(Entry was posted by Kumar Neeraj Kayastha on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 12/24/2014).

Is Google taking unfair advantage?

I have always resisted the accusation on Google that it tweaks the SERP for some websites and show it higher positions. I always believed in ethics of Google and its fair practice and it matters to me.

Today I searched Online Advertising and the result has amused, perplexed and feared me. See the screenshot below...

If it is not managed SERP, how can the same page with everything exactly same be on position 2 and 3??

This question begins at 00:52:44 into the clip. Did this video clip play correctly? Watch this question on YouTube commencing at 00:52:44

OUR ANSWERS

Answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Panelists.

Arthur Radulescu: If you feel this is a spammy website which made this in purpose, feel free to post a Spam Report directly to Google, following this this link:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreportform?hl=e

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YOUR ANSWERS

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

Kumar Neeraj Kayastha: I have always resisted the accusation on Google that it tweaks the SERP for some websites and show it higher positions. I always believed in ethics of Google and its fair practice and it matters to me.

Today I searched Online Advertising and the result has amused, perplexed and feared me. See the screenshot below...

If it is not managed SERP, how can the same page with everything exactly same be on position 2 and 3?
Jim Munro: I'm not seeing anything like that result in Australia, Neeraj.

I don't think there's anything sinister here, the landing page PR is so high, it has "online advertising" in the title and the Google domain is so strong that I wonder how that other site managed to appear before them. :)
Kumar Neeraj Kayastha: +Jim Munro but why and how 2 times?
Jim Munro: ...but it's two different domains, Neeraj. This would not be the first instance of duplicate content that got through in the history of the internet. :)

Apart from the duplicate, I think it is the right result to appear. Who is the clear leader in "online advertising"?
Marty Eigner: The URLs are different
Kumar Neeraj Kayastha: Thanks for this clarification +Jim Munro but now I will ask... the content and other things are exactly same, only the url +Marty Eigner. And when I click on any of the result, those take me to the same page i.e. .co.in domain. Won't it be penalised for duplicate page or something?
Alistair Lattimore: No, Google allow you to duplicate content across a moderate number of domains, say a gTLD and a few ccTLD domains - it is normal/common practice for businesses to do so.
Benjamin Dona: Thanks for the post, Kumar. ; I'm not seeing the same results here in Florida either...all the other page one results are another advertiser and Google appears last on page one.
Kumar Neeraj Kayastha: So +Alistair Lattimore if i have 2 domains http://knkayastha..com and http://knkayastha..in i can manage to have exact content on both for on targeted to India and other for US!
Alistair Lattimore: Yes, that's the idea. Matt Cutts has a video about it that you can watch in the Google Webmasters channel. Basic idea is that they understand it is normal/common for a business to operate in a few different countries and duplicate or near duplicate (address, phone, some localisation etc) - so they allow/tolerate it also.