Duplicate content

[Hazel_Key]

I have one client with two domains, identical products to appear on both domains. How should I handle this?

[alexspur]

If I understand correctly you should see which one has indexed pages that come as top results when you search for them. Choose the better ranking domain and just re-direct the other one. If both are not indexed and not ranking at all just get rid of one of them.

[effectdigital]

This is good advice. Canonical tags would be a weak fallback compared with picking where you want to spend your efforts and choosing one 'main' site. As such, just like Alex has suggested - redirects and site consolidation are probably the best bet (this would also bind the backlinks for both domains, to one domain)

This could end up being pretty technical depending upon current site(s) performance. If it's done incorrectly (e.g: using 302s instead of 301s) then it could be a disaster

Alex's advice is right but just make sure you're careful how you approach this

[NickSamuel]

Assuming they have 100% duplicate content and products then Alex and Effect's suggestion to just pick one and 301 redirect would make the most sense.

However, if there is only minor overlap between the two sites and both operate in different markets, then simply remove the offending products from one of the websites with the less relevancy!

Good luck Hazel, let us all know what you're planning to do and if there's any other questions

[Hazel_Key]

Thank you, wise advice. I think you're right, it's part marketing/branding and part technical. I think the marketing strategy for the two sites does, naturally differ, and I will see if I can use it, otherwise consider the 301 redirect route.