• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Local SEO
        4. Local Website Optimization
        5. Single Site For Multiple Locations Or Multiple Sites?

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Single Site For Multiple Locations Or Multiple Sites?

        Local Website Optimization
        5
        8
        2033
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • kirmeliux
          kirmeliux last edited by

          Hi,

          Sorry if this rambles on. There's a few details that kind of convolute this issue so I'll try and be as clear as possible.

          The site in question has been online for roughly 5 years. It's established with many local citations, does well in local SERPs (working on organic results currently), and represents a business with 2 locations in the same county. The domain is structured as location1brandname.com.

          The site was recently upgraded from a 6-10 page static HTML site with loads of duplicate content and poor structure to a nice, clean WordPress layout. Again, Google is cool with it, everything was 301'd properly, and our rankings haven't dropped (some have improved).

          Here's the tricky part: To properly optimize this site for our second location, I am basically building a second website within the original, but customized for our second location. It will be location1brandname.com/secondcity and the menu will be unique to second-city service pages, unique NAP on footer, etc. I will then update our local citations with this new URL and hopefully we'll start appearing higher in local SERPs for the second-city keywords that our main URL isn't currently optimized for.

          The issue I have is that our root domain has our first city location in the domain and that this might have some negative effect on ranking for the second URL. Conversely, starting on a brand new domain (secondcitybrandname.com) requires building an entire new site and being brand new.

          My hunch is that we'll be fine making root.com/secondcity that locations homepage and starting a new domain, while cleaner and compeltely separate from our other location, is too much work for not enough benefit. It seems like if they're the same company/brand, they should be on the same sitee. and we can use the root juice to help.

          Thoughts?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • kirmeliux
            kirmeliux last edited by

            "My one suggestion is that you be sure that both cities' pages are accessible from the top level navigation. You mention building a second site within the site."

            By second site within the site, I simply meant that once you're at the "home page" for the second location, virtually all of the menu links and content are unique to that location. For example, the root page links to Services > Service 1 which is optimized for Initial Location Services. On the Second Location home, they'd be unique URLs/Pages and would not show the initial locations NAP in the footer or anything. 🙂

            "I'm not completely sure of what you are envisioning here, but did want to mention that I think it's important that the pages for both city a and city b are accessible from the main menu."

            We will definitely have a link to our additional location in the main menu. The home page is a functional WordPress layout for the initial city (which is in the domain name), the menu/homepage will have a link to the additional city (which is the same layout as the main homepage, but with a unique menu and NAP). I definitely plan on having the homepage link to our second location so we can piggyback on the authority/juice of home page.

            Wesley,

            Thanks for the detailed and informative post. The only thing I'd like to point out is that I'm not referring to building out pages for service areas (although we will do that for a few of them), but an additional "home page" within the site for a city we actually have a location in.

            So basically it's quite a bit different than building doorway pages when it's a legit "home page" for our actual location.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Wesley-Barras
              Wesley-Barras last edited by

              Hello,

              You asked a very good question. I have run up across this too, many times before. I know that I am going to get blasted by some but I tend to take the opposite approach as Matt and Miriam these days (no offense to those two at all). Let me explain....

              In the past, I would do exactly what you are thinking about. I would optimize one domain for the largest city the company was doing business in and create sub pages for the other smaller cities. With some good, non duplicated content, it would always work out well.

              I did this so many times I cannot remember and it always produced great results. A website got traffic from all cities within one giant metro area.

              That technique does not work out well for me any longer and I rarely use it. There are several reasons.  Google has gotten better at recognizing which suburbs tend to go along with specific large cities. For instance, if you live in Portland, then Google will recognize that Beaverton, Hillsboro, Gresham and Tigard are all part of the same metropolitan area.  I have noticed that they let the domain names with the highest trust and authority automatically rank for the smaller cities in the area.

              At the very least, I have found that if the domain is strong enough, then all I have to do is mention those cities on the home page or some other strong page within the website and they will rank well for everything.

              Currently, the results have been dismal for me when I have attempted to make a whole bunch of subpages,optimized for several cities.

              In fact, I am going through this exact problem with two local clients. I think Google is trying to get rid of clutter.  They are referred to by Google as doorway pages and Google is trying to get rid of them.

              Now, according to them a page is only a doorway page IF it has "poor-quality content," but that is subjective. We all view our content as "high quality" but to Google those subpages does not give their users any value.

