Duplicate content issue

[conversal]

Hi,

A client of ours has one URL for the moment (https://aalst.mobilepoint.be/) and wants to create a second one with exactly the same content (https://deinze.mobilepoint.be/). Will that mean Google punishes the second one because of duplicate content?

What are the recommendations?

[slatronica]

For the second/duplicate page set the canonical to the page with original content. Is it just a vanity URL that you need  or is there something different on the page? a 301 may be a better choice to offer a vanity URL.

More here about your options with duplicate content: https://moz.com/learn/seo/duplicate-content

[ThompsonPaul]

Search engines don't "punish" for duplicate content. But what does happen is you make it very hard and confusing for them to decide which version of the duplicated content is more important and more valuable. As  a result, often neither does very well in rankings as they end up competing against and diluting each other..

What is the thinking around why having exactly the same content on two different sites for two different towns is useful and beneficial for a search visitor?

Paul

[JackSaville]

Hi all,

If you are trying to target two different locations then try to personalise the content for each location. Maybe stats on which phone model is most popular in each place.

If the sub domains will be exact copies, then rel=canonical one to the other.

thanks