Two Brands One Site (Duplicate Content Issues)
-
Say your client has a national product, that's known by different brand names in different parts of the country.
Unilever owns a mayonnaise sold East of the Rockies as "Hellmanns" and West of the Rockies as "Best Foods". It's marketed the same way, same slogan, graphics, etc... only the logo/brand is different.
The websites are near identical with different logos, especially the interior pages. The Hellmanns version of the site has earned slightly more domain authority. Here is an example recipe page for some "WALDORF SALAD WRAPS by Bobby Flay Recipe"
http://www.bestfoods.com/recipe_detail.aspx?RecipeID=12497&version=1
http://www.hellmanns.us/recipe_detail.aspx?RecipeID=12497&version=1
Both recipie pages are identical except for one logo. Neither pages ranks very well, neither has earned any backlinks, etc... Oddly the bestfood version does rank better (even though everything is the same, same backlinks, and hellmanns.us having more authority).
If you were advising the client, what would you do. You would ideally like the Hellmann version to rank well for East Coast searches, and the Best Foods version for West Coast searches.
So do you:
- Keep both versions with duplicate content, and focus on earning location relevant links. I.E. Earn Yelp reviews from east coast users for Hellmanns and West Coast users for Best foods?
- Cross Domain Canonical to give more of the link juice to only one brand so that only one of the pages ranks well for non-branded keywords? (but both sites would still rank for their branded keyworkds).
- No Index one of the brands so that only one version gets in the index and ranks at all. The other brand wouldn't even rank for it's branded keywords.
Assume it's not practical to create unique content for each brand (the obvious answer).
Note: I don't work for Unilver, but I have a client in a similar position. I lean towards #2, but the social media firm on the account wants to do #1. (obviously some functionally based bias in both our opinions, but we both just want to do what will work best for client).
Any thoughts?
-
it is like selling ice to eskimos in terms of convincing the brand managers who are convienced that they have too much equity in their existing brands to dillute/consolidate
I understand your situation as I have been there myself on more then one occasion. Having worked with eskimos I have learned they like money, so perhaps speak to them in financial terms. I would request a meeting with those who have the authority and ability to make a change and share the following ideas:
-
combining the two brands into one would be a significant cost savings. Product labels, designs, two websites, all aspects of branding from commercials, ads, promotional material, etc. can be condensed into one yielding savings.
-
sales can be increased. Why does a mayo company maintain a website? They probably aren't selling their product online so they recognize supporting their customer based with recipes and other information is helpful. By combining their sites their rankings in SERPs should noticeably improve. Rather then having the #5 and #7 results perhaps they could be closer to #1.
-
as Sha suggested, they can wrap a promotion around the name change. Engage your customer base in a tweet-fest and otherwise ask them for input. Ask your customers to vote for their favorite brand name.
-
if they established a single brand name their advertising dollars should work more effectively. Creating a single commercial/ad that runs nationwide is going to be more effective then splitting the country up. From personal experience I had never heard of "Best Foods" until I moved to California. When I watch tv and see a "Best Foods" ad because I am seeing a West Coast feed, the "Best Foods" ad is wasted on me. With a single brand, it would be more effective.
Almost every piece of logic involved indicates a brand merger. The only legitimate concern is how to handle the transition, and that is a management/marketing decision. A label can be produced with both the Hellman's and Best Food's logo on it then after ?a year one logo can be dropped.
We live in a time where we have seen industry giants well known throughout the country fail and close their doors forever. In most cases, these companies developed a successful strategy but failed to adjust. New businesses who weren't held down by past thinking flew past the old companies. It's up to your client whether that analogy applies to their situation.
As an SEO, your role isn't to force them into making a change they don't want to make. Instead I would recommend educating the client on the benefits of making the change, and ensuring they are aware of the negative issues and costs of not following your advice. If the client understands and makes the decision, you've done your part and can move on to other tactics to improve their SEO.
-
-
While I like Ryan and Sha's approach, it is like selling ice to eskamo's in terms of convincing the brand managers who are convienced that they have too much equity in their existing brands to dillute/consolidate.
When a browser does a branded keyword search, the brand managers aren't going to want a "http://story_of_Best_Foods_and_Hellmanns.com" url to be the top hit. They are going to want the branded URL that already has mindshare with the consumer. And of course if you do a search on Hellmanns Recipeis and get a hit like "http://hellmanns.com/recipie/bobbyflay.html" it's going to have much higher click through than "http://mayonnaise.com/recipie/bobbyfly.html" would get. The branded keyword in the URL just imply's relavance.
-
Another company in a similar situation (and maybe this is the company in question) is Dreyer's/Edy's. In case it's not your company, you can look and see if you can gain any insights into how they do their social media. Their websites look to be identical in code, and I don't see any canonical tags. I haven't examined how they have done their social media, but it's a thought of another place to look.
Thanks for your great answers Ryan and Sha!
-
I would agree with Ryan's approach and take it a step further ... in this case the company is missing out by just trying to be different things to different people!
I see some great opportunities to create new content that can interest and engage people, not to mention help retain customers they are in danger of losing because of a simple geographic relocation.
Some suggestions:
- Tell the Story
Create a page that cleverly explains how your product came to have two identities. Did it assume another as part of some global mayonnaise espionage effort....? or was it the result of a company merger? Make it interesting. write it as an example for other companies, create a "dueling logos" video presentation ...the list goes on.
- Create answer pages designed to help out the people who are missing their favorite product because they don't know it is there.
-
The "can't find Hellmanns" page
-
The "where to buy bestfoods mayo" page etc
There are lots of ways you can turn the potential disadvantage into a marketing advantage and all the while creating new content which could provide good opportunities for links and traffic.
BTW - Great to hear that you are all working together to get the best result for your client.
