Google duplicate content?

[orangeboy]

I have a client who basically wants a new wordpress site, with a new domain, but with the same content taken from his old site.

Will google see this as duplicate content and lower it´s rankings? Or even worse, not rank it at all?

Thanks

[TheDoc]

Use 301 redirects to keep the Google Ranking.

[orangeboy]

See this is the problem, he´s very high up in google and I don´t want to mess that up. Should I re-direct immediately?

[orangeboy]

Or can I leave both sites running, and then re-direct?

[TheDoc]

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93633

[orangeboy]

Another question- what if I want to make the content better, but still keep the ranking of his current non-wordpress site?

[TheDoc]

Updating the content can only help!

Just make sure to put the redirects in place.

[orangeboy]

Thanks for your tips!

Just one more…. If the content is different, could you run the two pages together, and then when you are totally happy with the new one, direct to it? Will google penalise you for not directing immediately?

I´m just really worried about the transition when he has such high google rankings.

What I´m trying to say, is can you wait to see how highly the new site ranks, before re-directing? And once you do that 301 direct, how quickly will the new site climb to the position of the old one?

The problem I also have at the moment, is that I don´t have complete control of his old domain and hosting. I simply don´t want any time to go past, where his rankings suffer.

[chrisburton]

Will the site be on the same domain? I would think Google would penalize you either way but especially if you have duplicate content on two separate domains.

[orangeboy]

No, it will be on a completely new domain. There isn´t much content to be honest, so it won´t be difficult to re-write it.

Do people think this a good idea? To build the re-vamp wordpress (on a different domain) launch it; see how it ranks; then 301 re-direct from the old site (which is ranking highly) on the old domain? And obviously change the links to the new site.

[chrisburton]

You need to have the 301 redirect when you publish the content on the new domain otherwise Google may penalize your client for it.

[orangeboy]

But if you have a new domain, and slightly different content, how will Google know it´s the same business?

[chrisburton]

What do you mean by ‘slightly different content’?

[orangeboy]

Well, just re-writing the content, so that it isn´t duplicate.

[chrisburton]

Sounds like you’ve already made up your mind, though.

[Author]

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