Client has 2 websites... won't do away with old site.

[IntermarkGroup]

Ok my situation is:  We have built a new site for a client and they would like to keep both sites working.  Should I just attempt to optimize both sites to rank well in their area? Or should I be suggesting a 301 redirect from the old domain to the new? Other options?

Thanks in advance

[MarieHaynes]

My husband has two real estate sites.  My plan, when I made the new one was to take the old one down.  But for some reason it mysteriously ranks well for several terms and continues to bring us business.

With that being said, if there is duplicate content across the two sites then one is going to suffer.

If the old site is ranking well, it may be ok to keep it.  But, it will be a challenge to optimize both sites.  It's much better to work on one site.  In most cases, I would redirect the old to the new site.  The only reason I would personally keep the old one is if it was ranking well already for them.

[josh-riley]

Google isn't a fan of duplication. I've been watching more and more companies who had multiple sites realize it's going to bite them, and they have been merging (or, redirecting) into one.

I'd never advocate for two sites, mostly because of the same reasons others mentioned.

[gtrotter666]

I think it comes down to whether you have the resources to keep both sites at the top of their games.  Having two sites is pretty much twice the work of having one (see, I'm a maths genuis me!) if they are both to rank well.  You "should" be able to grab a larger slice of the top ranking spots with two sites but it is hard work.

[TheSEODR]

I had contemplated this a couple of years ago. We had an old site and just created a new one. The old site was performing well in the search results for popular keywords. We didn't want to risk losing any ranking doing a 301 redirect and we wanted to attempt having multiple listings on search results - so, we kept both!

We stopped updating the old site and let it coast then started working on SEO for the new site and eventually had two well performing sites on the SERPs.

And with google merging organic and place pages, you could use the new site as the URL for a place page if the company you are working with is a local business. So you'll have a organic listing and place listing.

I thought I would share my experience with you to consider what is possible with keeping both sites.  However, there is nothing wrong with 301 redirecting to the new site.

[IntermarkGroup]

Good question

It's a new site with new content... I believe their thinking is "2 sites is better than 1".  I'm going to continue to fight the uphill climb and get them to ditch the old one.

[KevinBudzynski]

Why do they want to keep it? Implementing 301 redirects is essential and is the best-practice as you want to have only unique content out there.