Duplicate exact match domains flagged by google - need help reinclusion

[Svetoslav]

No, I haven't. Thanks for sharing, David! I guess I'm doing it first thing tomorrow.

[Netboost]

it is time for you to spin your content and try and make the sites distinct from each other. Try it then ping the sites. If nothing changes after a month you will have to write a love letter to google.

[NickEubanks]

IMHO this is absolutely a content issue - opposed to spinning the content my suggestion would be to spent a little bit of $$ on having unique articles written targeting your top-level head and body keywords on each domain. You can get unique articles created for as little as $3 each using Odesk, Guru, or similar services - at this point I think spinning the content is not a great approach as Google has already recorded that these sites contain duplicate content and have been flagged as such, spent the money on some real content, re-work your post and page titles to reflect the new unique content, re-generate your sitemaps to include the new unique titles, and then re-submit

[caneja]

Are all of the domains being hosted under the same IP or have the same WHOIS info?  If so then I suggest you use different hosting providers (hence difference IP's) and change up the whois info for each of the domains (you can even use private).

[KeriMorgret]

Hi Ilya,

It's been a few months since your original question. Are you still looking for some advice regarding this? Or do you have something you could share with us about what you did and let us know what we should do or not do if we're in a similar situation?

Thanks!

[DanLaBate]

Google beat up real estate sites for the same reason.  City + homes for sale type sites where all that changed was the city, especially where the sites would create mini fact pages for each city to try and pull rank for that area keyword search.

Too many sites have used this technique and the market is saturated with such low quality sites.  Niche directories focusing on one city are better, but you need to watch the boiler plate content and also the listings you have need to contribute more to the conversation that just name, address telephone like the yellow pages.

I doubt that Google is penalizing you for using the sale template, as mentioned so many sites use WordPress themes where the code structure is identical, and they are doing fine. I am curious if you are interlinking the websites.

Good content, usefulness and fresh contributions to the site will always be a good recipe.  Fix and request re-inclusion and your shouldn't have a problem.

[Thos003]

Guilty!... and it takes one to know one.

You may have little chance of redeeming those sites. 301 redirects seem to wipe the crap clean. So you get the traffic and some of the link juice.

Or...

Pass the website on. Give it to someone else... Change the registration.

..... As an added note, I once heard Matt Cutts say, "Why would you want to buy one of these (burned) sites? Why wouldn't you start over with a new site? Then at least you are at ground zero instead of in a hole."

[nyanainc]

Friend, dont spin or what ever, Create unique and useful content. Pandas crunch you...

[nyanainc]

One question, are you using seo hosting also or they are all hosted in the same IP also?

[JohannNortje]

I would also start by identifying the sites that brought the most traffic or money, I presume you running Adsense on these sites (side note also remember to have less ads above the fold since last layout update from Google).

The sites that are performing the best would be the ones I start with first when it comes to redesigning and making sure there is no further inter linking to the other sites.

Also make sure they are different CLASS C IP's.

[elagaan]

Yeah I would like to see any pointers towards #2, my competition is using these black hat techniques and we would like to see the best way to compete with them!

[BryanCasson]

Not the best idea, Google will hunt you down and shut you down, my guess is that they may even track you over multiple Google accounts and closely watch any related material. This is black hat all the way, I spend my life reporting pages like yours and get them shut down as quick as possible, they are viruses and have no reason to be in the results as they offer absolutely nothing to user experience. The only thing they give value to is your own pocket. There are Google Quality experts that are likely watching your sites like a hawk, my guess is that your re-inclusion requests will never be granted. I don't mean to be so blunt.. actually I do. What value are your bringing to the users?

[ilyaelbert]

No, they were red flagged on Webmaster Tools. It says your site has violated google guidelines.

I'm guessing that means its a manual penalty?

[ilyaelbert]

They're split up over 5-6 hosts...but identical WHOIS info......so there's maybe 20-30 per hosting account.

[ilyaelbert]

What value? Same as ServiceMagic for instance...........We have as much right to be in a city as a local 'plumber'. What does a user in Montana care if the website looks the same as the one in New York?

[ilyaelbert]

Link profile and exact match. I was able to grab the equivalent of plumberlosangeles in every major city in the country. They were #1 for new york, la, houston, philly, etc.....This was a 7 figure gross generating adventure.

[BryanCasson]

If you want to target multiple locations then do it properly, do not duplicate your site over ever state, rather create a unique website with its own content that is more relevant to the location you are targeting. If they are unique enough then Google may consider them as you have put the time and effort into making them different. This also includes local phone numbers in each state to show that you are actually in the state.

As for "What does a user in Montana care if the website looks the same as the one in New York?" - The problem is that local search may not dominate the right way in every state so the poor user in California see's 7 sites that all lead to the same place. This now becomes spam that annoys the hell out of the user. It is all about quality, 50+ pages all leading to the same place will result in a low quality experience to the users therefor will likely be denied.

[Court_H]

I have to agree with some of the other responses. Google is really cracking down on duplicate content and code.  It is time consuming to to write new content and redesign the sites, but you have to weigh the costs.  If the site is your livelihood then is worth working on it to get back in Google's good books.  If it is a site that you have created to get link juice then maybe you shouldn't put the time and effort into it.

[Khem_Raj7]

yes, I also want to see

[Ascedia]

Still mixing a lot of fact and fiction. Exact match domains still work. People have been saying that Google is 'going after' them, but that's not really true. There are plenty of exact match domains out there that are legitimate and separating the good guys from the bad guys is not going to happen at the domain level, doesn't make sense. Also, please keep in mind what the duplicate penalty content is for and how it's used. Having you site drop after an algo shift is not uncommon. I know plenty of domain farmers (in the 2 million+ domain range) and the biggest issues they face is bad rankings because of lack of content, overly aggressive link building, link wheels, etc).

I believe that a warning in GWT means it's been flagged for a manual review, but might be totally wrong about that. In the 15 years that I have been doing this, I have never been warned or received an email about unnatural link building.

I am currently chasing a link spammer/domain squatter right now so I can attest that those methods still work just fine if you know what you're doing. Once your site makes it in front of a human, its simple to figure out what other sites you have and what you are up to. Setting up single sites with different WHOIS info, different CBlocks, unique links, unique content, is extremely time consuming.

I have found that I make  a lot more money focusing on a handful of sites and making them as best as possible, than I do managing 100s of sites with spun content, crappy links etc.

Start thinking out side the box to get real visitors coming to the site and interacting, social signals are a huge part of search. Look at microformats and push reviews, give people a reason to interact and refer other people. City directories and sites like that still have a place in the search engines.

If these sites really make money, I would go after local search because of the city name. I guess it depends on what you think a lot of money is. If all else fails, find a local biz that sells or caters to your KW and try to sell them the domain, especially if its already getting traffic.