I'm not sure where this should be posted, as it's SEO related, and PHP related. I also have no idea if this will work, or if it's already a common technique. I have domain.com, with similardomain.com parked on top. I'd like to use similardomain.com to show the same site as domain.com (same layout, pics etc), but with different text content, targeted towards a slightly different market. If I used php includes to serve different text depending on what domain was being used, would Google see this as 2 separate sites? e.g if URL = domain.com > index.php > includes domain.php "this website is about fruit, but mostly apples" if URL = similardomain.com > index.php > includes similardomain.php "this website is about fruit, but mostly ORANGES" So both domains have the same layout and design, but the majority of the actual text content will be different. I assume this is all possible by detecting the url in php. But is it worth doing? What will Google make of it? Is anyone doing this already?
It's not just the same template, it's the same file(s), on the same server - just with different php 'includes'. I'm just concerned that Google will know it's all coming from the same host and filter one of the domains. Surely somebody has tried this before?
Hosting 2 domains in the same place is ok, as long as the url's of each page are different and the content is different then you should be fine.
So why isn't everyone doing this? Or are they? You could have heaps of domains parked on a single hosting account, and then just use PHP includes to dish up a separate site for each URL. e.g my-honda.com > my-honda.com/index.php includes "honda.php" my-bmw.com > parked > my-honda.com/index.php includes "bmw.php" Somebody tell me the flaw in this before I really look like an nitwit
The flaw is that if you link between all the sites google will spot the links all come from the same IP address and devalue all links from that IP.
I think it's ok, many big sites use same template and same files but diferent text content due to language or other criteria.
I am quite sure it is ok. I don't think Google "don't like" all sites using (for example) phpnuke and similar domain (and even similar content). I think your sites are completely safe.
It's very good for branding, it's ok for search engines as long as there's enough difference (how much exactly is not known). From what I hear, you should be ok. And yes, interlinking is not going to do much good for SEO purposes if from the same IP, but it's ok for navigation purposes. In brief, you're doing right! No worries! Good luck!
Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm going to go ahead and try it. I've already written all the PHP/Smarty to include different pages - and have managed to get the 2 sites down to about 75% similar content. I'm hoping that if I get it down to around 50% Google will see 2 different sites. All the page titles, meta tags and page text are as different as I can make them - but the tricky thing is that the site is a directory, carrying the same links on both domains - so I guess I'll just order the links on each site in a different order and hope for the best. Seems like a lot of work just to save $ on hosting But it's kinda fun.
Well it's all done now - fingers crossed that G will see 2 different sites. Both sites are running off the same database, using the same files - the only difference is the php for the different colour styles and text. Spot the difference : www.mytourismguide.com www.mytourismdirectory.com Most pages are down to less than 50% duplicate - which I hope is enough to satisty the filter. Does anyone have a guesstimate on the % of duplicate content that is allowed?
My entire range of city pages( over 42,572 pages ) is produced with one file template that pulls information from a database. As far as I can tell all have been indexed. I think you have an interesting idea and would like to see the eventual results. As long as your intention is to deliver information and not to decieve you should be ok. IMO of course!