A Tale of Two (Competing) Domains

[UEUP]

Bit of a weird one but I'm hoping someone can help our team of two sort it out. I'm a copywriter/marketer who's been learning SEO on-the-go, along with our web developer, for the past ~9 months.

We've inherited what I consider to be a mess of a situation involving two main e-commerce sites. The company has a sporadic history of spinning off brands, in hopes to either build business in a new market or sell the brands off or what-have-you. The original company rose to prominence manufacturing disc packaging and selling it to software companies, which has obviously been on the way out for some time now. So they've dipped into a handful of other business products for marketing/office use.

The company used to sell all products, in individual AND box quantity, on one site (since 1996). In 2012 they decided to move individual quantity sales to a different site with the domain name of one of the brands, focus it more on consumers and small business, etc. We have more flexibility to make changes to the consumer site, so in my opinion it's in better shape.

The consumer site (DA 39) offers "retail pricing" with flat rate shipping and free shipping over $25. The b2b site (DA 37) offers "industry pricing" with a weight-based shipping model. Traffic on the business site is down 70% since 2010. We've also been asked to take certain products down in hopes that viewers will pick up the phone and buy a customized version from a sales rep instead.

Since probably 3/4 of the products are on both sites, nearly all the category and product pages are competing in SERPs. Not only that, but the business site's product pages invariably link to the corresponding page on the consumer site -- hundreds of links pointing to the consumer site. We know for a fact that people are price checking product+shipping between our own two sites.

The issues are further exacerbated because we have even more spinoff domains -- an informative site for a particularly successful product line, an e-commerce site just for vinyl products, etc. etc.

So I guess I'm trying to figure out how to make the most of the situation we're now in. Our hands are somewhat tied because we're not 'decision makers'. But we've got a meeting tomorrow to talk about the future of one of the sites, so I figure I at least want to be informed. I am concerned about making further decisions without considering the consequences, especially when our bonuses are tied to web sales...

I feel like this is just scratching the surface of the problem so let me know if you guys have further questions.

[jesse-landry]

You need to combine these sites into one authoritative domain. You've spread yourselves thin, not to mention are most likely in violation of Google's guidelines.

Forgetting about the latter for a moment, think about the split domain authorities between your two prominent sites. Wouldn't it be nice to have those combined? (Of course keep in mind 1+1 will not equal 2 here, but you get my point.)

If you look through Google's webmaster guidelines you will see the part about having multiple domains selling/promoting the same product or service. That is what you are doing. There's a good chance one or both of your sites gets banned from SERPs if Google finds out about this.

It is also just going to be so much easier to create content, market, and SEO for one singular domain. You can attack different verticals from it, you can redirect everything (via 301 unless you have penalties that will carry) back to it, and continue your strategy to gain new markets. But competing with yourself isn't doing you any favors. You're absolutely correct to question the logic here.

I've fought this battle before and it's not an easy one. CEOs are not easily convinced that starting multiple brands is a bad idea. They have a funny way of reasoning it. However, you need to assert your knowledge. That is what they hired you for.

Good luck!

[UEUP]

Thanks for the response. Seems like my question is really more of a "dealing with executives" type deal than anything technical. I think having the Google Webmaster guidelines as evidence will be helpful, though I can already hear the refutation: "We've been doing it since well before you got here, so why would we get in trouble for it now?"

I think my silver bullet will have to appeal more to whether something will lead to making more/less money (SEO implications be damned).

Maybe I can successfully suggest moving the consumer site into a subdomain of the business site and only keeping the consumer-focused items on the subdomain... but then there's still two shopping carts, two designs, and so on. It's a mess.

[jesse-landry]

You're absolutely right. As I said, I've gone down this exact same road before and that's exactly what was asked of me. My response was that Google has beefed up their penalty policies, reference eBay, BMW, and so on (big brands are not immune), and that you do seem to have a penalty already hitting you.

The site ranking drop in particular: Have you looked at your GWT to see if there are any manual notices? If it's a penalty and you need to submit a reconsideration request, that's your opportunity. Tell them that when you do that they will be going over your site with a fine-tooth comb. (Again this may be stretching the truth but we have to get them to understand what we know to be correct.)

The best course of action in this conversation that will be 100% truth is to explain how merging the brands will benefit your SEO. Explain that you can incorporate different vertical targets within the same domain and create content more finely tuned for each. Come up with a specific site map and present it in a purdy picture. domain.com/vertical-target etc

Show what it will look like and then explain how having all your backlinks pointing to one domain will benefit the domain and company and help you to outrank your competitors rather than spreading it out between two. This should sell them more than the penalty fear.

Good luck!

[UEUP]

Wasn't a total bust except for the following:

"One site is a for a lifestyle brand that sells to consumers, the other sells packaging to businesses ('but product overlap!' I say). The Limited sells Victoria's Secret and Bath and Body Works on separate sites. If they didn't they'd just be JC Penney."

[jesse-landry]

I tried to confirm that example and came up short. Were you able to?

This is so funny to me because I've literally had this exact same argument at executive meetings. I've lived this nightmare!

It doesn't matter that the two brands target different verticals. What matters is the product, as you've pointed out. You can target different verticals from the same domain. But competing domains are a no-no.

I would go back to focusing on how beneficial it would be to combine these. Try the concept of subdomains with them. So have a parent brand let's call it just that, 'parent.'

Then you will have your consumer vertical and your smb vertical, right? so you can go consumer.parent.com and smb.parent.com -- Have them branded differently but not violate Google guidelines while still bettering your SEO situation and improving DA/organic traffic and visibility.

Does that pitch make sense at the high level I threw it? Could you run with that?

I'd track down their examples also as that doesn't sound right to me. My CEO threw me examples and I shot them down on the spot when this happened to me.

Don't give up! You know you're right