Best way to lay-out the website when sections of it are almost identical
- by Linas
so, I have a minisite for the mobile application that I did. The mobile application is a public transport (transit) schedule viewer for a particular city (let's call it Foo), and I'm trying to sell it via that minisite.
I publish that minisite in www.myawesomeapplication.com/foo/. It has the usual "standard" subpages, like "About", "Compatible phones", "Contact", etc.
Now, I have decided to create analogue mobile application for other cities, Bar and Baz. These mobile applications (products) would be almost identical to the one for the Foo city, thus the minisites for those would (should) look very similar too (except for some artwork and Foo = Bar replacement).
The question is: what do you think would be the most logical way to lay-out the website in this situation, both from the business and search engine perspective?
In other words, should I just duplicate the /foo/ website to /bar/ and /baz/, or would it be better to try to create a single website under root path (/)?
I don't want search engine penalties for almost-duplicate information under /foo/, /bar/ and /baz/, and also I don't want a messy, non-localized website (I guess the user is more likely to buy something if he/she sees "This-and-that is the application for NYC, the city you live in", not "This-and-that is the application for city A, city B, ..., NYC, ..., and city Z.")
