I have 2 websites with the same content

[threebiz]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here on SEOmoz and I have a questions that I cannot seem to figure out. So here is my scenario:

I have 2 websites that are identical. The only difference between the 2 websites is the domain name. This was done a while back for marketing purposes, however, I am no longer needing my 2nd website. What is the best way to get rid of this second website? I still have about 1 paying customer a day convert on this 2nd website and I do not want to loose them, however, I know that I am getting penalized by the search engines because of this duplicate content. Please let me know the best way of going about this.

PS: I have read about 301 redirects, canonicalizing URLs, and other methods but do not know which one to choose. Any help is greatly appreciated!

[nicole.healthline]

Choose one site. 301 re-direct all content from the site you want to remove to the new site.

Make sure to re-direct to each corresponding page (don't re-direct to all URLs to the home page).

[threebiz]

Okay great. Do I need to do anything with my Google Webmaster tools account to let them know that I am moving my website? Thanks again!

[MRCSearch]

Michelleh speaks truth.

[MRCSearch]

In Webmaster Tools, use the Change of Address function.

[threebiz]

Awesome. Is there anything else anybody can think of that needs to be done? I just want to do this correctly. Thanks for the response

[ShaMenz]

Hi threebiz,

First, welcome to the community! Look forward to seeing you around in the future

Since there is a small loss of "link juice" when you apply a 301 redirect, you should pay attention to which domain you choose to redirect and which you keep as the primary domain.

Your choice may be influenced by suitability for branding, but if there is no real branding advantage in using one or the other, then I would make sure that I redirect the site with the lesser Domain Authority to the one with the greater.

You can use Open Site Explorer to check Domain Authority (DA) for both domains. You can learn more about DA under Metrics, Link Counts and Data Points.

If for example, you have Site A with a DA of 30 and Site B with a DA of 20, then I would redirect Site B to Site A, since this allows you to maintain the full domain strength of the site with the greater prospect of ranking.

Hope that helps,

Sha