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1. • CommentAuthortribal baby mum
   • CommentTimeOct 30th 2007

    
   Hoping for some clarification:
   
   I've just read that my planned project won't work as it will be banned / penalised by the search engines as copies.
   
   I am creating a website atm (well, two actually) They will have different domains.
   
   There would be Part Time Nappy Free.com.au with the terms nappy, nappies, and aussie terms such as Mum, Travelling, realise, visualise, colour, etc
   
   and then there would be Part Time Diaper Free.com with the terms diaper, diapers, and US terms such as Mom, Traveling, realize, visualize, color, etc (I have about 20 language changes between each)
   
   I've been told the search engines would decide they are copies and penalise both of them even though they are completely different domains and would be sites visited by a completely different set of visitors, due to the regional words they use. How can I have this so I am not penalised by the search engines as they are targetted to different sets of people, just like a site may be in two different languages yet have the same content? Effectively, that is what this is.
   
   Is there another way to sort this problem out without trying to re-write each website to be completely different even though completely different people will be visiting them?
   
   The only reason I need to have two sites is that half of the world uses the term 'diaper' and rest uses the word 'nappy', so I cant just combine them, it wouldn't 'speak to the audience' using the wrong term, does that make sense? I don't put 'diaper' into a search engine, I put 'nappy' in.
   
   I can't see it working without looking really terrible and interchanging nappy / diaper all the time in a page to cover everything, or worse, saying nappy/diaper in every other sentence - YUK! (I despise going to sites who ONLY use the word 'diaper', as I don't use them - I use nappies, and had never heard the term 'diaper' until I went online and realised a lot of countries use that word instead. It would I think put off a lot of visitors if I used the wrong language, ifykwim)
   
   It there some way I could make this clear as being the distinction? (Can you contact google at all about this sort of issue?) It would be utterly impossible for me to create two entirely different websites that are on the same topic apart from the main language use of nappy / diaper. It would take me another year.
   
   Ugh. This is a nightmare!
   
   Charndra
2. • CommentAuthorjoyously
   • CommentTimeOct 30th 2007

    
   The topic is the same, the audience is different. The interests and needs are the same, the keywords are (mildly) different.
   I would think it would be much better to have just one website and have different pages for different keywords. Isn't this what you would do anyway? You would write one page on diaper rash for the American audience with their interests in mind, and then write a slightly different page on nappy rash (or whatever you call it) for the audience that uses that term and have their interests in mind.
   Don't split your effort between web sites, split it between pages. As for the other words like color and colour, if they aren't your keywords, you have two choices. 1: use what you would use, period. It's you writing and that's part of your "voice" of your site. 2: use the one appropriate to the audience of the page.
3. • CommentAuthortribal baby mum
   • CommentTimeOct 30th 2007 edited

    
   Ok,
   that was what I have done with my original site,
   but in the conversion bullets, or first chapter of the Chain reaction course, it clearly says to use the language of your audience, so I split them into the two sites, nappy free and diaper free, as that is such a difference in the MAIN term of the site.
   
   But I understand any pages need to be 80% different from each other or they'll all be ignored by the search engines? That would be REALLY difficult to do for the two terms.
   
   I can see how I could make up different pages, though having them ALL 80% different to each other would be a writing nightmare. But then I get to the free guide for instance, which is either nappy or diaper, and the product, which is a nappy or a diaper version, they can't be both.
   
   The actual product reflects this term difference, so I've written the whole thing atm with the term 'nappy', and was going to simply make a duplicate of it with the other term, 'diaper' for that different audience, and optimise the site for that term.
   
   It really is a different set of people, so I can't just pick one and ignore the other half? Yes, ther are more Americans using the tern 'diaper' than everyone else using 'nappy', but I don't want to just ignore everyone else because the USA is bigger... so if I used my voice, 'nappy', I'd be ignoring the term used by all of the USA!
   
