Re-code website and start from scratch?

[BipSum]

Hi Community,

one of my sites was affected by panda penguin and then EMD updates last year. All our google 1st page rankings were lost and we have spent the last few months trying to recover the situation.  Changed content, meta tags, meta titles, disavowed links, changed navigation structure among other things.  We are now at a point where we are thinking of scrapping the whole thing and re-coding the site.  Before we make the decision I wanted to ask what the main risks and points are that we need to consider. Are there any useful guides to help us make an informed judgment?  Also, if we were to re-do the site and also change the domain name what are the implications of this and what needs to be considered.  I'd really appreciate some advice as this is a major step for us.

Thanks

[bradwayland]

I can see how changing the domain name might help you with the EMD update but I'm not sure I understand how this will solve your panda/penguin issues.  What is it that you will do with a new code base that you haven't done by changing content, meta tags, meta titles, etc?  I'm not sure how substantial the site is in terms of revenue etc but unless you were doing some really spammy stuff I would continue working on your current site and probably even domain.  I think you might want to take your SEO hat off for a while and start focusing on your users.  Does the new content help users accomplish what they need better?  Ultimately the only long term strategy would be to change your focus and produce the highest quality and most helpful content you can come up with.  In many cases Panda and Penguin penalize people that are too focused on the SEO side.  Considering your users will help mitigate this issue.  It's a long road but many times starting from scratch is the longest road you could possibly come up with.

[BipSum]

Hi Brad,

Thanks for your comments.  I appreciate you views on focusing on the quality content and user experience, its just that after making so many changes with it having little benefit I am at a loss as to what the best options are.  We have had no messages regarding links or manual penalties in our WMT.  Our domain name is a partial EMD but I am not convinced that this is the issue.  The majority of our main competitors have pretty much kept their rankings so I am guessing it may be down to our link profile which we have cleaned up.  The only other option(I think) is to re-design the site from the ground up to see if this has a positive impact.  I am just concerned about doing more harm than good by taking this approach without understanding clearly the risks involved and what we should be looking out for.

Thanks again