Will sites that look the same be penalized by Google?

John Mueller from Google responded to the query of whether or not Google penalizes almost identical sites. Mueller gave instances of various degrees of site similarity and recommended which one to avoid.

Will Google Rank Websites with the Same Design?
Whether two websites with similar looks might nonetheless rank in Google search was the question that was posed. Although it wasn’t mentioned, John also mentioned that possibility in his response.

The query posed was as follows:

“For our two brands, we want to use the same backend and frontend.

With both of them, we’re performing well in Google rankings.

How much of a chance is there that using the same HTML structure, components, layout, and look and feel across various brands may result in a penalty?

The colours, typefaces, and logos would all be altered.

Or would you advise sticking with the current front end while maintaining the two companies’ distinct experiences?”

No penalty for a site that looks similar.
John Mueller affirmed that if two websites have a striking resemblance, their ranking in the search results won’t suffer as a result.

He stated: “First off, having two almost similar websites is neither punishable nor subject to human action for web spam.”

He then discussed Google’s policy for handling websites with identical URL structures and content.

He continued, saying: “Nevertheless if the URLs and the content of the pages are the same on both websites, our computers may choose one of the pages to serve as the canonical page.

In this case, the canonical page would be the main focus of our crawling, indexing, and ranking efforts.

Read More:- Will sites that look the same be penalized by Google?