Question About New Site Problem

[union_jack]

I have a problem and I am wondering if anybody has any experience with. Basically, I built a new site for a client which is targeting a Christmas product that he sells. After a week it ranked just outside the top 10 which i was happy with. Then after a week it dropped out of the top 1000. After a bit of investigation I discovered that the site was accidentially duplicated on the root domain name due to way the site was setup on the server. The site now started ranked under the wrong domain. So I accessed my Google webmaster tools and did a site change request and setup a 301 on the offending duplicate domain. Its been two weeks and the duplicated domain has gone but my original site has failed to reappear. The site owner wants me to ditch the site and start a fresh with a new domain, mainly due to time running out for Christmas orders. I personally think it could make things worse with another copy of the site been added to the index. What do you guys think? What time frame am i looking at to get back in if at all?

[jd01]

Duplicate content or no, you might want to have a look at this thread, linked in the hot-topics section at the top of the forum:

Good Early Rankings [webmasterworld.com] (Then They Disappear)

[union_jack]

mmm, interesting stuff. I find the coincidence of the duplicate site appearing and my site disappearing more likely the cause but as always its guess work. Thanks for the heads up.

[tedster]

The main point I see is that if you launch yet a third domain, then that domain's rankings will begin again at the beginning of the cycle. And launching a third domain with yet another copy of the same content could be even worse than launching a new domain with new content - each new duplicate could be hurting Google's trust evaluation.

If this were my challenge I'd stop doing new domains, at least right now, and give Google a chance to sort out the existing situation.

[jd01]

I was a bit short in my post, because I've been bouncing in and out, but my main point was: Duplicate or no duplicate, 3rd domain or no 3rd domain, just plain a natural drop or 'duplicate issue' the chances are you're not going to rank for anything major for Christmas, unless you somehow obtain an exorbitant number of 'natural links', such as come from press coverage.

I think your best bet is to leave it alone, generate some good, quality links to the domain you would like to be included and try for some long-tail searches, because the amount of popularity necessary to rank a new site with no history for anything major between now and then is out of reach for most people and businesses...

[union_jack]

thanks for the advice, I have had the site content rewritten. To help with any duplication issues. Hopefully this will help.

I agree the 3rd site is a bad idea just getting presure off the client. I will go out and link build and keep my fingers crossed.

[union_jack]

Good news! the site has come back in the top 10. I am still unsure if the problem was a duplication issue or some kind of new site indexing in and out effect but it lasted 2 weeks approx. I hope this might give some kind of comfort on people sweating on new sites dropping in and out.