Is there penalty when two websites share same content?

Marketing
1

My client has these two sites: webfirm.example.com and webfirm.com with the same content and layout. My question is: are there any penalties from search engine with this kind of situation? So far I don’t have any effects on their ranking on search engine such as Google or Bing.

Thank you.

2

You probably should specify a canonical so google knows the most important between two near duplicated

3

I’m sorry, I forgot one thing: they’re also in the same server, so I can differentiate their canonical, because they’re actually the same, just different domain names.

4

My first question would be, why are they maintaining two identical sites? Why not just redirect one domain to the other?

5

My question is: are there any penalties from search engine with this kind of situation?

No. Search engines do not penalise two identical sites - contrary to what you might have read elsewhere.

… any effects on their ranking

Probably. Just because there is no penalty, that doesn’t mean it’s a sensible thing to do. At the very least, any incoming links will be split between the two sites, diluting any SEO benefits that the links bring with them - not to mention potentially confusing your customers and making more work for whoever maintains the sites.

Unless you’ve got a particularly good reason for keeping the two sites, I’d suggest you go with TechnoBear’s recommendation: promote one of the sites, and redirect to that site from the other.

Mike

6

Thank you, about split links, it’s very logical…

Unless you’ve got a particularly good reason for keeping the two sites, I’d suggest you go with TechnoBear’s recommendation: promote one of the sites, and redirect to that site from the other.

It’s my client decision but I’ll give this suggestion to them…

Thank you again.

7

If the content is just duplicated once, it is not a big deal. However, there is no reason for you to maintain two sites that has identical content. That’s a big mistake and waste of resources and time.

Get your site organized and discard the less popular one if both are exactly the same.

All the Best!