I suspect the duplicate content is the issue - Do you think this could be true?

[Guest]

Need some advice - I am struggling with this one a bit. Client with a company that sells products in multiple states. They want to have a website for each state and then also the major cities in those states. However, the websites are basically duplicates. The header is different but that’s it.

Google doesn’t seem to want to index more than just the home page and I am assuming it might have to do with duplicate content. We have tried giving each state its own domain. And also tried 1 main domain and then branching the “state sites” as pages. In my search results — neither seems to be a better option.

So my SEO expert friends — I suspect the duplicate content is the issue - do you think this could be true? I would also love your opinion on whether you would have 1 main domain and branch the states off of that as pages or give each state its own domain?

[Andrew]

You’ll need each site to actually have unique content yeah. You can use multiple domains but I’d judge the difficulty of building authority for that many domains vs just building authority for one domain. Id park them all and build one domain up with individual pages unless you can support unique content, backlink efforts, and SEO for all the domains.

[Charlie]

I would have one domain and branch the states out.

[Andrew]

I’d avoid that and you can achieve a lot by using google my business to direct people by city level and then state level. You’ll get the duplicate content warning on every page of you go their desired route