Hi, I have two websites that act as 'portals' for customers to buy products through an affiliate supplier. Once clicking on a purchase link, the affiliate supplier offers 'labelled' pages that are exactly the same content for dozens of website providers. The fact is that the 'duplicate' content doesn't appear to be being penalised. Many of these affiliate pages have page ranks (many don't) and many appear in the search engine rankings for different websites with exactly the same content.
I would like to 'merge' my two websites into one, by possibly at some stage in the future having 301 directs from the higher ranked site to the lesser one (for copyright reasons I may have to move from the better ranked site).
Is it feasible that I could have the same content (my content and not exactly the same as the affiliate rpovider) on the two websites for a few weeks/months without BOTH sites getting penalised, and during this time build more backlinks to the lesser ranked site before adding the 301 directs. My higher ranked site is PR4 and lesser one is PR3.
Is it a fact that some industries have duplicate content that Google accepts?
Any advice on the above greatly appreciated.
