I have been asked to do some SEO work on a website, which I have spent the last few months doing. The results seem to be working for the other search engines but instead of it going up the charts in Google its virtually disappeared. The company insist that they have not had any other work done on it but they have told me that they have 14 other websites that are identical in design apart from the wording that advertises a different product. The sites are just one page in design and are there just to advertise a single product that link to the site that I am working on. My question is will these 14 other sites have a positive effect on the main site or a real negitive effect? I would like to hear your views on this please and any tips on what I can do with these sites to improve the main site/shop to improve there position in the search engines. Thank you.
IMO, 14 slightly similar websites that endorses products from a single website doesn't really look natural. Google might look at 'em and say these websites are created just for the sake of advertising instead of providing useful information for users. That's quite a lot of websites. It may have a slight diluting effect on the main website or none at all but for those 14 sites, they'll have a hard time ranking in Google and prolly would just end up being a waste. I'd suggest that they should resort to SMO (Social Media Optimisation) if they want to get their products seen by people. This increases visibility which could lead to more users discovering their products and thus, more conversions.
Google will be able to identify these 14 sites within no time. So it is better to concentrate on other seo methods than wasting your time on these spammy websites.
I think it wont ruin your main website, because if it does I would create the same for my competitor. Just a thing to remember that never inter-link these websites with each other.
Hi, completely agree with your point, if its possible then lots of people created duplicate sites and harm original one. Check penalty of site first of all, some times over optimization cause penalty.
Just avoid linking your websites with other 14 websites as it is not good as far ranking in search engines are concerned and this may end up as duplicate websites, not at all useful for users nor for search engines.
Basically the 14 mini-sites are doorway pages then. I would leave them alone for right now, and over time drop them one by one. As for virtually disappearing from G results, be patient. This happens as a result of link building. The site is usually back within 10 days.