: Will many sites with same/similar content get punished by Google? I have a request to copy their existing site into 5, each for their branch in different cities because they're under different

@Odierno851

You will not going to face any SEO problem if your address, price, about us and contact us pages are different, because there are lot's of websites who have similar design and have similar content. For example I provide same service as you, so Google does not consider them as duplicate content. And you said "under different owner", which is enough reason to don't consider your site as duplicate.

There are lot's of aggregated website who fetch many website details/content into their website, it means the content is purely copied, but because they provide such a value to users, they did not get any duplicate penalty.

Google penalize duplicate content, because those newly created pages initially get some value, which you can transfer to any webpage by using links. Another reason is, they don't want to store that kind of data on their server, because it is not good for any user, but in your case it is useful if you're targeting different cities.

I have seen many of eCommerce website provide same kind of content on two different URL's but the price value and it's currency is different for example in USD, or EURO, so they did not face any penalty.

Most of eCommerce website have same product for example any smart phone XYZ, and when you see that webpage, then you will see the product features, prices are all same but still they did not face any duplicate penalty, because some of content are slightly different for example title and reviews. So if you also change your title slightly differently and if possible, then also change some body text, then you will not going to face any problem.

Don't use canonical link tag if you want to index you'r all 5 websites. If any webpage contain any canonical link tag, and it does not same as your browser address URL, then Google will consider them as duplicate content, and it will index only the canonical link tag which you're pointing on your webpage.

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