   UGH. I can't sleep!
4. • CommentAuthortribal baby mum
   • CommentTimeOct 30th 2007 edited

    
   OK, had a further think.
   
   Could I / should I:
   
   Set up a site/ domain that is 'cover all bases' and try to optimise simply for SE traffic, so that that site (Perhaps called part time Elimination Communication.com - no I didn't come up with that cumbersome term, lol) perhaps simpler articles, then link to the separate sites, so I can still use those domains to link to from articles, other sites, ppc and whatnot, and have the other one there mainly for traffic from the search engines?
   
   I've been looking and thinking hard, but can't see how I can mash the two separate products together.
   
   Or is this not correct? I've read some of the blog articles and podcasts talking about grabbing various domains related to topics, my area is pretty wide open still. How do people doing that get around this issue?
   
   I can't understand how this concept of two sites for two different audiences can be flummoxed by a stupid spider. There must be a way of educating that spider!
5. •  
     CommentAuthorvishen
   • CommentTimeOct 31st 2007

    
   Hi Chandra
   
   In the course I say use the language of your audience and have TWO landing pages. But having two blogs is a different issue.
   
   Stick to one blog - do not duplicate your content on the blog just for customer. You will get penalized. Pick the more common term and write with that,
   
   But at the intro of you blog, (say the top of the sidebar) add a short message to people in countries that use the word diaper and explain how the terms differ.
6. •  
     CommentAuthormike
   • CommentTimeNov 1st 2007

    
   Having duplicate content is definitely a big no-no if you want to succeed with SEO. You can re-use some of your content if you must but if you really want to go down this path, then be careful. You will definitely need to tweak:
   
   * The titles
   * The first paragraph
   * The last paragraph
   
   If you make these changes then you "may" get away with it but you never know when Google will get smarter and truly recognize duplicate content for what it is. It would be better to just focus on one site and have SEO optimized articles or pages for the specific terms if so much of your content overlaps. That way you could also concentrate on aggregating all of the links towards one site.
7. • CommentAuthortribal baby mum
   • CommentTimeNov 1st 2007

    
   Hi and thanks Vishen and Mike.
   I think I am beginning to understand it all a bit more finally.
   
   So I've been thinking hard, and I think I can do it now.
   
   OK, so I have ONE website where I'll have all my articles, landing pages (using articles as landing pages too), and write different pages for the keywords and terms diaper or nappy.
   
   So I'll have to have some sort of generic page for the main index page though. That would link to the various articles I've written, but will need to have the option in the sign up box of the 'diaper' or 'nappy' versions of my free guide (Assuming this would be pretty easy to do even though it is an extra step for visitors!)
   
   As I REALLY want to use the nappy-free and diaper-free domains (because being in this area I KNOW it will attract interest. So, what I could do is still have those two sites with a simple landing page site and have my sign -up forms for the free guide/ minicourse that relates to the page. I could then link to the articles on the main site (The Part time EC site). Then, I wouldn't have to re-write everything, as it would all be on the one site.
   
   I could also host the 'hidden' files that the people who sign up to read on the appropriate site so they are going there, and have the login for the course there as well. SO, the "free guide" and "online course" related to "Nappy free" would be on that domain, as there would be no seo advantage to having them on the main site as they are hidden. All sites would have the same layout so that it would seem to be the same site to the visitor, I noted that in one of the MVL blog articles I read.
   
   Can I have a clarification about the duplication thing? Say I have two landing pages, one for nappy and one for diaper, both at the main site, and I use these to link to on my articles, banners and so on, even though they are about the same thing, I'd need to write the copy almost completely differently (using a thesaurus I guess for everything other than they keywords and phrases I'll want in both) - is that right?
   
