Unusual situation, need advice please!

[DavidO]

I have two nearly identical websites. One is my main website where I sell my physical product. The other one is nearly identical but it sells only a digital version, mainly for Clickbank affiliates. I can't use the same site for both purposes because Clickbank doesn't allow it.

To avoid duplicate content and to prevent losing customers to my main site I use "no index, nofollow" tags on my digital site. (Customers are supposed to come from affiliate sites).

Now, I've just discovered that the last time I updated my digital site I left off the "noindex, nofollow" tags. The site is now #2 in Google just below my main site which is #1 for a major keyword!

I was wondering about my sudden upsurge in Clickbank sales! Of course, Clickbank is giving me the full commission so that's not a problem.

But what do I do now???

It's great having my two sites #1 and #2 but it's really not an ideal situation...

I'm surprised I haven't been penalized for having two sites with 98% identical content.

And it could cause confusion among visitors too.

What would you recommend doing?

Replace the "noindex, nofollow" tags and hope it gets deindexed?

Redirect the digital site traffic to my main site?

Change the content enough to make it original and leave it as is?

Set up a new domain for my affiliate traffic?

I'm sure there must be a way to rectify this while also taking advantage of the situation!

Thanks for any advice!

[Jon Alexander]

Originally Posted by DavidO

I'm surprised I haven't been penalized for having two sites with 98% identical content.

why? are you under the impression there's some sort of 'duplicate content penalty'?


Because there isn't.

[DavidO]

It's not the usual sort of duplicate content. There's a penalty for having identical websites.

[Chris Grable]

David,

I don't think that you have given us enough information.

Do the two sites compete with one another or is the market for these products mutually exclusive for some reason?

Are the two products priced the same?

Which site generates the most sales?

Which one the most revenue?

Do they look the same (branding) or is it just the content that is almost identical?

Is there a lot of competition for your key words/phrases?

[Lothar Evers]

Completely agree:
wait and see. This duplicate content thing is not as many understand it. Just look at the news agencies. Their feed gets on many websites and more then one is indexed and ranked on google.

[Chris Grable]

Originally Posted by Lothar Evers

Completely agree:
wait and see....

I agree IF... there isn't a lot of competition for his keywords/phrases. If there currently isn't, Google is probably working with what they have. If another website joins the fray, Google might very well rank it ahead of both sites... or push one off the boards.

If there IS a lot of competition and both sites are ranking well, I would assume Google knows exactly what it is doing and relax. I think I would worry more about confusion in the marketplace.

David's concern seems to be that these sites are almost 100% the same. The news sites do have a lot of duplicate content but there is also a lot of unique content on each site.

That could be fixed with different branding... different wording/phrasing in the site (be sure to leave the keyword phrases intact.

If the products are identical.... I'd refer the shopper to the other product just in case they prefer it in that format and for some reason didn't already see it. If you go this route, you'll probably want to set up a new page to send you CB affiliates to....

If they are different... I'd make it more different (slightly differrent name for example) and tell the shopper it was "based on" the other product.

Anything to keep the customer from leaving beause they are confused.