Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Combining Two Sites With Similar Domain Authority
-
Hello,
We run two sites with the same product, product descriptions and url structure. Essentially, the two sites are the same except for domain name and minor differences on the home pages. We've run this way for quite a few years. Both sites have a domain authority of 48 and there are not a large number of duplicate incoming links.
I understand the "book" to say we should combine the sites with 301's to the similar pages. I am concerned about doing this because "site 2" still does about 20% of our business.
We have been losing organic traffic for a number of years. I think this mainly has to do with a more competitive environment. However, where google used to serve both our sites for a search term it now will only show one.
How much organic benefit should we see if we combine. Will it be significant enough to merge the two sites. Understandably, I realize the future can't be predicted but I would like to know if anyone has had a similar experience or opinion
Thanks
-
I think that there is a good chance for an increase of total sales by combining the sites. I vote for this because the two sites have diverse link profiles and combining them will make a big gain in the link diversity and domain authority of the site that remains. I would merge them with optimism rather than with fear.
-
Google doesn't tend to like 'clone' sites and if it detects them, one of the web properties will be nerfed. Google wants people to 'add value' to the web, and then reward them with traffic. The path is not supposed to be, build one site - clone it, get double the traffic. This is also to keep Google's search results diverse
Seriously, how annoying would it be if you searched for something and every link was the same site with a different name?
In situations where you gained extra traffic illegitimately, there's not much that you can do (technically or otherwise) to re-capture the traffic that you shouldn't have been getting in the first place.
If I were you, I'd be looking at this decision more in terms of: "this will help to plug a gap and stop further deterioration". If Google think you have been gaining traffic that you shouldn't have been getting, fixing the problem won't cause Google to give you 'bonus points' that see your site(s) return to illegitimate traffic levels
If you are looking for quick and easy ways to succeed in SEO, know that the lifespan of such techniques is limited. In actual fact, you're lucky not to have received a penalty on both sites.
This is not a case of "how can I make some quick traffic again", it's a case of "how can I demonstrate to Google that my behavior is changing, and avoid a penalty for my main site". Sometimes the benefit, is NOT losing everything you have!
Darin Pirkey made some good points, but I don't think it's a case of 'the benefits of moving outweigh the risks of leaving it'. My POV is very similar but slightly different. I think that 'the risks of leaving it as it is are greater than the risks of merging the web properties' (but then... I'm a bit of a cynic)
-
I think you are already seeing that Google is treating these two as the same. I've had this issue with a legal blog and a lawyers main website. We took the blog from it's own domain and put it under the main lawyer website. We did see a dip in traffic for about two months but it quickly recovered and we ended up with more traffic as the overall site seemed to be more authoritative under one roof.
During this merge, I would also check for "thin content" and/or content that is no longer relevant and/or getting traffic. We tend to use the opportunity as a sort of spring cleaning of the site. But, since your sites are pretty identical, a good thorough examination of all the content on both would be beneficial. Make sure you map the "old" site and keep a sitemap just in case something goes wrong. We used a Google Sheet/ Excel to map domains so in the event something went wrong with the the 301's, we had the opportunity to correct everything.
I know there are risks with moving the domain, but I think the positives outweigh them by a long shot.
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
-
Does redirecting from a "bad" domain "infect" the new domain?
Hi all, So a complicated question that requires a little background. I bought unseenjapan.com to serve as a legitimate news site about a year ago. Social media and content growth has been good. Unfortunately, one thing I didn't realize when I bought this domain was that it used to be a porn site. I've managed to muck out some of the damage already - primarily, I got major vendors like Macafee and OpenDNS to remove the "porn" categorization, which has unblocked the site at most schools & locations w/ public wifi. The sticky bit, however, is Google. Google has the domain filtered under SafeSearch, which means we're losing - and will continue to lose - a ton of organic traffic. I'm trying to figure out how to deal with this, and appeal the decision. Unfortunately, Google's Reconsideration Request form currently doesn't work unless your site has an existing manual action against it (mine does not). I've also heard such requests, even if I did figure out how to make them, often just get ignored for months on end. Now, I have a back up plan. I've registered unseen-japan.com, and I could just move my domain over to the new domain if I can't get this issue resolved. It would allow me to be on a domain with a clean history while not having to change my brand. But if I do that, and I set up 301 redirects from the former domain, will it simply cause the new domain to be perceived as an "adult" domain by Google? I.e., will the former URL's bad reputation carry over to the new one? I haven't made a decision one way or the other yet, so any insights are appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gaiaslastlaugh0 -
My Domain authority dropped 9 points... Does anyone have any suggestions to fix this significant drop.
