New domain or flagged domain?

[Group2]

New client had a domain get flagged by Google and disappear from search rankings.  He left is old website company and wants us to design new site using the flagged domain.  Are we better off using a new domain or try to resurrect the flagged domain?

[Klarke]

Depends.

If it has alot of bad links, it might be better (and alot faster) to start over on a fresh domain with legitimate whitehat tactics.

If you have fewer links to clean up and alot of good links, then I'd try to resurrect.

If you have 50/50 good and bad links, my preference again is to start over on a new domain.  From experience, it is MUCH easier to get GOOD links updated to point to the new domain than it is to get BAD links removed as sites which allow themselves to be spammed with easy links or sites which accept low quality content are often not actively managed or maintained.

[Andropenis_Australia]

What Klarke said, but also let your client consider a reconsideration request with google after the redesign.

Google can sometimes be forgiving, and I believe that if you are seen to make a genuine effort to change/clean up your site you can get back to where you were.

A lot of the time spammy links when noticed by G are simply devalued and this is what causes the drop in rankings and a lot of the time what seems like a never ending penalty can be lifted the next day.

With the addition of google bringing in the link reporting tool into WMT your client could also have a chance to wash thier hands of the spammy links.

[Group2]

Thanks for the responses.  This is the exact information that we were looking for.  This is a client of ours that decided to build a different, competing website with another company.  They made it up the rankings right off the bat due to link farming and then they completely dropped off Google altogether.

Most likely we are going to go with the new domain.

If we redirect the bad domain to the new one, will any bad link juice come with it?  They really want to keep the domain.

[Klarke]

No.  You have to avoid redirecting to the new domain.  If you do, the bad link juice will follow you.

I know for sure that's the case with the "unnatural link warnings" that Google has been sending out.  I have no evidence its the same with Penugin, but it is very likely to be so.

Some people suggest using multiple redirects with multiple hops, but I have no experience with that.