Multi Company websites

[AymanH]

Hello SEO community !

Hope you'll have some good advice for this project.

I'm working for a group of companies just starting its SEO experience.

Nowadays they have 10 different websites with different names and pretty much the same objectives.

So basicly,

> Would it be better to gather all website under one adress with subdomains ?

They want to display almost the same info, blogs and products.. It make dupplicate content a real pain and Social Media strategy a nightmare.

More info:

• 10 websites for 8 subsidiaries, 1 holding, 1 online shop

• Each subisdiary has english + its proper language

• They want regular posts and info updates (blogs, newsletters)

• They don't have all the same name

• They all do the same activity

• Online shop is full a product keywords

Ideas:

• Working on the holding website as mother ship - for branding (social media), actu (blogs), CM (videos, and more)-

• Displaying the online shop products in all websites (xml)

• Diplaying blog updates (no full message) via xml on all websites

• Linking all websites to the blog, shop and holding

Tks a lot !

[DukeTanson]

It might be worth fleshing out your question a little bit. Here are a couple of questions that might help get a good answer for the community.

1. are the 10 websites for 10 different languages?
2. if you say display almost the same info,blogs, products.. do you mean, same content but different languages?

A bit more information from you might facilitate answers.

[AymanH]

Hello !

Tks u for your reply. I've just updated the post

[Andy.Drinkwater]

As you already know, duplicated content is a real problem and you want to stay away even from content that is too similar as this can also get you a penalty.

As for how it is best to develop, you have 3 options:

• 10 x individual websites
• 1 x primary, 1 shop and 8 x Subdomains
• 1 x primary, 1 shop and 8 x Country specific folders

Where possible, I always try and opt for the first option, just simply because it really does allow you to give a larger degree of separation to country-specific websites.

But the problem, no matter which way you turn, is the same / similar content. This will get hammered by Google if it is too similar - the same goes for pages with 'thin' content that serves no real purpose.

There are so many questions with different outcomes here such as do the holding sites require the same level of SEO?

Andy

[AymanH]

Thanks for your help !

Actually my initial idea was to work more on the shop website as mother ship.

The holding could be another idea but SEO is less important and shop has more releavant keywords.

My concern is that some parts are really similar: activities, selling, newsletters, news.

Even with different content it's hard to work on each individual website with no close content.

On the following link http://awesomescreenshot.com/062k3no53 is my initial idea:

1 important website

Menu link to a common blog (sub domain of the shop ?)

Menu link to a common shop (sub domain of the holding ?)

The biggest deals are:

To get a smart global project

Get similar website with no dupplicate content

Get the best way to promote news, social medias for the group (1 , 111)

It's could case because I'm sure that many of us are facing the same problems.

062k3no53

[DukeTanson]

Why don't you go with a subdomain and have the appropriate rel="alternate" hereflang= set up?

<colgroup><col width="340"></colgroup>

[TheeDigital]

One of our in-house marketers was in a similar situation about a year ago.  Here's what we can say.1) Find out as much information about the company as you can and take a look at their analytics.  Does one website drive traffic more than the others?  Is one more important to the client?  Find out what drives the revenue of the company and start there.  It might be more important to invest money and time from in the top website and trickle down...
2)  Subdomains would probably be the best, but that's not always an option according to the client, we understand.
3) Are all of these websites different brands or just different websites?  For example Burgers.com and Hamburgers.com.  If they're the same site, you definitely need to change them at least cosmetically.  Make sure that they have different call to actions, etc.  Think of it as an A+B test and go from there.  Be creative.  Make one website green and one blue, and always keep in mind duplicant content.

[AymanH]

Hello

Tks for your return.

But it looks difficult to get "fresh" content for 11 websites and good SM strategy for 11 brands name.

" subdomain and have the appropriate rel="alternate" hereflang= set up?" is also a good alternative, but not always possible (see below)

3°) The biggest issue is that 1 or 2 websites have very different names.

I really think about doing the following:

> Holding website can be an open gate with little info and redirections regarding your country.

> Shop will make more money, so needs more attention (main website)

** > Blog in sub domain of the shop**

-> But how be sure the blog posts will benefit to all websites (sounds impossible)

-> Maybe with some regular articles speaking and linking into other company websites (a specific product or news) ?

-> Sub domain will have less impact on SEO that the full shop domain

> All subsidiary websites with the same template but different languages (not just translation but re writing in the local idiom)

-> But issue is that some website deserve up to 15 countries with different languages

-> So English version has to be in every website which looks like super time consuming to rewrite pretty much the same with different words

[AymanH]

You mean to display just one subsidiary website regarding the default language ?

By the way does someone know any good post on the sub domain links with the main domain ?