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The old site deals primarily with me as a music producer and a mix engineer -- two other things I enjoy doing and make money doing. However, drums are definitely the primary focus of what I do.

I guess I am not opposed to ditching the old site if I could find a way to present my other skills in a way that wasn't branded with drums (doing that might indicate that I wouldn't be as good as a dedicated mix engineer and the like). Would it make sense to design a couple of specialty pages and host them under a subdomain of my current new site?

I guess I am fearful to ditch the old site because it actually does rank in Google. Would I see better results by getting rid of the old site or just 301 redirecting the whole thing?

Thanks Paul! Actually, my home page is optimized for "session drummer." I merely used the "nashville session drummer" example simply because it showed in one page of results 1) my competitors (who don't have their sites optimized for "nashville session drummer either"), and 2) my old site showing.

However, your thoughts, especially the reminder about building links with other organizations and about the timeline for expected results, were re-assuring and served as a call to re-focus my efforts.

I am still a bit concerned about whether or not my old site, while displaying information separate and apart from the new site, is hurting my rankings. I read a few frightening snippets online hinting that old sites staying live after a relaunch could be killing search results for the new site. Thoughts?

Thanks for the quick response. My motivation in keeping both sites is that the old site deals with aspects of my career that are still relevant but beyond the focus of the new site. As to the 301s, I did indeed use 301 redirects pointing to the new site from select pages of the old site.

Since Sep 2010 I have had a site up with minimal SEO optimization (www.chrisbrushmusic.com). Oct 29, 2012, I launched a new site on a new domain (www.chrisbrushdrums.com) with more content and tons of SEO work behind it. The content of the new site is significantly different from the old site, and I wish to keep the old site around. I have 301's in place for specific URLs on the old site that point to the new site. I have submitted xml sitemaps for the new site. As of now, the old site still outranks the new site (i.e. Google search for "nashville session drummer" and my old site is #9 - my new site is nowhere). What should I do? Thanks.