Need advice on ranking new domain with old content in new Google

[momma12345]

I hope someone can give me some advice...

I had a site 10 years ago, was ranked #1 and #2 on Google and other big dogs. Sales sucked and eventually I decided to close shop. I saved all the content and html and recently decided to give it a go again, but with a new domain name. I made some minor updates to revamp it to 2012, very minor. I've been hit by Googlebot on just the index page so far, am now included, but I'm so deep in the SERPS I can't even find myself. It's for my same KW back in 2002.

I have another directory of the site, which targets a different kw, related, and it's been fully spidered, but doesn't show up yet at all.

Here's my dilemma. Everything that I USED to know, re SEO, has all went out the window apparently, so I've learned. It's so much different now. Should I give it some time until all the pages have been spidered and indexed and see which, if any, fall into the SERPS with decent ranking. If so, how long? A couple of months? Weeks? I have NO backlinks yet, aside from a couple of articles.

Just not sure how to handle this. I was REALLY hoping that I'd regain somewhat of a decent rank in SERPS, since the content was basically the same, or at least maybe a couple of the pages did okay.

I'm scared to death to use any software to analyze my pages, due to fear of some kind of penalty. I used to use them all the time. I'm not sure where to even start. Opinions?

[LifeinAsia]

Welcome to Webmaster World!

I see 2 possibilities: 1) Google sees your site as a brand new site, or 2) Google sees your site as an almost exact copy of a site it remembers from 2002.

In the case of 1, you'll have to do all the things that every other new site needs to do- develop fresh content, get links, etc.

In the case of 2, Google may decide that you are nothing more than a scraper who is just reusing content from an old site.

In either case, at best, most of the SEO tricks you used to use have no effect. Or worse, Google considers them spammy and may seriously hurt you.

You didn't say how long you've had the new site up. But Google is most likely not going to throw a new site to the top of the SERPs after just a few days or even weeks, especially without links.

[Simsi]

Tried this twice. The first time was around 3 years ago - new domain, original content from a sold domain 2 years previously, tweaked very slightly, couple of new pages added, updated the homepage text.

It was targetting longtail in a competitive niche but I just couldn't get traffic from Google after 12 months of trying. Tried on another domain, same sector only this time I kept the same content but added a whole bunch of new stuff and it got some traffic - but mainly to the new pages, despite strong internal navigation.

I don't think it was entirely down to old content but I convinced myself that it was a major factor and if I had the chance to do it again I'd start with totally fresh content myself.

[momma12345]

Thanks everyone, I appreciate it. One last question if you will. Does .com have more weight still than other extensions? Or does it not matter much these days?

[netmeg]

Weight with whom? The search engines don't seem to care. Most users (at least in the US) will default to thinking .com no matter how many TLDs they add; I only use .com myself. If the one I want is not available, I think of another one rather than go to a different TLD.

[momma12345]

Update.... I have quite a few pages indexed, however, I don't appear in the SERPS at all. I searched as much as it would let me, for 2 target keywords, 1000 results EACH.

What the? Must be over-optimization penalty or something? No messages in Webmaster Tools. Makes no sense to not even be listed in the top 1000 results, cmon.

[tedster]

I don't appear in the SERPS at all

Are you getting ZERO search traffic from Google?

[momma12345]

Yes, zero.