Comments on: When One Website is NOT Enough?

By: Andrew Noyes

Andrew Noyes — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:45:52 +0000

Perhaps different sites that showcase the benefits of different aspects or branches of a company could be beneficial for promotional reasons, but I think many companies take this way too far. It is intuitive to expect a central place of organization. There are many companies with horribly disorganized web sites that aren’t intuitive to users. They’re overgrown monstrosities, and it’s hard to figure out exactly what they do. Too much information in one place is only a bad thing if it’s overloaded and poorly organized, which I’ve had to deal extensively. However, pushing your content too far apart is nothing but bad new in my opinion.

By: Ross Johnson

Ross Johnson — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:04:37 +0000

You may also want to pay attention to where the sites are hosted. If all of the sites are hosted on the same Class C IP address they are likely to be deemed as part of the same ‘ownership’ and will not pass pagerank to each other.

By: Carrie Hensel

Carrie Hensel — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:31:29 +0000

If you have several websites with separate URLs but the same content, it is DEFINITELY a red flag for the search engines.

The only time you should have multiple sites is when they are all unique and geared at different audiences.

By: akelly

akelly — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:25:16 +0000

I heard having multiple websites is a red flag for search engines – a clear indication that you are trying occupy multiple domains with identical content. In cases like this, Google will typically penalize both domains and this could be why a website content is so poorly indexed. This could also have a negative reflection on all subdomain including your blogsite. I also noticed that each domain (with and without “www”) are treated as separate sites, so you really have to be careful on duplicate website domains.

“If a website is using 100% duplicate content then Google will penalize you in their search engine rankings and in some extreme cases even sandbox your website completely.”

By: Nancy Quay

Nancy Quay — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:21:09 +0000

Great article! I’ve tried two sites and learned that for my business, it is best to have just one. I can always add a page for new offerings–which is a snap with the ICM Content Management system (yes, I still love it!)

Of course, now I’m consumed with the idea of having chickens and little goats. Where will you be keeping the ICM herd? I need some milk for homemade chevre…