Bought a new site, transfer some content from old site

duplicate content penalty?

[chopin2256]

I recently purchased a new site with a pr 7. My old site has pr 4, and is currently affected by bourbon, but still doing pretty good without Google, so I don't want to scrap it. My new site is related to my old site, (which is why I bought it) so I was wondering:

Can I transfer the content to the new site I just bought while keeping the content on my old site? All of the stuff was handwritten by me, but Google can't find the stuff I wrote on my old site anyway (stupid Bourbon). Would it be bad for me to transfer the content, and would I have to worry about a duplicate content penalty?

An example is, I want to put up composers biographies. I have many biographies that I wrote myself on my old site. I want to put up biographies on my new site too. It would be a pain to think of a new way to word all of these biographies since I made them up in the first place! So, is it ok? Or do I have to paraphrase my own writings?

[chopin2256]

Hello,

Sorry for bumping the thread, but just wanted to know if anyone could give me some insight on this issue. Thanks!

[decaff]

Since you are asking the question with PR4-PR7 in mind...then you are not asking the question from "how will the composer biographies" benefit my new traffic on the PR7 site...rather...how will the search engines see this "as duplicate content?"...

Chances are...if they have your PR4 indexed and quantified and then find some of your content on the new site...they simply will not include it in their calculations...will it diminish the PR7 site...hard to say..

I would work very hard to make sure both sites are "differentiated" from each other...and <<<YES>>> this may mean that you will need to paraphrase your own work...(at least you could feature your best biographies)...and then continue to work the content on the recently purchased PR7 site...and on your current site as well..

Forget about "bourbon this or bourbon that" ... work on your sites for your visitors sake...(too much drinking going on here at WW anyways)...