              I am convinced that they frown on websites with several pages solely optimized to rank for all the smaller cities within a big metropolitan area. My suspicions were verified by Will Renolds in a Summit East 2013 video I just watched three days ago.

              Some websites, who have a high enough pagerank and are "grandfathered in," can still get away with it.  If you have been involved with SEO long enough you learn that just because another website is successful at doing something does not mean you will be as well. I would view myself as a gun slinger but lately I grown weary of playing the game of Russian Roulette with Google.

              I have several websites that I firmly believe have lost rankings (they don't rank anymore for all the smaller cities and lost ranking for the bigger city) because of that. That might not have been the only reason but it appears that way to me. I am convinced that your overall relevance gets diluted when you do this.

              Now, having said that, my official response depends on one thing: what is the main city you rank for now and what other city are you trying to rank for?

              If the city is not that big, and your domain is strong, then I would just add the keyword of that city to the website you already have.

              However, ff you are in a city like Dallas and you want to rank for Fort Worth, then I would start a whole new website for that city. Its a pain in the butt but I think that is the safe way to go.

              These days I like optimizing a local client for just one major city. I do not like the idea of spreading a website too thin and end up, thereby making it seem less not entirely relevant for anything.  The result is me accomplishing nothing, I just have a site that ranks on page 3 for everything.

              If you start another website, you can give it a link from your established website to give it a boost. Just make sure it is not a sitewide link (ie. sidebar, footer or header).

              Don't break what is working. You dodged a bullet with that duplicate content issue so be thankful you didn't drop like like an anvil being thrown from a 20+ story building. I would not try to test my luck by watering down your current website in an effort to rank for another city. The chances of it being a success are not as strong as they once were.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Travis_Bailey
                Travis_Bailey last edited by

                I would like to chime in here. It appears no one has mentioned links to domains. In my experience, multi-location efforts generally make for a bit of spam.

                If I can't see the domains, I can't tell you it's an issue. Though it's generally better to make a page per location.

                I would like to know more about the domains you own.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • MiriamEllis
                  MiriamEllis Subject Expert last edited by

                  Hi Kirmeliux,

                  I agree with your approach of keeping this all on one domain, as opposed to building a second, separate site.

                  Will the fact that that your first city name is in the URL harm your ability to rank for the second city? This is a good question, but I have never seen a professional study done side by side of a non geo domain vs. a geo domain, in the scenario you're describing of then having to build a second geo term into the site. I'm sure this is a common issue with SABs. For example a plumber with the domain name thedallasplumber.com would then typically want to rank for Fort Worth and other geo terms, as well. I suspect that if this causes any hitch for Google, it would be slight and could be overcome by the authority the other city landing pages achieve.

                  My one suggestion is that you be sure that both cities' pages are accessible from the top level navigation. You mention building a second site within the site. I'm not completely sure of what you are envisioning here, but did want to mention that I think it's important that the pages for both city a and city b are accessible from the main menu.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Matt-Williamson
                    Matt-Williamson last edited by

                    I don't see why there would be an issue with 301 redirecting the second location domain and using it as a link on site, however I have actually not done it this when I have done this previously I have managed to gain links to domain.com/location2 and so on.

                    I also don't see your main logo linking back to the root even on the second city page as you are not going to be hiding the fact it is in a sub folder and not the main homepage/root. This was the case on the site I mentioned - navigation the same throughout the whole site.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • kirmeliux
                      kirmeliux @Matt-Williamson last edited by

                      Hi Matt,

                      Thanks for the response. I'm thinking keeping the second location on the main site is the answer, although having the initial city in the root URL is kind of skewing my thoughts a bit.

                      Any opinions on registering the secondcitybrand.com and 301'ing it to the root.com/secondcity URL? It'd look a little cleaner on citation sites and 301's retain the majority of the link juice. I also don't see our company receiving too many "natural" links without us controlling it, so I think we'd be fine on that end (and even so, 301's would be in place). This is probably such a small issue that it doesn't matter either way.

                      **Also, **The main logo on the WordPress will still link back to the root even on the secondcity sub location. This isn't too problematic is it?

