Brett_Tabke - 9:11 am on Dec 27, 2001 (gmt 0)

I took several approaches at the problem:

1) Get a fresh domain and start from scratch. It's a hard sell.
2) Allow me to take the content you have there, and reroll it to a new page that is 100% optimized and slightly different. I leave the old page at the same old url.
3) Cloaking.
4) Education.

Usually, they will go for #2. If you can show them that they won't be hurt. It often involves using their template, but simply getting control of the majors (title, metas, page headers). The thing I notice, is that once you show them the same page optimized and it look virtually identicle to the old page, they'll go for it and just scrap the old page.

#4 is the most productive. Educating the people who are doing the templates and some of the content can go a long ways. Getting them to think in terms of seo for simple things like titles, metas, and page heading can do a great deal of good in a short time.

The separate domain route is often a tough sell - it's also tough for you to build.