Temporary Duplicate Site - is this safe?

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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.
#main internet marketing discussion forum #duplicate #safe #site #temporary
  • 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
    • [1] reply
    • 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.
  • 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.
    • [1] reply
    • 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.
      • [1] reply
  • 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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    Temporary Duplicate Site - is this safe?

    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!)