My site just dropped significant!

[KasperGJ]

Just noticed that my website onlinecasting.co.za just dropped 50+ places on basically all the keywords I'm following.
I can also see, that today there almost havent been any new sign-ups so something happened.
I didnt change anything.

On issue, which might have something to do with it, is that I own several "copies" of the same site, just in different countries (domains). I host the websites myself, and they are all on the same server. The text and design in the same in some of the countries except that "jobs" are unique for the country.

I also have:
onlinecasting.ae (english)
onlinecasting.sg (english)
onlinecasting.mx
and more coming

So, could that be the reason, that google somehow now decided, that it wont accept the "allmost same site"?

[ChrisAshton]

I'd expect that content duplication is going to be a big part of it.

We know that you don't get "penalised" for duplicate content but you can expect a slide in rankings if the duplication is significant enough which I think it is in this case tbh.

There's also the link profiles to consider. From what I can see, some domains have 0 backlinks and others have a handful of low quality ones with little to no relevance to what you do.

In your shoes, I'd have to consider consolidating these sites into a single domain to remove duplication and give a single link profile to build. Turning the current 4 domains (and the "more coming"!) into strong sites that are likely to perform well in the SERPs would take a significant amount of time and effort.

It's true there are some benefits to having a specific site on the relevant TLD for each location but each site should be treated as a whole new campaign and so quadrupling the number of domains you're trying to rank also means quadruple the workload. 4x the campaign planning, 4x the unique content, 4x the link building effort etc.

[MikeGracia]

Agree with Chris on this for sure. I'd also add that you should use relevant hreflang tags to differentiate between the sites (or subfolders if consolidating into a single domain).

ccTLDs are fine if done right, but be sure that there's a valid reason (targeting a country) and use hreflang. Remember that you can't specific a country on it's own, you can either specify:

• A language on it's own
• A language AND a country
• NOT a country on it's own.

So, if you do stick with the ccTLD tactic, add the relevant rel alternate hreflang tags to all sites (including each having it's own self-pointing tag).

Or, as Chris mentions, merge into one gTLD and then I'd use subfolders for the country targeting (either ccTLD or gTLD option is valid, so long as it's done well and for the right reasons)

Hope this helps?

[BlueCorona]

Chris and Mike both make great points!

If you choose to consolidating under one domain, consider creating geo-targeted pages for each of the countries/service areas you want to make sure you're ranking for. The content can be similar to a point, but that way your website will still target the areas you care about.

Chris' point about the challenges of authority with multiple sites raises a great point, too. Get authority up through link building, social campaigns, etc, and you could see some positive changes.