Apparent duplicate content penalty.

but two sites are in different Chinese scripts

[Haecceity]

I run some information sites in a variety of languages. We set up a site in Simplified Chinese characters (as used in mainland China) and somewhat later set up a sister site in Traditional Chinese characters (as used in Taiwan and Hong Kong). Many of the characters are the same in both scripts.

The Simplified site has a PR of 4, but the Traditional site is PR0.

I'm wondering if I've been hit by a duplicate content penalty because of the fact that the two sets of characters are substantially similar (although still different enough that people that know one script may have trouble with the other). Any thoughts?

Has anyone had any experience of running Chinese wesbites in two scripts?

If this is a duplicate content penalty, is there a way to talk to Google about the situation? It's a shame if Taiwanese and Hong Kong internet users can't find information in the scripts they use.

[Brett_Tabke]

it would be easy to tell. The second duplicate page would be dampened, while the first would still rank well.

[Powdork]

If you can find a string that is the same on both sites, search for it within quotes. If one shows up, and the other only shows up after clicking the omitted results link, then you know there is a duplicate content penalty.
However, if both sites show up without an omitted results links, that is not proof that there isn't a duplicate content penalty.

[Haecceity]

If you can find a string that is the same on both sites, search for it within quotes. If one shows up, and the other only shows up after clicking the omitted results link, then you know there is a duplicate content penalty.
However, if both sites show up without an omitted results links, that is not proof that there isn't a duplicate content penalty.

Thanks, Powdork. Some search strings that are from the index pages of both sites have shown no results, while another produced results from the PR0 Traditional Chinese site, but not from the PR4 Simplified Chinese site. I didn't see an "omitted results" link.

I think I'll just sit tight and see what happens.