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As per guidelines, I  don't think there's a problem either way. Algorithmicly, it seems like it would take some time to build up the authority of the new site but that would be normal. I still think you may have an address issue with GMB, though.

I think I'd be more concerned about your google my business than the overlap in the sites, especially if the content is different. But, have you or the client examined the backlinks and authority of the other sites using similar tactics? The bottom of the search results is chock full of sites who used some tactic or another because they thought that was what was working for a competitor, when, in fact, it wasn't.

You would need different phone numbers and physical addresses to differentiate the "two" businesses in GMB.

Hein,

More sites optimized for specific keywords = more competitive, even if the keyword is not very often searched. "purple and black widgets" for example my have 1000 sites "optimized" for the term but maybe only 2 people search for it per month.  In the above case, a keyword difficulty of 30 and volume of 500 would be the better choice.

Shehzad,

It's probably not worth it. If you're not experienced at valuating domains and links, it would be best to stay away. To be identified as spam early in a domains lifespan is a tough thing to get out from under.

If it helps at all, you have to consider that it won't be much and it won't be for long. Google is also a registrar and it can recognize who owns what sites, when they change hands, and combine that with when a domain changes hands and all of a sudden, everything from one site is pointing to another. Not that that doesn't happen regularly in business for good reason, but be aware.

Also, beware of people who are selling domains with "good" backlinks. Very often, those links just window dressing to make the domain look more valuable than it is. That it has a low spam score could just mean that the domain is new or that bad backlinks are new or that moz hasn't valued the links correctly.

No need to do guest posts until you understand how to value links like the back of your hand.  Otherwise you  are likely to be taken advantage of.  You can be assured that many people who are asking you have very little knowledge of what they're doing or if such links will help or hurt them or you. Study up, practice, investigate, use tools.

Calvin,

If the content on the page  with the backlink is relevant to the content on the page it is linking to, that's good. If the anchor text on that link is also relevant, that's even better.

If content on the page that the backlink is pointing to is not of a relevant or complimentary subject, google will weigh the value of that  link less.

If you change the URL of a page that is being linked to from another site and do not properly redirect the old URL to the new URL, the link will not benefit the new URL at  all.

Calvin,

Let me go back to a previous answer:

Better to stop now with that and take a month to study up on link building before you do more damage.  There's plenty of good info right here on Moz for a start.

A site that sends traffic to your site via a link counts as a referral.  A site that has your website address shown on it but that address is not clickable (maybe as an image or it's just not hyperlinked) might technically be a referral but since analytics  identifies clicks on a hyperlink as a referral, that's usually what it means--and that's regardless of "DA".

Only the clickable part is actually called the "link".  The surrounding text can provide context for that link, in regards to how google determines the link's value to the page being linked to. Words included in the clickable part of the link are considered to add much more important context  than those surrounding it so google weighs those more heavily than surrounding words.

"Domain authority" is moz's approximation of google's pagerank scheme. DA approximates the overall value of all the pages on the domain and "page authority" approximates the value of individual pages. It is very possible to have pages that have zero PA on a high DA site and that links on that zero PA page approximately worthless so don't pay attention to DA only.

You would be best to rethink your back link strategy.  For the most part, if YOU can create them, or you can have someone else create them for you, they're either worth nothing or you'll take a hit for them from google--regardless of the ration of links to referring domains.  Better to stop now with that and take a month to study up on link building before you do more damage.  There's plenty of good info right here on Moz for a start.

Calvin,

Think  about the difference  between 500 different companies giving your company a recommendation and 500 employees of a single company giving your company a recommendation.  If you were a non partial 3rd party deciding which might be more influential to a potential customer, which would you say might be?

Google's algorithm attempts to replicate that decision.

While 500 employees of one company might be influenced by a single person (such as a CEO), it would be much more difficult and a much broader show of support if  500 people from a wide range of influences to make a common recommendation.

It's a logical choice. Don't shy away from logic when it comes  to google.

I still think you should just shed the optimization for the homepage and optimize another url for that  keyword (let the homepage be un optimized or optimize it for something else).   I'm assuming that it's the current optimized URL (in this case, http://xxxxx.com)  that's taking the hit from google. The overall authority for the domain may still be strong, so optimize a different URL for your keyword and see what happens.

Mission,

I know, if only there was an interwebs where Moz was in control of the search engine, we could just run our lives based on domain authority : )

But...  Moz gives you an approximation of how well your on-page is optimized but there are a gazillion factors that go into google's algorithm, such as, maybe if your site has another page that ranks for the same or very similar target keyword, for example,  of which you have a couple.  Some people call that keyword cannibalization.  Maybe go after a different keyword?

Those duplicate pages aren't going to rank the way they are but one of them may have the potential to.  Which one that would be might be a  toss up.

If the rest of the content in addition to the meta data on those pages is the same and you don't care about those duplicate pages not ranking, you can rel=canonicalize them to a single page that you do want to rank.  That way you can determine for yourself which will be the one ranking page.

Otherwise, if you want all of them to rank, you would need to unique-ify them all in order to give all of them all an opportunity to rank.

Don't worry Hamera.

They'll be considered as different as night and day to google and if the site is not focused on a Scottish market, it's not going to compete with you either.  I could also be a domainer who's just buying up domains. Don't be too surprised if you get an email one day offering to sell it to you. : )

How about the site's rankings, have they changed since you started seeing the links?

Someone else was asking about links similar to these and Staff asked them to email Moz support about it.  Have you gone that route?

Vidi,

Actually, I don't see a title in the header of your home page.  What wording  do you think you are using for the title?

Gael,

The rule is pretty simple here- there's really no such thing as a "duplicate content penalty" that will hurt your entire site. The question is--do you want those pages with content similar to the original to rank equally to the original page? If so, each page will have to be very unique and build its own expertise, authority and trust (quality content, inbound links, local seo).

While there may not be a penalty for content duplicated on your site, google does have a threshold as to what it calls original content and just changing a few words on the page will not meet those requirements. You really should start from scratch and rethink the copy on each page if you're thinking you want these pages to rank well in the future.

Mirzaee,

For some years now, enabled https has been included as one of google's ranking factors. On some sites, it is probably more of a factor than on other sites. And, yes, site speed is also included as a ranking factor. There are some things you can do to speed up a  slow https site. Here's an optimization checklist from right here on Moz: https://moz.com/blog/enabling-https-without-sacrificing-web-performance.

Are you sure Moz has re-crawled the page since you added the tag?

Verify the tag is actually there by right clicking on your page and selecting to view source. If it's there, Google will eventually see it.