   So, how does it work for companies who have a website in different countries, like a .com, a .co.uk, a .com.au etc? Do they get someone to re-write the entire site to be different? I've had a look at this one, and they seem the same - how do they do it? How do sites like this get around it? (They are on one of my pages) One is the Aussie site, one is the USA site, but the text is the same - What is the difference that they can do it? Or would they be penalised.
   http://www.huggalugs.com/index.php?id=8 and http://www.huggalugs.com.au/leg-huggers.htm
   
   I was thinking if all goes well I'd make a.uk page, but if I'd have to re-write it all completely different every time, that would seem never ending...
   
   OK Feeling a bit more enlightened and less stressed out of my gourd, lol. I'm sure I'll get there. A friend told me the last 20% will take 80% of my time, I thought "No way!", now it seems to be true, lol, sigh...
   
   I hope my explanations are getting a bit clearer, I think that is part of it, I'm not explaining myself too well as it's all new still.
   
   Thanks!
   Charndra
8. •  
     CommentAuthormike
   • CommentTimeNov 1st 2007

    
   As I said before, the search engines are not yet world class at recognizing "duplicate" content. They can see that things are related but even small tweaks can throw them off so as long as you make those, if you want to maintain separate .com and .co.uk sites you can give it a try. You are just in more dangerous territory because at the end of the day, search engines do not like duplicate content.
9. • CommentAuthortribal baby mum
   • CommentTimeNov 3rd 2007 edited

    
   Thanks, Mike,
   Please excuse having to repeat things for me in different ways - it's slowly sinking in.
   
   I'll skip that idea about different country domains for the time being...don't have time for that now!
   
   OK, I think I am getting it!
   
   Is THIS right? I think I can see how I would have people browsing the site THEY need to see while stil having one website for the search engines to visit, yet being able to use my discrete domain names for advertising purposes.
   
   As it is best to have my content at ONE website, and to use different copy for the two audience groups (ie nappy or diaper users, even though they are the same thing, lol), what if I take the two websites, all linked together and working nicely, yet with differently phrased content, then host them at the same website (parttimeEC.com - I just registered it yesterday.)
   
   That way, the content is all nicely different for the search engines, it is all at the one place for the SE (and me to fiddle with and add to).
   However, the individual page headers will seem different - one lot will say "ptnappy free", the other 'ptdiaper free". Effectively there will be two sites at the one location - is THAT what you're all trying to get through to me??
   
   The pages are all set up as landing pages, so it wouldn't actually matter where people land on from their searches, they will 'think' they are on the appropriate site, and all the links will take them to the appropriately termed pages. I NEVER would have thought of doing that - I just couldn't seem to understand how it would work! How amazing.
   
   What I would do is still use the domains that reflect these (ptnappyfree.com and ptdiaperfree.com, as then I can link to them in print advertising rather than the generic term which is not as clear), by having a landing page with sign up box there still, yet for all the other links, do a redirect (or rather link to) the main site of relevant articles/pages. These index/landing pages would again be unique. All the pages would have the exact same layout of course, so visitors would think they are still at the same place, which they sort of are anyway, as I have the same "Tribal Baby" logo on all of the pages as my business name. All the pages have a sign-up box.
   
   Am I even closer to the right track now?
   
   I'd need to plan an overall generic (and again unique) landing page reflecting all the terms for the index page of "parttimeec.com" though, and I think I have a way to do that - basically have it as a sign up page and a link to one of the related landing pages for each topic.
   
   This ONE page would be the 'messy' one as it would need to have 'nappy' and 'diaper' both used, (and it really is messy) and for the sign up box will be asking people to choose the version they want to receive. I'd also then have only two links leading off from that page - to each of the two versions of the site, for people who happened along (if that happens?) and need to learn a little more before signing up. (I wouldn't actually link to this landing page in articles or advertising - it would be there for search engines only.)
   
   Hoping this is OK, I'll feel back on track and can move forward again. This seems much easier than what I thought I would have to do a couple of days ago.
   
   Thanks for allowing me to explore this here, and for further tweaking of my understanding / easier ways to do what I'm saying,
   
   Charndra