-
I was born and raised in Florida where most people used Hellmann's mayo. When I moved to California I couldn't understand why no one carried Hellmenn's mayo, then I noticed the Best Food's product had the same logo. I read the container and it said "known as Hellmenn's east of the Rockies".
I would recommend the same idea for the site. Present one site which shows either a rotating logo or other means to inform visitors it is the identical site but known as Hellman's in half the country, and Best Foods in the other half. This would allow your client to consolidate their DA which would benefit overall ranking. Additionally it is easier and cheaper to maintain one website instead of several. I noticed there are 4 separate sites: bestfoods.us, bestfoods.com, hellmanns.us and hellmanns.com. All sites have the same IP.
The BestFoods site ranking better for the given search is not really odd. The Hellmann's site has a page ranked at #7 and #19 for the given term, so it's strength is divided in the results.
There are odd anomolies such as neither page has a page title other then the site name. Google decided to help the BestFoods page by giving it's page a title of "Waldorf Salad Wraps - Best Foods". The difference of a clear page title is definitely helpful in rankings. It's odd the identical page from the other site wasn't helped with a page title in a similar manner.
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
-
Duplicate Content
Let's say a blog is publishing original content. Now let's say a second blog steals that original content via bot and publishes it as it's own. Now further assume the original blog doesn't notice this for several years. How much damage could this do to blog A for Google results? Any opinions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CYNOT0 -
How to avoid duplicate content
Hi there, Our client has an ecommerce website, their products are also showing on an aggregator website (aka on a comparison website where multiple vendors are showing their products). On the aggregator website the same photos, titles and product descriptions are showing. Now with building their new website, how can we avoid such duplicate content? Or does Google even care in this case? I have read that we could show more product information on their ecommerce website and less details on the aggregator's website. But is there another or better solution? Many thanks in advance for any input!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gabriele_Layoutweb0 -
Duplicate content issues from mirror subdomain : facebook.domianname.com
Hey Guys,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | b2bmarketer
Need your suggestions.
I have got a website that has duplicate content issue.
a sub-domain called facebook.asherstrategies .com comes from no where and is getting indexed.
Website Link : asherstrategies .com
subdomain link: facebook.asherstrategies .com This sub domain is actually a mirror of the website and i have no idea how is is created.
trying to resolve the issue but could not find the clue.0 -
Duplicate content for hotel websites - the usual nightmare? is there any solution other than producing unique content?
Hiya Mozzers I often work for hotels. A common scenario is the hotel / resort has worked with their Property Management System to distribute their booking availability around the web... to third party booking sites - with the inventory goes duplicate page descriptions sent to these "partner" websites. I was just checking duplication on a room description - 20 loads of duplicate descriptions for that page alone - there are 200 rooms - so I'm probably looking at 4,000 loads of duplicate content that need rewriting to prevent duplicate content penalties, which will cost a huge amount of money. Is there any other solution? Perhaps ask booking sites to block relevant pages from search engines?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Duplicate Content Question
Currently, we manage a site that generates content from a database based on user search criteria such as location or type of business. ..Although we currently rank well -- we created the website based on providing value to the visitor with options for viewing the content - we are concerned about duplicate content issues and if they would apply. For example, the listing that is pulled up for the user upon one search could have the same content as another search but in a different order. Similar to hotels who offer room booking by room type or by rate. Would this dynamically generated content count as duplicate content? The site has done well, but don't want to risk a any future Google penalties caused by duplicate content. Thanks for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CompucastWeb1 -
Duplicate Content/ Indexing Question
I have a real estate Wordpress site that uses an IDX provider to add real estate listings to my site. A new page is created as a new property comes to market and then the page is deleted when the property is sold. I like the functionality of the service but it creates a significant amount of 404's and I'm also concerned about duplicate content because anyone else using the same service here in Las Vegas will have 1000's of the exact same property pages that I do. Any thoughts on this and is there a way that I can have the search engines only index the core 20 pages of my site and ignore future property pages? Your advice is greatly appreciated. See link for example http://www.mylvcondosales.com/mandarin-las-vegas/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AnthonyLasVegas0 -
How best to handle (legitimate) duplicate content?
Hi everyone, appreciate any thoughts on this. (bit long, sorry) Am working on 3 sites selling the same thing...main difference between each site is physical location/target market area (think North, South, West as an example) Now, say these 3 sites all sell Blue Widgets, and thus all on-page optimisation has been done for this keyword. These 3 sites are now effectively duplicates of each other - well the Blue Widgets page is at least, and whist there are no 'errors' in Webmaster Tools am pretty sure they ought to be ranking better than they are (good PA, DA, mR etc) Sites share the same template/look and feel too AND are accessed via same IP - just for good measure 🙂 So - to questions/thoughts. 1 - Is it enough to try and get creative with on-page changes to try and 'de-dupe' them? Kinda tricky with Blue Widgets example - how many ways can you say that? I could focus on geographical element a bit more, but would like to rank well for Blue Widgets generally. 2 - I could, i guess, no-index, no-follow, blue widgets page on 2 of the sites, seems a bit drastic though. (or robots.txt them) 3 - I could even link (via internal navigation) sites 2 and 3 to site 1 Blue Widgets page and thus make 2 blue widget pages redundant? 4 - Is there anything HTML coding wise i could do to pull in Site 1 content to sites 2 and 3, without cloaking or anything nasty like that? I think 1- is first thing to do. Anything else? Many thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Capote0 -
Duplicate page content
Hi. I am getting error of having duplicate content on my website and pages its showing there are: www.mysitename.com www.mysitename.com/index.html As my best knowledge it only one page, I know this can be solved with some conical tag used in header, but do not know how. Can anyone please tell me about that code or any other way to get this solved. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onlinetraffic0