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • Matt-Williamson
                        Matt-Williamson last edited by

                        Good question - I have experienced something similar and I would personally go with your second location in a sub-folder as you say you have already established this site and you will be able to benefit from the authority already gained. I would place relevant anchor text including the location possibly in the main homepage navigation pointing to this second location. When I worked on a similar site I had three locations from one site and I placed the relevant terms in the main navigation anchor text and obviously did the other basics such as keywords in URLs. Then I concentrated on building the authority of each locations homepage, including using competitions to get social interaction to each of these and building great local content that I then exposed to the relevant local audiences. Each one of the location pages then started to gain more natural links from local sources and I found they all ranked really well for their local terms.

                        Hope this helps..

                        kirmeliux 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • 1 / 1
                        • First post
                          Last post

                        Browse Questions

                        Explore more categories

                        • Moz Tools

                          Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                        • SEO Tactics

                          Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                        • Community

                          Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                        • Digital Marketing

                          Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                        • Research & Trends

                          Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                        • Support

                          Connect on product support and feature requests.

                        • See all categories

                        Related Questions

                        • Allie_Williams

                          Best practices around translating quotes for international sites?

                          I'm working on a site that has different versions of the same page in multiple languages (e.g., English, Spanish, French). Currently, they feature customer testimonial quotes on some pages and the quotes are in English, even if the rest of the page is in another language. I'm curious to know what are best practices around how to treat client quotes on localized languages pages. A few approaches that we're contemplating: 1. Leave the quote in English and don't translate (because the customer quoted doesn't speak the localized language). 2. Leave the on-page quote in English, but provide a "translate" option for the user to click to see the translated version. The translated text would be hidden until the "translate" button is selected. 3. Go ahead and translate the quote into the local language. Appreciate your thoughts, thank you!

                          Local Website Optimization | | Allie_Williams
                          0
                        • Hanuman88

                          Geo-location by state/store

                          Hi there, We are a Grocery co-operative retailer and have chain of stores owned by different people. We are building a new website, where we would geo-locate the closest store to the customer and direct them to a particular store (selected based on cookie and geo location). All our stores have a consistent range of products + Variation in 25% range. I have few questions How to build a site-map. Since it will be mandatory for a store to be selected and same flow for the bot and user, should have all products across all stores in the sitemap? we are allowing users to find any products across all stores if they search by product identifier. But, they will be able to see products available in a particular store if go through the hierarchical journey of the website. Will the bot crawl all pages across all the stores or since it will be geolocated to only one store, the content belonging to only one store will be indexed? We are also allowing customers to search for older products which they might have bought few years and that are not part of out catalogue any more. these products will not appear on the online hierarchical journey but, customers will be able to search and find the products . Will this affect our SEO ranking? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks - Costa

                          Local Website Optimization | | Hanuman88
                          1
                        • jasongmcmahon

                          SEO Best Practice for Managing a Businesses NAP with Multiple Addresses

                          I have a client with multiple business addresses - 3 across 3 states, from an SEO perspective what would be the best approach for displaying a NAP on the website? So far I've read that its best: to get 3 GMB account to point to 3 location pages & use a local phone number as opposed to a 1300 number. Display all 3 locations in the footer, run of site

                          Local Website Optimization | | jasongmcmahon
                          1
                        • empireelec

                          Does multiple sites that relate to one company hurt seo

                          I know this has been asked and answered but my situation is a little different. I am a local electrical contractor.  I specialize in a service and not a product.  Competition is high in the local market due to the other electrical contractors that have well seasoned sites with very good DA/PA.  Although new to the web I am not new to the trade.  Throughout years almost back to the AOL dialup days I have been collecting domain names for this particular purpose.  Now I want to put them to good use. Being an electrical contractor, there are many different facets of work and services we provide. My primary site is empireelec.com A second site I threw online overnight with minimal content is jacksonvillelightingrepair.com.  Although it is a fresh site, there is minimal content and I have put almost zero effort in to it.  It appears to be ranking for keywords a lot quicker. That leads me to believe I should utilize my other domain jacksonvillefloridaelectrician.com and target just the keyword Jacksonville Florida Electrician. It leads me to believe I should use jacksonvillebeachelectrician.com for targeting electricians in jacksonville beach. And again with jacksonvilleelectricianservice.com I can provide a unique phone number for each site. Am I going about this all wrong?  Everything I read says no,no,no but I feel my situation is a little more unique.

