I am hoping someone can help me with a question regarding my site.

I have a site that I have been using for about a year and a half that is finally starting to rank well in Yahoo and MSN for the keywords that I targeted when I first began. I have a few theories as to why I am starting to rank well, but I am definitely still an amateur at this. I have quite a few reciprical links, but I do not rank well at all in Google.

My domain is set up with dashes, for example: www.mycity-va-real-estate.com. My title is also "mycity va real estate" and I am ranking very well for the keywords "mycity va real estate".

I would like to target other keywords such as "mycity homes" and I am thinking of adding a text link to my main page for "mycity homes" to another page on my site that would be www.mycity-va-real-estate.com/mycity-homes and just copying the content on the main page to the new page. Then actually doing the same thing for more keywords in order to rank well with those keywords as well.

My question is whether or not I will get penalized for this by the search engines. I definitely do not want to lose what I have now. Can anybody help?

It works as long as the Title and Meta Tags refelect the difference in the keywords you are targeting. I would make some changes in the body as well so the pages are not identical. Pages that are seen as duplicates are ignored and in some cases you may be penalized.

Thanks Doug! I have been looking around quite a bit for an answer. Looks like I need to put a little more work into it. But, it is well worth not getting penalized.

I have been reading your posts on how Google is currently ranking and I am starting to understand why my site does rank well there. Thanks for sharing. Very good info.

Correction: I'm starting to understand why my site does not rank well in Google...Thanks

Duplicate content is never a good idea. As long as the page has some original content on it, some duplicate content won't hurt you, but I would try to keep it as minimal as possible. Not worth the risk IHMO

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Agreed duplicate is never a good idea. It shouldn't take much time to write some original new content. Just to avoid the possibility of getting penalized.

Sometimes and only sometimes duplicate content is ok. When creating your pages all you have to is make sure you are not trying to work around the system.

If for any reason you must have duplicate pages or it just happens that you do IT IS OK! Search engines will not penalize you if you have a couple of duplicate pages just make sure you are not doing it to make you pages stand out to search engines.

Another thing you should keep in mind is having duplicate pages will not actually help you at all when it comes to search engines.

It would be good to have a little different focus on the new page, perhaps written to cater to a different audience.

"My question is whether or not I will get penalized for this by the search engines. I definitely do not want to lose what I have now."

Yes, duplicate pages "can" hurt you, but probably won't as long as you don't do too much of it. But what you are planning (or have done) is called doorway pages, and is now really considered spam.

My question is why copy the page? Why not use the page as a starting point, but make the page VERY relevant to the keyword you are going after so it is a unique page?

anyone here freelance on a RE website with IDX implementation? would like a site built. email me quote. thanks, miker-g

If I am understanding you correctly, duplicate content as it was stated is never a good idea. It doesnt take long to write a 300 to 600 word page and is a lot easier than having your site or that page penalized and drop from the serps for duplicate content.

Website owners need to try and understand in the real estate internet profession, there is no quick fix. Threat your website as you would threat a newly built home. Add on to it, upgrade it and always sink money into it to help it expand.