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I want to create 10 websites about same topic.

Each website has its own template and each will have around 10 unique articles. Topcis/titles of the articles will be identical. I will not link sites to each other.

1 server, 1 webmaster tools, 1 analytics, all domains are owned by 1 person.

Is this considered spam by Google ? If yes, why ?

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  • Your not manipulating search results, so the answer is no... why would it be a yes? You should however be aware that Google may change the titles if they are similar, or prefer to vary the results. Returning 10 sites all with the same page title is likely to be changed by Google, but again, not a yes... – Simon Hayter♦ Oct 28 '15 at 11:56
  • I am reading a lot on different opinions and some people say its considered spam as i try to rank on same subject with multiple domains. – Azz Kawa Oct 28 '15 at 11:57
  • There's no law, or rule that you can't have more than one site in the search results, never mind 10. Your need to rank each on their own merits... again, nothing wrong here... it's actually rather common nowadays and many of my clients do it. – Simon Hayter♦ Oct 28 '15 at 11:59
  • Low quality, duplicate content etc, is considered spam... unique sites are not spam, regardless of your intentions – Simon Hayter♦ Oct 28 '15 at 12:01
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I will argue that the 10 domains will be seen as, at least, low quality domains with low trust scores and will likely never rank with 10 articles each assuming that they are a blog. There is an exception for business sites which would be seen by the search engine a bit differently. Here is why.

Blogs are highly competitive. With so many blogs with many articles that are designed specifically to penetrate the SERPs for specific and planned search queries, just a few posts will likely get lost in the sea of work.

A business site is another matter as @SimonHayter rightly points out. Thank You Simon! If these are individual businesses, then that is a whole other matter. In the case of individual businesses, what becomes important is the NAP (name, address, phone number) of the business. I highly recommend exploring using schema.org mark-up for this. I have found the best place to put this information is in the sites page template footer so that it appear on each page.

What makes a business rank is much smaller criteria for business searches which include services and locale. For article search however, there are a lot of factors including the volume of competition. If you are talking about a totally new or untouched topic, then the competition will be light, however, generally, this is not the case.

But please do keep in mind what I say about SERP penetration and and duplicate content in the next few paragraphs.

Google makes every effort to cluster sites into relationships using a semantics based database. It will be relatively simple for Google to determine that these domains are related by ownership using several factors. Keep in mind that Google, being a registrar, will be able to see the registration information even when made private. As well, it is relatively easy to determine if a series of websites are on a single server or instance when hosting. There are quire a few other factors Google can use to cluster sites so please keep this in mind.

Google will also use semantics (linguistics) to determine the topic of these sites. Google will see that these sites are related by topic. Please know that posts do not have to be linear duplicates to determine them to be duplicates. In semantics, each post will be scored using several standard algorithms and combinations of algorithms and placed into a matrix. It is a simple matter of comparing scores found within these matrices to determine that the posts are at least similar enough to be duplications.

Keep in mind that these kinds of analysis have been in place since 2003, 2005, and 2008. This form of analysis is highly effective.

Each site will not be able to rank with just 10 articles assuming it is a blog site. Even a business site cannot expect much if any traction from just a few articles. It is just not enough to penetrate into the SERPs. As well, none of the sites will become authoritative on any topic. Authority is a powerful signal.

Having several domains with the same topic and minimal posts each, Google will likely see this as an attempt to game the SERPs unless the sites are business sites which will rank for other reasons.

I argue that it is always far better to have one domain that ranks well. If, for example, you put your efforts into a single domain, you can potentially have 100 posts which would penetrate the SERPs better. There is no quick way to gain a solid presence in the SERPs and gain traction. It just plain takes time and effort. There are no shortcuts, tricks, loop-holes, or technique that will speed this process up except for real work, time, and dedication. It is far better to put your work into one domain and make a name for yourself as an authority.

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  • A site with 10 unique high quality articles isn't going to get touched by Google's spam algorithm, even on the same hosting, with the same name servers, etc... Google will only consider it spam, or attempting to manipulate the search results when they link between them. A site with more articles and provides a better uniformed experience will likely to beat those sites, but that has nothing to do with SPAM, its to do with its everyday algorithm. It also depends heavily on the niche, most small businesses will only have 5-10 pages and a lot of the other sites on the net are small game. – Simon Hayter♦ Oct 28 '15 at 17:49
  • @SimonHayter I was careful not to say spam. But I did say game the system which is close. You are right about small businesses having a few pages. Blogs on the other hand is a whole other thing. Much of the time there is much more competition. For a business, they likely have a real name, address, phone number that are unique which helps penetrate the SERPs. There are many factors that play into this. But you do bring up some good points. – closetnoc Oct 28 '15 at 17:55
  • @SimonHayter Ooopppsss!! I did say spam. Nertz!! Not really what I meant- fixing. – closetnoc Oct 28 '15 at 17:57
  • I wouldn't imagine that someone would even attempt to dominate a heavily populated niche with only 10 articles. I think, I assume... that its either local businesses (organic) not local results, or a low-dominated niche (tail long keywords possibility too). – Simon Hayter♦ Oct 28 '15 at 17:57
  • However, Google may rewrite some of those titles and descriptions, and may even ignore some of those sites for a varied choiced, as suggested in my comment below the question. – Simon Hayter♦ Oct 28 '15 at 17:59
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I will try to be short and straight because it's very controversial topic for debates. Lots of experts are in favor and many are not. So here is my take.

IMO, it will be flagged as PBN (Private Blog Network) created to manipulate search results but it's up to Google, to penalize them right away since (if) they are not linking to each other. Even if your sites are not penalized, you are still in their radar. Google does not promote this type of practice. Now Google is all about Authority and brand value. But make no mistake, your website does not have to be a big brand in field but you should have authority website.

So it's better to keep the number low like 2 (preferable) or maximum 3 websites. The bigger the network grows, the risk increases.

Now a question for you to answer. If someone says, I just opened 10 fast food joints surrounding a particular McDonald. What would you think? Does it not raise few eyebrows?

Now let's consider the risk. If these websites are flagged as PBN then they will be penalized and you will left with bunch of useless websites with months of hard work and money wasted.

Now let's talk about future. Even if you are not flagged as PBN right away and penalized by Google, what makes you so sure that next major algorithm update will not consider this as Spam. Afterall it's questionable.

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