                          Local Website Optimization | | empireelec
                          1
                        • HeaHea

                          Schema markup for a local directory listing and Web Site name

                          Howdy there!   Two schema related questions here Schema markup for local directory We have a page that lists multiple location information on a single page as a directory type listing.  Each listing has a link to another page that contains more in depth information about that location. We have seen markups using Schema Local Business markup for each location listed on the directory page.  Examples: http://www.yellowpages.com/metairie-la/gold-buyers http://yellowpages.superpages.com/listings.jsp?CS=L&MCBP=true&C=plumber%2C+dallas+tx Both of these validate using the Google testing tool, but what is strange is that the yellowpages.com example puts the URL to the profile page for a given location as the "name" in the schema for the local business, superpages.com uses the actual name of the location.  Other sites such as Yelp etc have no markup for a location at all on a directory type page. We want to stay with schema and leaning towards the superpages option.  Any opinions on the best route to go with this? Schema markup for logo and social profiles vs website name. If you read the article for schema markup for your logo and social profiles, it recommends/shows using the @type of Organization in the schema markup https://developers.google.com/structured-data/customize/social-profiles If you then click down the left column on that page to "Show your name in search results" it recommends/shows using the @type of WebSite in the schema markup. https://developers.google.com/structured-data/site-name We want to have the markup for the logo, social profiles and website name.  Do we just need to repeat the schema for the @website name in addition to what we have for @organization (two sets of markup?).  Our concern is that in both we are referencing the same home page and in one case on the page we are saying we are an organization and in another a website.  Does this matter?  Will Google be ok with the logo and social profile markup if we use the @website designation? Thanks!

                          Local Website Optimization | | HeaHea
                          0
                        • Mr.bfz

                          How to target a site to only specific US states?

                          Hey Guys, Does anyone have experience or can point me to the right documentation about geo targeting possibilities for specific states in the US or specific areas in the world. Local SEO does not apply in my case, since my website is not a business nor have a physical address. My website offers information that is only relevant for specific states in the US, how can I leverage my I optimisation to gain more exposure in those specific states? I really appreciate any help. A

                          Local Website Optimization | | Mr.bfz
                          0
                        • delpino

                          Best marketing for a language learning site

                          Hello everybody, I'm a programmer so I'm not very good at marketing. Any idea what the best way is to promote my language learning site? (http://www.antosch-and-lin.com/) Since Google Penguin the site has taken a big hit and the changes suggested by a SEO expert hasn't helped. Thanks for any suggestions!

                          Local Website Optimization | | delpino
                          0
                        • Mest

                          Same blog, multiple languages. Got SEO concerns.

                          Hi, My company runs a small blog in swedish. Most of the visitors are our customers/prospects. We will write about generic concepts regarding our business and the occasional company news story. However, I have quite a few ideas for articles that could be interesting to a lot of people, and I'm tempted to write those in english for better exposure. I would love it if that exposure could boost my companies authority. How should I go on about this? Can I somehow tell search engines that a certain part or page of the site is in another language? Should I translate our entire site to english and post the english post in a separate blog feed? Any insight is welcome. Thanks in advance!

                          Local Website Optimization | | Mest
                          0

                        Get started with Moz Pro!

                        Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                        Start my free trial
                        Products
                        • Moz Pro
                        • Moz Local
                        • Moz API
                        • Moz Data
                        • STAT
                        • Product Updates
                        Moz Solutions
                        • SMB Solutions
                        • Agency Solutions
                        • Enterprise Solutions
                        • Digital Marketers
                        Free SEO Tools
                        • Domain Authority Checker
                        • Link Explorer
                        • Keyword Explorer
                        • Competitive Research
                        • Brand Authority Checker
                        • Local Citation Checker
                        • MozBar Extension
                        • MozCast
                        Resources
                        • Blog
                        • SEO Learning Center
                        • Help Hub
                        • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                        • How-to Guides
                        • Moz Academy
                        • API Docs
                        About Moz
                        • About
                        • Team
                        • Careers
                        • Contact
                        Why Moz
                        • Case Studies
                        • Testimonials
                        Get Involved
                        • Become an Affiliate
                        • MozCon
                        • Webinars
                        • Practical Marketer Series
                        • MozPod
                        Connect with us

                        Contact the Help team

                        Join our newsletter
                        Moz logo
                        © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                        • Accessibility
                        • Terms of Use
                        • Privacy

                        Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.