Duplicate content on domains we own

[CallRingTalk]

Hello!

We are new to SEO and have a problem we have caused ourselves. We own two domains GoCentrix.com (old domain) and CallRingTalk.com (new domain that we want to SEO). The content was updated on both domains at about the same time. Both are identical with a few exceptions. Now that we are getting into SEO we now understand this to be a big issue.

Is this a resolvable matter?

At this point what is the best approach to handle this? So far we have considered a couple of options.

1. Change the copy, but on which site? Is one flagged as the original and the other duplicate?

2. Robots.txt noindex, nofollow on the old one.

Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance!

[eyepaq]

Although both pages are very similar sans the logo color and some verbiage, if we do the rel canonical from GoCentrix->CallRingTalk.com then CallRingTalk.com will be the preferred site for indexing?

** Yes.

You can also add rel canonical to it self on  CallRingTalk.com.

Lastly, will having had the duplicate content for some time now have any sort of lasting effect on our potential ranking once we implement the canonicalization?

** No, you are more then safe. This rel canonical will only help google understand what is your preferred version and it will display it accordantly.

Overall the only downside of duplicate content is that Google might show in serps the version that is teh secondary as importance in your opinion - but there is no algorithmic or manual filter / penalty for this even if you don't implement rel canonical.

Hope it helps.

[CallRingTalk]

Everyone,

Thanks for the quick responses! Unfortunately we cannot do a 301 in this case so the rel canonical is probably going to be the option to take.

To verify what I'm reading/understanding. Although both pages are very similar sans the logo color and some verbiage, if we do the rel canonical from GoCentrix->CallRingTalk.com then CallRingTalk.com will be the preferred site for indexing?

Lastly, will having had the duplicate content for some time now have any sort of lasting effect on our potential ranking once we implement the canonicalization?

Thanks!

[JohnHuynh]

I agree, that is good solution. You should use .htaccess to redirect 301 for gocentrix.com. I have same problem with 2 sites, one sandbox test content vs main site content. And I created 301 redirect for sandbox.

[eyepaq]

Mike is right - it's a good approach.

Another option will be to use rel canonical cross domain -> it works like a charm. (as long as it make sense and you want to keep both domain "in business")

In this way you can still leverage both domains if needed.

here is a good and clear resource on the subject covering both 301 and rel canonical:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.at/2009/12/handling-legitimate-cross-domain.html

Hope it helps !

Cheers.

[Mike_Davis]

I had the same issue with an old client that I had.  They actually had three different domains with the same content.  The best solution is to focus on CallRingTalk.com and use 301 redirects for GoCentrix.com.  Make sure that you are using 1 to 1 redirects so that you're able to maintain link juice from both site.  Aside from the obvious benefit of no duplicate content issues, you will also no longer be competing against yourself and updating will be easier.  Another benefit is that you will be able to transfer all the inbound links for your legacy domain to the new domain.  Just make sure that you use OSE to figure out the important inbound links and see if you can get those links changed to your new domain.

I hope that helps!