Mirrored content/ images

[onlinechester]

We are currently in the process of creating a new website in place of our old site (same URL etc.) We've recently created another website which has the same design/ layout/ pictures and general site architecture as our new site will have. If I was to add alt test to images only on one site would we still be penalised by Google as the sites 'look' the same, event thought they will have completely different URL's and different focusses on a similar topic. Content will be different also, but both sites will focus on a similar subject.

Thanks

[Cyrus-Shepard]

If the content is unique, there's very little chance you will be penalized for duplicate content.

That said, I've often worked with many eCommerce companies that like to build new sites for new brands or to take a different marketing angle. In general, these sites double the effort required to get them to rank. Not sure if this applies to you, but I generally find it better to try to keep all the efforts focused on a single site.

Regardless, best of luck with your SEO!

[CleverPhD]

If you are creating a new website with a new URL structure, you should 301 redirect all the old URLs to the new URLs.  Google with then know where the old site moved to.  The duplicate points are moo as Google will delete your old website out of the index and replace it with the new one.

The duplicate issue only comes up if you have two sites running concurrently.  Not sure why you would want to do that., but if you had two sites, Google will not be able to tell if the images are the same per se. It can do things like look at the alt tag, but it can look at the file name, the image size, the image dimensions etc etc.

You will probably be ok re-using the images as you mention, but I would focus more on getting the old site moved to the new one with 301s.  If you are creating a new site as the old one got penalized, I would re-use as little as possible from the old site (for obvious reasons).