Redirect to new domain.... (which is penalised)

[agua]

Hey - how's things?

I have a client who wants to redirect his main domain to a new one.... there are a couple of problems I see and thought I'd ask on moz.

1 - The new domain has been incorrectly parked on the old domain with no redirection in place... when you do "site:domain.com" in Google, there are no serps for the new domain (the old domain still ranks well), it doesn't seem to rank anywhere and doesn't return any results in OSE. Is it wise to redirect to this domain or will rankings drop on both?

2 - The new domain uses .mobi as its suffix and will be replacing a .com - but is much more related to the business keyword wise. Is using mobi a problem.

Overall the SEO on the site is abysmal and I will be reworking everything - so there will be lots of changes going on at the same time.

I'm just wondering if it is worth redirecting the new domain at all, or trying to get brand new domain and use that.... or just to stick with the original aged domain...

I think that is my only concerns at the moment

[siteoptimo]

And why exactly would you redirect a working (well aged) domain with rankings to an entirely new domain with a .mobi suffix and no rankings? Just for the extra related keyword in the domain?

Don't do it then. You're making a big sacrifice for nothing. In my experience, .mobi domains don't have that much value as .com domains (no hard proof of this). The new domain also has some issues apparently. I won't start from zero on this one.

[agua]

Thanks Pieter - that is a correct analysis and pretty much the same as my own thoughts.... but I was interested to see if there would be any benefits.

I had a feeling it would be hard work to get that domain ranking