Hi, I've designed, built and optimised a site for a customer a few years ago and it's currently ranking really well in Google for relevant search terms.

The problem is the company has recently gone into administration and no longer exists.

The customer has launched a new company doing exactly the same thing but under a different name. Now he's asked me to create a new site for them on a new domain but how do I use all the same content and achieve the same Google results without plagiarising the old site??

The old site is still currently ranking on page 1 of Google.

 

It's not as simple as keeping the old site as they don't want to associate themselves with the old company name.

 

Any advise would be gratefully appreciated.

 

Thanks

The content isn't so much of a problem, if the old site dissapears google won't penalise you for plagiarism. If the site is decently engineered there's no real issue getting your content indexed anyway, that's the easy bit. A brand new site submited to google with no incoming links can generally expect to be indexed within a few days.

 

The only way to hold onto that page rank is to use a 301 permanent redirect. However, if the customers don't want any link with the old company name, they're going to have to say goodbye to that and start again from scratch.

If you can do a 301 redirect from the old site, it would certainly help the new one rank better.

Daniel is spot on. I would 301 the old domain to the new and also ensure that each relevant page is using a 301 to the new path equivalent if things have structurally changed. If your client really wants 0 links using the old domain name then explain to them their current #1 position will be probably be lost as all that authority will be flushed away making the old url a prime target for spammers to buy up and use to their advantage.

 

It's also worth pointing out that a 301 does not pass 100% of the juice; I think (last time I read) that Matt Cutts says juice deteriorates with a loss of around 15%(?) using 301 but the current numbers might be different.

Thanks very much guys. Much appreciated. Unfortunately they don't want any ties to the old company name etc so I'll let them know that the new site will have to build up its authority from scratch. Is there a quick way I can tell Google that the original domain is no longer in use and to remove that site from it's index?

Thanks Jamie

Here you go ... https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/164734?hl=en and also 404 the site.

It's a shame about the links as starting from scratch is a nightmare.

Great thank you so much. That's very helpful