thinking of going with 1 of 2 options and wanted to get some opinions on which would be best. 1 - Keep the services content identical across the company website and all facility sites, and use the rel=canonical tag on all the facility sites to reference the company website. My only concern here is if this would drastically hurt local SEO for the facility sites. 2 - Create two unique sets of services content. Use one set on the company website. And use the second set on the facility sites, and either live with the duplicate content or try and sprinkle in enough local geographic content to create some differential between the facility sites. Or if there are other suggestions on a better way to handle this, I would love to hear any other thoughts as well. Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | KHCreative0