Whitelabel stores and consequences for SEO

[EuropeanSEOguy]

Hello

I have a very important question to you. We are planning to a open 2 – 5 “whitelabel” web shops in each country that run on the same platform  and server (Demandware) as our current web sites. Each white label site will have own domain.

The product selection will be identical and prices will be identical, but the sites will be branded differently with other logo and colors and name for the store.

The question is about the consequences for SEO for such project.

• What are the risks for the rankings for us, if the whitelabel products have same product descriptions and names as our existing web shop has?
• Will it affect our rankings?
• How would google rank 3 whitelabel stores that have own domains but otherwise identical product content?
• What is the minimal that should be changed from SEO point of view in order to avoid Google penalties or ranking problems?

Looking forward to hear from you

Greetings,
Rolf

[TellThemEverything]

I haven't done this personally, so this is pure conjecture - but I would be a little concerned if the sites were mainly identical (layout, content, products) and running on the same (or very close) IP address. Who knows when/if it could be found, but this would be quite easy for Google to track and potentially treat as duplicate content. You may not see any effect now, but for the long-term I'd try to think of alternative strategies..

If they were treated as duplicates, then typically Google will pick one and hide the others from SERPs

[baptisteplace]

Hi Rolf,

Making 2 - 5 whitelabel shops target to the exact same market is a bad idea. You should at least target different niches or users.

Anyway if you plan on doing replicas of the site, you will have to change every texts on the different sites. I recommend to change the HTML and everything that could link the different sites.

This is a difficult task however, SERP domination is extremely hard.

[KeriMorgret]

Hi! We're going through some of the older unanswered questions and seeing if people still have questions or if they've gone ahead and implemented something and have any lessons to share with us. Can you give an update, or mark your question as answered?

Thanks!