Hi, I have a site which has been penalised by the big G and I am currently looking at migrating to an alternative domain and restart the SEO campaign. The penalised site will effectivly 301 to the new domain. What are the chances of the new domain incurring the same penalty assuming all nastyness is removed but the content stays the same.. All advise welcome Thanks Dak
The site is not banned in the sense that it has PR and pages are indexed. However, it does not rank for anything and has sufficient backlinks. There were some fairly black hat techniques being used and one day it went BANG. Now it doesn't even rank for the company name (which is not competitive). It was ranking fairly well before this dark day struck. I have spoken to several people regarding the domain and the advise has been to move on. The only concern is the effect would a 301 redirect have to a new domain. Do I need to re-write the content for instance? Either way, its going to be fun...
If the black hat things were onsite then you should be OK to redirect the links to the new site (maybe). If you were doing blackhat linkbuilding then any penalty is likely to pass to the new site.
I disagree with this, as anyone could 301 a penilized site to redirect to your site. So I don't think this would incur a penalty. My main concern is the content.. any ideas?
I would hope not, else you could just 301 to a competitor. However I don't know if it would be wise to have a association with a banned domain...
Here are some facts that have come from research: 301'ing a banned domain will not hurt the new domain. However, what your suggesting is a little more than that isn't it (reading between the lines). You are suggesting you simply lift the banned content from the banned site, and place it on another site (presumably that you own). If the domains are registereed to the same people (and remember Google is a domain registrar it can access ALL the dat, including the hidden stuff) and the content is the same or close to the same, then I would say you are walking into a gunfight armed with a knife! 301 the old domain to the new one, make sure it is on a totally different class IP, make sure the new content is whiter than white, and go easy on the stuff that got you into trouble in the first place.
I think the issue lies with whether google thinks the new site is a seperate site or if it is a new version of the old site. If you 301 a banned site to an established site then there will be no effect. If you have green-widgets.com with John Smith in the whois details as the owner and it gets banned you can't then start up johns-green-widgets.com and redirect the old site to the new site without penalty.
Absolutely Mad, that was what i was saying. I know for a fact that a banned site can be 301'ed and not afffect another site, as I have the test proof.
Still better you can look if another .tld with the same name is available, for example, you have johnwidget.com look in for johnwidget.net and proclaim that ... johnwidget.com is now johnwidget.net I think that'd be better, as again, get a good copywriter to rewrite your content since google maintains a cache and will, regard your site as a duplicate, thereby hindering your indexing. Abhishek
The thing is though that your missing the point. (unless I am assuming the point ) with a 301 redirect backlink benefit is transferred after a month or two, and any requests for domain one are automatically delivered to domain 2 (if you do the 301 as redirect match anyhow).
You maybe right, but I guess all he/she is worried about is the actual visitors the old site is getting, and not the search engine spiders, since he himself fears a risk in being associated with a blacklisted domain. Realtime visitors on seeing the domain migration notice will know where to go when they want to reach the site next time ... and regarding SE Bots, he said he'll be SEOing the site freshly, So there my points are justified ... Better be safe than sorry, for you never know what Big G is upto , since 301s are hated by Google since a long time now, remember the DARKSEO 301 trick for PR 9 ?? Abhishek
Abhishek, your talking through your backside when you say google hates 301 redirects! 301 is ABSOLUTELY the right way to redirect a domain, so I don't know where you get the idea that they are 'hated'. 301 redirection is 100% the ONLY acceptable and sure fire way to ensure a smooth transfer.
Thats the best way when you want to redirect the spider .... But as again what I am trying to emphasize is, that why would he want to associate with a blacklisted domain, when he is all ready to restart the SEO campaign. You never know what the bIg G is upto ... I sure am not experienced as you ... but please note that here we are talking about a blacklisted domain, if it had been for a normal domain, it must have been an acceptable step, but 301 is like passing the spider from your site to another using your own hands, this creates a redirect cache in Google .. and associates the said domain to the new domain .. So I still suggest Better be safe than sorry ... And PS.. By Hate, I meant tht after the DarkSEO, PR exploit, google has it's ears straightened on for every 301 .. that's all ... Abhishek