When does a site count as a duplicate?

Want to stay on the right side of Google!

[galaga]

I have a site that I've laboured over for some time now. Its doing not too bad. The thing is I've learned so much from this forum and through trial and error while working on the site. But to implement my newfound knowledge on the site would be a bit of a headache. I'd rather start a new site from scratch. Selling the same widgets with the same links (offsite) to previews of the widgets. If I use a new domain, design a new site with leaner pages (in terms of k), have a new, improved directory structure etc. will Google read this as a duplicate site simply because it will have the same widget links? The links would all be on different pages in a different order etc.

[Brett_Tabke]

After the template is stripped, the content has to be 80-90% the same before there is a problem. Even if there is enough content that it will be duplicate, Google will just downgrade one of the pages and leave the other one alone.

[galaga]

Thanks Brett :)

[austtr]

Does anyone know if Google allows a "period of grace" with duplicate content? eg... when introducing the updated site, you'd want to keep the old site alive for a period (say 60 days?).

When there are lots user bookmarks to be updated, reference materials to be re-catalogued etc etc. it seems reasonable to have an overlap in time for very sound, legitimate reasons.