Omitted Results city-queries for the same brand on different subdomains?

[GSO]

I've noticed on a few occasions where two subdomains share the same brand and are also attempting to rank for phrases specific to one city - the stronger subdomain tends to send the other subdomain to the "omitted search results" for those city specific queries. The subdomains do tend to have some duplicate content that they share but if the two pages on the different subdomains are unique for the search phrase in question wouldn't Google choose to surface both results?

Or is this a question of domain diversity in the SERPs where the 2 results would just be too similar since they share the same root domain and have topically similar content?

I've seen cases where they can share the first page of results but more often than not it seems that one is sent to the "omitted results".

Any thoughts on strategy in this situation?

• The companies being described end up wanting to rank for the same city because they both serve a portion of the city in case anyone is wondering.

[RyanPurkey]

The trend towards SERPs displaying distinctly different domains has been a steady one.  Maybe if you google something as dominant as "Google" you'll see a few subdomains... maps.google.com, translate.google.com... but in general the power of a subdomain isn't nearly enough to overcome the next competitor / diversity of results.

As far as strategy goes, I wouldn't plan on dominating the SERPs with results 1-5, instead being one or two click attainable from the results within a given search is a better measurement of penetration. For example, if someone searching for your product gets:

1. Your page
2. An independent, positive review of your product
3. Image results featuring your product multiple times
4. A competitor
5. Another review of your product
6. ....

You're doing exceptionally well.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi GSO,

I'm having a bit of trouble getting my head around why there are different subdomains for the same city and brand. Normally, I see subdomains being used on local sites to differentiate between cities, not for the same city. I feel there's something I'm not quite understanding about your situation. Would be be able to provide a hypothetical example of how these have been divided up and why?

[GSO]

Hi Miriam,

So the company in question chose a structure where they divide territories by zipcodes and create a new subdomain for every business owner. This structure tends to get them into trouble for larger cities where multiple business owners own territory pieces. The structure is definitely the larger issue but seeing as I have no control over that I'm trying to work with what I have haha.

An example would be=  scottsdale.rootdomain.com and a scottsdale-north.rootdomain.com

Both subdomains end up wanting to rank for Scottsdale.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi GSO!

Thanks for the further info on this. So, the typical structure for this would be that you would have 1 unique page per physical location the business operates, backed up by a unique set of citations for each of these physical locations and would then rely on Google to surface the location that is deemed nearest or most relevant to the searcher. If you have multiple physical locations within the same city, this is an ideal opportunity for thinking hyperlocally, and I believe you will find my latest Moz Blog post to be helpful in understanding this type of marketing mindset:

http://moz.com/blog/mastering-serving-the-user-as-centroid

Remember, whether you are structuring this with subdomains or subfolders, the landing page for each physical location needs to be completely unique. There is no good excuse for duplicating content on these pages. My rule of thumb on this is that if you can't devote the energy to making these landing pages really strong and unique, don't make them at all.

Given that one of the reasons Google omits results is to weed out things that are too similar, this is all the more reason for the business in question to overhaul their pages to be sure they are unique. That being said, understanding the user-as-centroid scenario is going to be very important for this business, so that they will be encouraged to promote each location equally and then leave it up to Google to pick the results they feel are either nearest or most relevant to each given user.

[GSO]

Great blog post Miriam, and thank you very much for the response!