Two different URL's - same content?

I know this is duplicate content, but what to do?

[Michael Weir]

Okay here's the scenario. I have a client who had the domain name genwidgets.com and a few months ago they won a lawsuit for rightful ownership of the URL generalwidgets.com.

Optimization of genwidgets.com had been going on for a couple years before they acquired generalwidgets.com.

My problem is that, as genwidgets.com has been around much longer they have already established decent free listings despite being in a VERY competitive industry. Ever since I've been optimizing them under generalwidgets.com I'm finding it extremely difficult to get the generalwidgets.com pages unburried in the SE's. I'm even using positiontech (all three engines) and I work on this site 2 hours each week which, after a few months, has proven LARGELY FUTILE.

Basically the site shares the exact same content but over two domain names, duplicate content. Could this be causing a problem? Typing in genwidgets.com into the browser DOES NOT forward to generalwidgets.com. That means that any genwidgets.com results that show up on SERP's do not redirect to generalwidgets.com. The client is a major company who is also running a large branding campaign and would like generalwidgets.com to be the important domain name, yet they want to keep genwidgets.com as well. Should I set up some sort of redirect?

I hope I explained this thoroughly - in a nutshell: 1 business, two separate domain names, no redirects, duplicate content, and they want to keep both domain names.

Thanks in advance

[pageoneresults]

Should I set up some sort of redirect?

Hello Michael_Weir! Here is what you'll need to do to effectively merge content from genwidgets.com to generalwidgets.com and keep both domains active without incurring any duplicate content issues.

Set up a 301 permanent redirect for genwidgets.com to redirect to generalwidgets.com.

That will instruct all spidering SEs to update their information and permanently redirect all requests for the old to the new.

In Google's case, this should also transfer any and all PR from genwidgets.com to generalwidgets.com.

Now, let's talk about all of those interior pages that are indexed. This is where it gets tricky. If on Apache Server, you'll need to set up a mod_rewrite to 301 permanently redirect all old to all new. In Windows IIS Server, you'll need to set up a similar situation.

[nakulgoyal]

The best is to use 301 redirect and also manually email all teh people / websites that are linking to you to change the links if they can.

The 301 redirect will let the search engines know that the site has moved and if you use it in your .htaccess for /, it will be best.

If you need any help doing this, stickymail me or post here and me or somebody else could post the .htaccess you would need just in case you do not know about it.

Good Luck.

[Michael Weir]

Thanks for the info everybody! I'll see what I can do here.

[nakulgoyal]

For 301 redirect on Windows, refer to the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 and IIS 5.0 Administrator's Pocket Consultant!

Author William R. Stanek
Pages 400
Disk N/A
Level All Levels
Published 04/04/2001
ISBN 0-7356-1024-X

You can get what you want online at this URL [microsoft.com...]

Still neet more help, sticky me or post in here. :)