I have a reference/content website that is pretty well established. I'm thinking about creating a new site on the same general topic, but the data would be packaged in a different way. For example, suppose the first site is about the price of X in different parts of the country. I'm thinking about creating a new site that has the same basic information, but it would be packaged in a different way. Why would I do this? The big reason is that I have some ideas for improving the presentation of the information, but I don't want to impact the original site. If I do a "version B", it would target different keywords, would have a different layout, etc. The sites truly would be unique in terms of the "packaging" and would not be cross linked in any way. My question is whether I'm opening myself up to penalties from Google. For example, if I'm using Analytics, Webmaster Tools and AdSense for site A, is Google going to notice (and care) that site B is similar (in terms of information content but not in terms of layout, keywords, etc.)?
If the content is appreciably similar, this may hurt your website. But I don’t think there would be any negative impact on your old site, new site would be considered as duplicate.
You shouldn't keep the content similar, you should change that too, because another site may be considered as a copy of your first one by the Search Engine and it may penalize it. Or perhaps you should link them together too, don't you think ?