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Did you check the domains? The numbers alone might not seem spammy, but there are domains with high authority that have been causing Penguin problems. A lot of directory links, any domain with Article in the title, things of that sort. I would try using Majestic and SEMRush for a comparison.

Even with that information, I am not convinced that the duplicate content is enough. I would test it by adding 200-300 words of unique copy above the duplicate content on the pages to see if helps the rankings at all. That will be more cost effective than completely rewriting content first.

If you want to see if you have been penalized, use Barracuda's Panguin Tool. It is amazing at helping you determine algorithm related traffic loss which could help you know what to fix.

Don't worry, it happens to the best of us!

My thoughts, you need some quality backlinks and more content. Your URLs are not optimized very well, meaning you don't really target your key terms in them, and the site is small. I would say getting a blog and adding fresh content, having a social media presence, building some quality backlinks and adding more content to your pages will help you. The design of the site is beautiful, though! Good Job!

The mobile friendly label is on a page by page basis I believe. Is it the same page on your site that you saw the label and don't see it anymore? It is very possible that it just doesn't show up in every search right now. It will after the update on 4/21. I wouldn't be overly concerned right now. It seems that Google is testing some things in preparation of this update.

If the sites are that different, I would say don't redirect either of them. I understand that conversion is important, but you can always improve conversion rate. Just redirecting MRL to GBL will not move GBL to the number one position. It is a tough decision but I wouldn't redirect GBL to MRL. To me it doesn't make sense. If you have to redirect it, then to answer your question, there really isn't an optimal time to do so. If you think this is the best time, then I would do that.

That makes sense

What? That is a little crazy. I don't think I could work for two companies trying to rank for the same keywords, that is such a conflict of interest.

Each site is an individual, and there are over 200 ranking factors. So it isn't really fair to say that they should have the same results. The sites are different and probably have enough differences to make ranking them each a challenge, especially on the same key terms.

I totally agree that it needs to be rewritten. Is local SEO more important than ranking nationally?

Can I ask why do a redirect from MRL to GBL and not the other way around? I think there is more value in the MRL domain, so if it is an option to keep it I would.

I think you are right in your assumption. Duplicate content is never a good thing. However, if it isn't the same content on the site that is outranking them, then Google must be seeing the site you are auditing as more authoritative than the site they copied the content from. So, while it is an issue, the links might prove to show you where the actual optimization needs to be. If things are neck in neck, like I am understanding, then then link profile is going to be extremely important.

The content, no doubt, should be rewritten. Without a look at the link profile though, you can't say it is the reason they aren't outranking the guys in the number one spot.

I guess it depends on what kind of links you want to build. You can buy thousands of links all at once but that will only hurt you in the long run. The rule I follow is to stay within 10-15% of your existing links. That is just a metric I use to help explain to clients what "natural" link building should really look like.

You will be passing some link juice to your new domain, but it isn't a fluid transfer, meaning you will not reach the DA of 23 simply by redirecting the old domain. You will get a higher domain authority by building reputable, quality links. I wouldn't do anymore than 20 a month, since there are only 100 links to the metro-manhattan.com domain.

Does the www version redirect to the m. version based on device?

In my opinion, it will not have too much of an effect because you are telling the bots that the m. version is the mobile version of your site and it is expected to have the same content as the desktop version.

I agree with Anthony. It is important to offer the same experience to desktop and mobile users. A responsive design, in my opinion, is much easier to manage and offers the best user experience. Google has said that they do not have a preference for one version over the other, the important thing is to have a mobile friendly version of your site. I think most professionals would recommend a responsive design unless having a responsive design creates a user experience that would be better if there were simply a mobile version of the site. I think that is the only exception.

My only thought is that perhaps you are loosing positioning on keywords that you can't track. Have you  been monitoring the traffic coming to your site under (not provided) to see if it has any effect? The only thing I would look into is if there is a change in new vs returning visitors, perhaps there has been a decrease in return users and not new traffic.

I would give this two thumbs up if I could.

There really is no point. There is no value except maybe preventing others from buying them, but what is the risk if they did?

Link Research Tools is awesome. It can be a little expensive but it is worth every penny.

Jonathan is correct, when you have no content on your page, the HTML is the only thing that bots see. Meaning, if you have something repetitive in the coding, that is what Google sees, and that could be what is causing your keyword stuffing errors. The best way to fix that is to get more content on the page.

DA is mainly influenced by link activity. I don't think that it would be any easier to build DA and PA on your metro-manhattan domain as it would any other domain. It will take time to build links effectively and organically. I also agree with EGOL. I believe you should look into metromanhattan.com instead of having a hyphenated domain.

So, are you saying that a link having traffic kind of disqualifies it as spammy? Or at least in the eyes of Google?

I don't think so. I usually fetch and render then submit my pages anytime I add one to my site, or make a significant change, like adding content or changing images. Nothing unnatural about it.