Hi, Basically, I'm developing a website for solely UK public, with .co.uk domain, but then I also want to develop the same type of website for US audience with .com domain (the same one). The website is almost identical, with some slight changes (i.e. advice for Americans how to get into UK industry, then the rest of the content is identical to what is being advised to UK public). How do I approach this? How is Google going to look at such a thing, when there's a .com website that has about 70% of the content of .co.uk website? Am I going to get penalized, and if so -- what's the best way to go in this situation? Thanks!
try to differentiate you content from each other if same content is found on your both side then you will get penalty from google.
Bit of a tricky question but I'd probably recommend yopu set the .com up as the main site and only include relevant .co.uk on that site. Inlink the 2 sites where nessecary. While Google has said they don't like webmasters linking between their own sites, they have clarrified that it is OK, IF you are providing value to your end users.
If both websites have 70% content duplicate than You will get penalized. You need to put 100% unique content on both websites.
Yes as far as the content is concerned then it should be unique for each site otherwise you might get penalized by google.
after panda updatation duplicate content is not allowed by google. Content will be 100% unique and CS passed. Thanks
I think you should concentrate on one website and do not separate the two by creating the same content. Create only an additional section for Americans. Another solution could be the creation of the domain .com and put there landing page where you give information to Americans and redirect them to a page with .co.uk.
You're better off to write the content for the new site from scratch. Plus, don't host these sites on same IP and use different domain company. Basically, you shouldn't associate these two together. It is our opinion and it doesn't mean it will work best, but at least you have tried everything you can do in order to be stable.
lol, that is not a subdomain. A subdomain would look like this: uk.yoursite.com or us.yoursite.com. The idea of using subdomains also adds no value over he proposed idea of using two separate domains since subdomains are treated as separate domains by Google. He might as well use the two domains he wanted. It is a worthless suggestion.
Based on your post agreeing and the guy who described it wrong, I would say both of you. But the real point was that it does not add anything over the idea he came with of using two separate domains. Using 2 domains or using a domain and a subdomain are the same in the eyes of Google.
I agree with this poster. It's better to either have two diverse businesses functioning in two different countries or to have a main site in the US and have a sub domain for the UK site. The thing is if you want to have two sites for the same business, you WILL end up duplicating a lot of content.
You should not have an issue if you target the .com specifically to the United States using Google Webmaster tools. Although the content may be similar, because you are targeting a different region it is deemed to be OK especially if it is not exactly the same. "Websites that provide content for different regions and in different languages sometimes create content that is the same or similar but available on different URLs. This is generally not a problem as long as the content is for different users in different countries. While we strongly recommend that you provide unique content for each different group of users, we understand that this may not always be possible." Source:http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=182192#3