Semi-duplicate content yet authoritative site

[Veebs]

So I have 5 real estate sites.

One of those sites is of course the original, and it has more/better content on most of the pages than the other sites. I used to be top ranked for all of the subdivsion names in my town. Then when I did the next 2-4 sites, I had some sites doing better than others for certain keywords, and then I have 3 of those sites that are basically the same URL structures (besides the actual domain) and they aren't getting fed very many visits.  I have a couple of agents that work with me that I loaned my sites to to see if that would help since it would be a different name. My same youtube video is on each of the respective subdivision pages of my site and theirs. Also, their content is just rewritten content from mine about the same length of content.

I have looked over and seen a few of my competitors who only have one site and their URL structures arent good at all, and their content isn't good at all and a good bit of their pages rank higher than my main site which is very frustrating to say the least since they are actually copy cats to my site. I sort of started the precedent of content, mapping the neighborhood, how far that subdivision is from certain landmarks, and then shot a video of each. They have pretty much done the same thing and are now ahead of me.

What sort of advice could you give me? Right now, I have two sites that are almost duplicate in terms of a template and same subdivsions although I did change the content the best I could, and that site is still getting pretty good visits. I originally did it to try and dominate the first page of the SERPS and then Penguin and Panda came out and seemed to figure that game out. So now, I would still like to keep all the sites, but I'm assuming that would entail making them all unique, which seems to be tough seeing as though my town has the same subdivisions.

Curious as to what the suggestions would be, as I have put a lot of time into these sites.

If I post my site will it show up in the SERPS?

Thanks in advance

[rjonesx. 0]

Focus on one site for the time being and make it, without question, objectively, the best site in your area. Blow the competition out of the water. I'm talking thousands of words of content, interviews with neighborhood HOA members, guides to neighborhood schools, recommendations of local restaurants and businesses (great backlink opportunities, syndicated content from GreatSchools or other sites, etc. Literally make it so no other website even wants to compete with yours.  Be the best. Don't divide an conquer, just conquer.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi,

I would strongly urge you not to run multiple sites. If Google catches on to this, you will end up with a penalty for all of them. This would be seen as a way to try and 'game' the search engine by trying to find ways to get more exposure for keywords. What you will also find is that you are competing against your own sites in terms of keywords, which is never an area you want to get in to.

Look at it from Google's eyes - if they were to ask you why you have 5 sites, what would be your answer? I promise you that they wouldn't let you get away with it.

Best thing to do here is ditch all but one site and concentrate, as Russ suggests, on amazing content. Pull everything back to within one domain and create pages to target specific keywords, but don't make it spammy. Well researched content will win every time and can result in great SERP placements.

-Andy

[Veebs]

Thanks Russ,

That is pretty much what I ended up doing with my site, to where I made it a bit overwhelming for someone to compete with me and as I got super busy (because of the work that I did to my site) others have copied my sites and have started doing what I was doing. I still have higher Domain Authority than they do, and as I get more time like I have now, I will be doing more writing and researching, etc.  That has been my goal all along, the only problem is one of the other sites that I have one of my agents on, has a site, pretty similar to mine, but she still gets great leads and makes money off of the site, so I don't want to quickly can that site even though it's very similar to my site. Thoughts on that?

[Veebs]

Thanks Andy,

My thoughts here, as I just answered Russ, is that I will keep two sites (the two best performing ones, but go ahead and add great content to one, and that should help me, right? I ask because the other site that is similar is still getting moderately good traffic and it is a site for one of my other agents so it's not really tied to me, so by making my site better and better, it will make hers less and less similar right?