Why does old "Free" site ranks better than new "Optimized" site?

[WhatUpHud]

My client has a "free" site he set-up years ago - www.montclairbariatricsurgery.com (We'll call this the old site) that consistently outranks his current "optimized" (new) website - http://www.njbariatricsurgery.com/

The client doesn't want to get rid of his old site, which is now a competitor, because it ranks so much better. But he's invested so much in the new site with no results.

A bit of background: We recently discovered the content on the new site was a direct copy of content on the old site. We had all copy on new site rewritten. This was back in April. The domain of the new site was changed on July 8th from www.Bariatrx.com to what you see now - www.njbariatricsurgery.com.

Any insight you can provide would be greatly appreciated!!!

[Andy-Halliday]

There are many factors which could influence it, but someone actually asked Matt Cutts the same question, so while I am good at SEO I might as well let him answer your question

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STpCM-3K3KY

Some of the key things are:

• Domain age, does influence rankings, you basically have to start again when you start a new domain

There are also some very good answers on these similar questions:

http://moz.com/community/q/seo-s-done-301s-in-place-old-site-still-outranks-new-site-what-to-do

http://moz.com/community/q/outranking-a-crappy-outdated-site-with-domain-age-keywords-in-url

Would the business owner be willing to do a 301 from the old site to the new site - this is the best thing I can suggest, but it will take time for the new site to rank and appearing the SERPs where the old site currently ranks.

[WhatUpHud]

Thanks for responding Andy and taking the time to share those links - I really appreciate it.

I've asked my client for access to the old site so I can take a look at GWT and see who's linking in. Then maybe I can convince him to do a 301 redirect if it has some strong backlinks. We've suggested this but he's afraid he will disappear from serp's completely.

Thanks again

[Kingof5]

This doesn't even really make sense. Your client had you build a new site, then left his old site up to compete with it? Bizarre.

Content on old vs. new site - I'd think the new site's content should be a copy of the old site's content, given that it's the same site.

Why weren't all pages on the old site 301d to the new site?

[WhatUpHud]

Hi Kingof5 - I know, it is bizarre. We inherited the new site and are now tasked with the challenge of cleaning everything up.

I don't know the background on why redirects weren't put in place but that's what I'm working toward now. Wish me luck.