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I thought I would use a micro site with just some main product landing pages being used. I would use the same design and code as main site, then re-write the text and then link everything to the new site. “BUT” I'm concerned about getting a penalty (duplicate) as all the anchor text links going to the main site would be identical! EG. To use the same design as the main site I would need to use the same layout etc including navbars, anchor text links in the footer etc.. and I'm worried this may trigger a duplicate content penalty ? Any advise please

Hi, I will try to explain my situation as clearly as I can, and any positive advise would be greatly appreciated. Obviously please let me know if you have any questions but I'm sorry the domains are private. I started by business 4 years ago and launched a website (site A) and worked hard to promote it in the best way I knew how. It brought in a good income for around 3 years but then was hit with some sort of google penalty/filter! Knowing then what I know now would probably of avoided the problem altogether but that's another story... So I brought another domain (site B) and started again with a new design and completely re-branded the company, and again have been working hard to promote it. It has been preforming well and there has been steady progress 😉 However since then I have been steadily promoting the penalised site (site A) and keeping an eye on it to see if the penalty/filter may be lifted. It had initially lost around 75% of traffic, but recently has been doing much better in SERPS and is again on the increase. My problem is that with my company now being completely re branded I want to keep consistency but (site A) looks old and dated compared the new one (site B) and I don’t want to be confusing users etc... So I need a cost efficient and “safe” solution to this in terms of SEO and budget. 301 Redirect to site B I thought of a 301 redirect “BUT” I'm concerned about the penalty/filter being passed onto the new site (site B) and have read this dose happen ? Complete Redesign/brand for site A This would probably be the best option except I'm limited on funds. I would need “another” full commerce site as its just way to much money at the moment. Remove site A completely Funds are tight and I'm still feeling the affects of the penalty so really can't afford to loose any traffic at all! Use site A as a micro-site I thought a micro site with just the main product landing pages being used. I would use the same design as site B, then re-write the text and then link everything to the new site. “BUT” I'm concerned about getting another penalty (duplicate) as all the anchor text links going to site B site would be identical! EG. To use the same design as site B I would need to use the same layout etc including navbars, anchor text links in the footer etc.. and I'm worried this may trigger a duplicate content penalty ? I hope there are some suggestion for my situation and thanks in advance for your help. Thanks Chris.