Microsite and main website alternate in rankings
-
Hi all,
I just noticed a potential issue with our websites. We have two ecommerce websites, one is a very large one selling all sorts of products, while the microsite focuses on a small segment of products. All products sold on the microsite are also sold on the main website. In the beginning of September, we upgraded the microsite to the same script that the main website uses to make it mobile friendly and update the design. They now look very similar.
Before, both websites used to rank on page 1 for a specific keyword. I have noticed that since we upgraded the microsite, the two websites have been taking turns ranking for the keyword. For a few weeks the microsite ranks and the main website doesn't rank for the keyword. Then for a few weeks only the main website ranks and the microsite doesn't.
I think the reason this is happening is that Google understands that the content is the same and the websites are both owned by the same company. Fair enough.
-
I remember reading an article about this phenomenon before but can't remember where. Does anyone know which article I'm talking about (it would have been on an SEO blog/website, e.g. Moz, SEJ, SE Roundtable etc)? I'm not even sure what this phenomenon is called.
-
If we can only have one of the pages rank, we would prefer it to be the microsite at all times. Would a canonical tag on the main website referring to the URL on the microsite fix this?
-
I think at the moment the product descriptions are either very similar or identical. Would it help to make them more different to get both to rank again if that is what we wanted to do? In the end it is still the same product being sold by the same company - after Google has already sort of merged the two, would they "un-merge" them if the content was more different?
Thanks in advance!
-
-
Hi Dmitrii,
Thanks, yeah we have canonicals which are self-referencing for products, so I will need to find out if we are able to manually change it on one URL.
The content on both pages is identical, which isn't great for SEO, I know. We sell a lot of (15k+) products and have one person writing product descriptions so we aren't always able to make sure the content is unique (although we do write our own descriptions, not copying the ones provided by suppliers). For the websites as a whole, the product descriptions on the microsite (where we sell about 30 products) are probably all either identical or extremely similar to the main website, but all other content is unique and of course the main website has lots more content that is unique to it, so there is just a small overlap, but for the page in question, it is probably 99% duplicate.
Personally, I'd be happy if just the microsite ranked for the keyword, but will need to discuss internally whether we want to put in the extra effort of making all product descriptions unique on the microsite.
As for relevant links, I think the microsite should have more, as it generally performs much better for keywords related specifically to its niche (which is why I don't like that it's not ranking at all for this keyword just now).
Thanks again.
-
Howdy.
It seems to me that you have duplicate content issues. Do you guys have any canonicals at all? How close is the content from one website to another?
So, if you want both websites to rank for the same product, which seems a bit pointless to me, since you'll have to double up all the efforts, budgets etc, you would need to have unique content on both sites, unique descriptions, all meta tags etc.
If you want only one to rank, then yes, canonical will do it. Also the link mass will have a lot of effect. Basically, if your large site has let's say 100 times more links with relevant anchor texts and from relevant websites, it can still be ranking over the microsite.
Hope this helps
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
-
Ranking keywords
Is there a way to utilize our currently ranking keywords. I don't think editing the url would be a good idea. What areas of these pages should we improve? Or is it better not to do anything.
On-Page Optimization | | Timberwink0 -
How can I redirect anything after the article url to main article?
Hello everyone, When someone visits my websites article like http://www.website.com/article-title/lol , it give to 404 page error. But when someone http://www.website.com/article-title/ , it shows the article. The word "lol" can be changed to anything. I would like that to be redirected to the main article. Example: Someone visits website.com/article-title/lol, they should be redirected to website.com/article-title/ Is it possible to do so? If yes, please tell me how. Note: I'm using WordPress Thank you
On-Page Optimization | | hakhan2011 -
H1 tags are ok for my website?
Please review the H1 tags for my website and let me know if they are ok or I need to change them? Website - brandstenmedia.com.au
On-Page Optimization | | Green.landon0 -
WP tag ranking higher than desired page
I have a WordPress site and my question is regarding one of the KW I am targeting. I have tagged some of my blog posts with this KW which has successfully placed me on page 1 of Google for the KW. However the page displays all of the blog posts in the summarised format. The page appears as mysite.com/tag/KW This isn’t too bad as it brings the customer to my site however I have a much preferred page on my site that is optimized for this kw and I would rather them land on this. This is a page as opposed to a post therefore there are no tags attached to it (i guess you knew that). It isn’t a very difficult keyword to rank for as it’s a service in a local area. If I remove the blog tags is there a chance that Google will place my preferred optimised page higher? Is Google saying that the tag page is a better match for the browser therefore will not rank the preferred page? Hope I’m making sense. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | cjkimber0 -
Entire subfolder not ranking.
I'm currently running an ecommerce site on which an entire subfolder namely the: /category/ extension is not ranking for any keywords.The category pages are being indexed within Google. Pages with very similar content are however being ranked for keywords on extensions such as /pages/, I created a new page to test this and within a week it was ranking for the keywords where /category/ pages have not for months. I was wondering if anyone had come across this issue before and had any solutions or suggestions? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | JMoran0 -
Same pdf attachments placed on more websites good for seo?
Hi I would like to ask if it is duplicate content if I place on my website article with pdf attachment-the same pdf attachment is placed on more websites. Worldwide company made article (short article and some photos) with special offer in pdf, this pdf file is placed on more sites. How google handle with this file? Can google read text inside?
On-Page Optimization | | joeko0 -
Stumped on why Google is not showing main site pages anymore
Recently had sites homepage listing taken off first page for brand name search even though search term is not competitive. Does anyone have any ideas?
On-Page Optimization | | Luia0 -
AB Testing - Organic Rank
Hello, Currently We are running an A/B test on a few pages, the footer and the header on our site. I was wondering what is the proper way to do an a/b test so that our google rankings won’t fall and that Google will only index one version at this time? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Tonyd230