Best way to launch a 2nd url?

[highgrovemanor]

What is (if any) the best approach for handling a 2nd URL coming online?

We're bringing up a new website next year, and want to migrate the existing one to a different URL.

Whats the best approach SEO wise, as we'll obviously want both to rank well at the earliest possbile time. Last time I was paying attention to SEO, I did have an understanding of duplicate-content penalties, so I'm guessing a simple redirect is undesirable between now and the 2nd site being available.

But I should get something on the new URL to start the sandbox clock, right?

Thanks!

[claus]

Put up a notice page on the new domain, explaining what will come. That would be a good start.

Link it back to your current site. On your current site, put a notice somewhere with a link to the new URL, so that your existing visitors will learn that a shift is coming.

When you're ready to shift, do the DNS thing and/or make sure you get 301 redirects set up on a page-to-page basis from URL to URL. This is a subject I've written a bit about a few years ago, but the process is still the same - I found two links:

(1) DNS: [webmasterworld.com...] (post 9)
(2) 301: [webmasterworld.com...] (post 6)