Use multiple sites with same content but different sets of keywords in url and slightly different keyword lists?

[Nanook1]

This post is deleted!

[LeeC]

I might be talking out of line here (as I'm no expert on seo) but I'm sure Google gives a lot less authority for backlinks that occupy the same server (assuming the other sites do occupy the same server) to stop the multiple site tactic? No doubt someone will corraborate or discount.

Personally I feel very uneasy about these types of tactics, rather perhaps concentrate all of your efforts on your main domain but increase the quality of the content, also look into using long tails, I've found these result in lots of better targetted traffic.

I'm not sure but this might even be classified as web spam?

[MonicaOConnor]

Very recently, google has started to devalue Exact Match Domains, or domains that have exact matches to keywords in them.

In my professional opinion, your problem seems to be content itself. When is the last time you updated your content or built fresh backlinks? If you have tons of duplicate content the engines are not seeing you as relevant in your area of expertise. While you are redesigning your website i strongly encourage you to write uniquely valuable content. Get something on your site that your potential clients can't find somewhere else on the web and that will answer their search query. Maybe take a look at your keyword list and see if it might be time to update that list. If you have no solid, valuable content on your site you cannot be successful in a competitive market.

[LeeC]

Yes that's a crucial point you made there Monica.

Site content contains very little "about the business" and more content "about the line of business." Your goal is to attract as many visitors as you can with content that they find helpful, that will establish you as an expert and through these pages, funnel them to your business pages.

Hope that makes sense, its classic marketing really, using content to prove expertise and establish trust.

[Nanook1]

Thanks to everyone for the comments and suggestions.

So, to be sure I am doing this correctly. I am building a totally new site. I will probably continue to use my primary domain name, even though it really has no relationship to my business in terms of key words. It has been out there for over 20 years and has domain authority of either 18 or 30 and authority of 21. The domain authority of 18 or 30 depends on whether you are talking about XXXX.com or XXXX.com/index.html. Obviously this is another issue that I need to address. I have an early version of the new site out there on the net, and Moz is telling me that I have a problem with duplicate pages. It is the same issue, YYY.com or YYY.com/index.html. (This is a new domain name that I am presently only using for testing, although it does contain excellent keywords in the domain name.)

My next question refers to 301 redirects or canonical. I suspect canonical is easier. The question is, which is the best canonical page, YYY.com or YYY.com/indexhtml? I assume YYY.com, since there will be many other pages such as YYY.com/info.html, YYY.com/services.html, etc.

My plan is to make many pages that will refer to various services that are also keywords, such as YYY.com/keyword-phrase-A.html, yyy.com/keyword-phrase-B.html, etc. I assume this is the best way. Also, I will have a number of instructional white-papers that will be keyword rich.