Temporary Duplicate Site - is this safe?

by Azarna
7 replies
I just had a sudden panic, and know that you guys are the experts on this stuff, so would appreciate any comments,please.

I own a website on the history and families of a local village. It is not monetized, and is just a personal project. It gets a couple of hundred hits a week (it's a small village!)

I originally started this site 10 years ago, and as it has slowly grown bigger, it now looks skanky and messy.

So I am building a snazzy new version with Serif WebPlus. Obviously a lot of the original copy is being reused, exactly as it is.

I have put the new, partially complete, site up online, with a link from the original site, so people can see how it is coming along. I plan to remove the old site and link the new one to the original domain name on 1st Decemeber (hoping I am done by then).

But now I am worrying, my original site is the top ranking site on google for the village name. Will my temporarily duplicating most of it like this affect me? Will google dislike it? Could I end up with issues?

It seemed like a good idea when I did it, but now I am worried. I would appreciate any thoughts, please.
#duplicate #safe #site #temporary
  • Profile picture of the author art72
    There's really no harm in putting the content on another domain. The greater threat would be if you had duplicate content on the same domain.

    If you think from the prospective of news releases, they syndicate the same articles, videos, content all over the web on multiple websites and domains. So IMHO you are not doing any harm.

    I would keep the old site up and in place, and be "BOLD" with your current readers/visitor's that a newer and better version is underway, so when the new site is complete there will be a seamless transition for users to gravitate to the new site.

    I'm sure others will chime here, and give more detailed advice as far as the misconceptions associated to having duplicate content, but from my experience, this will not hurt you in the long run. I would however, probably remove the content from the "old" site upon completion of the new, so you will get any potential "traffic" from the SERP's to the newer version, and not be second rated by the age of the original site. Hence, you want "G" and other search engines to see the *new site, not the old one.

    Good Luck with the transition.

    All the Best,

    Art
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    • Profile picture of the author Azarna
      There will be no 'old site' when I have finished. The new site will just be pointed at the proper domain name, the old site will be totally deleted as no use for it anymore. It is a basic replacement. Ten years of experience being applied to making the new one look a heck of a lot nicer, heh.
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  • Profile picture of the author art72
    I am curious to see what approach another would suggest, as the original site's age may still hold some benefit to the new site, even if only to keep the domain as a redirect, but I am really not sure... so I'll leave that to the more experienced.
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    • Profile picture of the author birddog200
      I'm not giving legal advice here, but I did the same thing with an old site once and then moved the new one on to the aged domain after I was finished. It actually ranked for more keywords afterwords, and I kept my #1 spot for my main keyword.

      AND PLEASE... Monetize that thing when you are done. At least some adsense.
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      • Profile picture of the author Azarna
        I don't care what google ranks the new site as, because it is temporary, it is purely a preview. The original site is still live, and will be until the new one is ready. Then the new one will effectively become the old one, as it will have the original domain name. The old site will be deleted.

        So no matter how it ranks the new site, I don't want people finding it by accident and thinking it is finished, really, I only put it up so visitors to the old site can see how it is progressing, just a bit of fun really.

        I just don't want my original domain name to suffer, if this makes sense. Or, more importantly, to end up being accused of plagarising my own content!

        Now I am worrying though so may just scrap this idea and leave the newsite offline until the day I flip the content over.

        I may as well show you the site - http://www.turveybeds.com You can see the link to the new site preview on the front page.

        This is not the sort of site you guys build, i guess. It has been google number one for years, even though I didn't know a think about SEO and never had metatags or keywords on it until recently. It has no list or anything like that. All its backlinks are from people who linked to the site off their own bat, because they wanted to. And all its hits are from people who are interested in the content. Its very primitive, heh That traffic thing has been on just under a year, i suppose, traffic isn't important to me, as long as some people are enjoying it - and i get lots of emails from visitors who clearly do get something from it.

        I don't really want to put adsense on as I think it would look out of place, what would the adverts be for? I can't see people doing a spot of familly history wanting an advert for weight loss or something thrust at them. I do have an amazon affiliate thing on there. It has sold one or two books, but it is more as a resource for visitors than to make money for me, to be honest, so I don't mind that.
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        • Profile picture of the author Kay King
          I don't see why you'd have a problem. There are mirror sites all over the internet. "Duplicate" refers to the same info repeated on one site and some here are posing their own personal interpretations.

          I wouldn't hesitate to do that myself as I know it's not a duplicate issue and your plan makes sense. I'm not sure, however, that I would link from the old site to the new right now.

          kay
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  • Profile picture of the author getano
    The answer is yes! Google will not like duplicate content no matter what. Google will consider the original website as a quality one and the new site will have some issues.
    If you want to maintain the current configuration, place a rel canonical tag on the new website to show Google which one is the original.
    After you will have completed the design do a 301 redirect from the old site to the new one. That way you won't have problems.
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