My domain authority dropped by 9 points and I haven't done anything differently since the last scan. What is going on?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | infotrust20 -
Combining two existing sites into a single magento install
Hi, We run an online beauty ecommerce store and recently acquired one of our competitors. Their site runs on magento also, and they sell 70% the same product as us. We plan to merge the new site into our existing magento install but keep both sites looking exactly as they do now with different themes, different product names, product descriptions, product prices, category structures etc. In theory the customer would have no idea both sites from the same magento, they will look just as they do now. My question is, will google possibly slap the SERP's of either sites because we have combined them onto the same server and same magento install, even though nothing on either site actually changed on the front end. Both sites already have the same ownership information on the domain WHOIS, and a quick company search would reveal that we legally own both businesses under the same company. So it's not something we are trying to hide, we are open about it, and plan to continue running both sites long term, with each site being targeted to a slightly difference audience, with 30% different products at different price points. Has anyone done this before? Was there any SEO risks or SERP drops? Would love some advice on this matter before we make the move, the possible blow back is way too massive to do it without firm advice saying the risk is very low. Brad.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rec1230 -
Merging two different domains - subdomain or subfolder?
My company has two sites on different domains. We are considering merging the sites into one and keeping only the dominant domain. The dominate site is already a sub-domain of a larger organization so the new sub-domain would be two levels deep. I realize this is a little abstract so below is an example Dominant company site: company.root-domain.com Secondary company site: other-root-domain.com When they merge, everything will be on company.root-domain.com. Should it be other.company.root-domain.com or company.root-domain.com/other Note: The other site has several hundred pages. Both sites have strong authority and link profiles. I want to maintain as much of the value on the other site as possible with the merge.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEI0 -
Merging Sites: Will redirecting the old homepage to an internal page on the new site cause issues?
I've ended up with two sites which have similar content (but not duplicate) and target similar keywords, rather than trying to maintain two sites I would like to merge the sites together. The old site is more of a traditional niche site and targets a particular set of keywords on its homepage, the new site is more of an authority site with a magazine type homepage and targets the same set of keywords from an internal page. My question is: Should I redirect the old site's homepage to the relevant internal page on the new website...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lara_dar
...or should I redirect the old site's homepage to the new site's homepage? (the old site's homepage backlinks are a mixture of partial match keyword anchor text, naked URLs and branded anchor text) I am in two minds (a & b!) (a) Redirecting to the internal page would be great for ranking as there are some decent backlinks and the content is similar (b) But usually when you do a 301 redirect the homepage usually directs to the new homepage and some of the old site's links are related to the domain rather than the keyword (e.g. http://www.site.com) and some people will be looking for the site's homepage. What do you think? Your help is much appreciated (and hope this makes sense...!)0 -
Merging Domains... Sub-domains, Directories or Seperate Sites?
Hello! I am hoping you can help me decide the best path to take here... A little background: I'm moving to a new company that has three old domains (the oldest is 10 years old), which get a lot of traffic from their e-letters. Until recently they have not cared about SEO. So the websites have some structural, coding, URL and other issues. The sites are indexed, but have a problem getting crawled and/or indexed for new content - haven't delved into this yet but am certain I will be able to fix any of these issues. These three domains are PR4, PR4, PR5 and contain hundreds of unique articles. Here's the question... They want to move these three sites **to their main company site (PR4) and create sub domains for each one. ** I am wondering if this is a good idea or not. I have merged sites before (creating categories and/or directories) and the end result is that the ONE big site, is much for effective than TWO smaller, less authoritative sites. But the sub domain idea is something I am unsure about from an SEO perspective. Should we do this with sub domains? Or do you think we should keep the sites separate? How do Panda and Penguin play into this? Thanks in advance for the help! SD P.S. I'm not a huge advocate in using PR as a measurement tool, but since I can't reveal the actual domains, I figured I would list it as a reference point.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | essdee0 -
Move blog from subdomain to main domain on ecom site?
I am wondering what my fellow mozers think. Pretty set about my direction but want to get any other input to aid in my decision. Have an ecom site with a www.blog.maindomain.com. The blog is fairly new and no major rankings. There are only about 30 posts. This isn't a super competitive market and the blogging won't be a huge part of our content strategy but I would like to use it for passing juice etc. Would you go through the trouble to move the blog to www.site.com/blog and redirecting all the old content to new?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PEnterprises0 -
Are URL shorteners building domain authority everytime someone uses a link from their service?
My understanding of domain authority is that the more links pointing to any page / resource on a domain, the greater the overall domain authority (and weight passed from outbound links on the domain) is. Because URL shorteners create links on their own domain that redirect to an off-domain page but link "to" an on-domain URL, are they gaining domain authority each time someone publishes a shortened link from their service? Or does Google penalize these sites specifically, or links that redirect in general? Or am I missing something else?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jay.Neely0