Which domain we should continue with?

[sachin-sv]

Hello All,

We are working with a client who had manual penalty from Google. We worked on that and now penalty has been removed.

Client had already started working on the new domain and now the big dilemma is- Which domain should we continue with? Old or New?

We are suggesting them to continue with the old one as that domain had good PR, good backlinks, better visibility on their social profiles etc.

What do you suggest? any inputs are highly appreciated.

Thanks

[Antony_Towle]

I would think the Old depending on its current state,

If you can make any necessary changes to the old site without any technical limitations and maintain the back links and social profile then better than starting a fresh,

I wouldn't of thought the penalty would effect you long term if it has been fully rectified and was not for an overly serious offence,

James

[BruceA]

I vote Old:

If you start with a new domain, then you will have to build all the rankings basicaly from scratch, give or take a few possible redirects etc.  Providing the penalty has gone then you should be fine on this.  Google doesn't from what we know keep a token penalty on the site because of a past problem,  once the main penalty has been lifted its lifted

A new site can take quite a while to settle in and therefore you could expect many months of patience waiting for the site to get to the level of the old one.

Bruce.

[sachin-sv]

Hi James,

Thanks for your quick response.

Would you suggest a redirect from new to old domain? new domain is also ranking now and have good content too.

[Antony_Towle]

Wow that's tough if the new site has different new content,

Yes i would,

But i would ensure the old site is up to the high standard also, I would ensure any significant improvements on the new site IE better quality content, better responsive design, better internal structure and navigation are mirrored across on the old site, I would review and merge the better aspects and content onto the older site as it has the better platform with the link/social profile etc,

I wouldn't want to you redirect which could be a better new site if the old site is not up to scratch, I would hope to get a second opinion from another Moz user on this,

James

[Bryan_Loconto]

Hey guys!

I agree with James and Bruce. We have a client that ran into a similar issue about a year ago where he was issued a manual penalty on his site, from work performed prior to us of course ; ). While we were working to correct the issue, we developed a new site (on a new URL) that began ranking fairly well with little effort. Once the penalty was removed from the older site, we simply kept the two sites separate and focused our efforts primarily on the older site. This proved to be an effective strategy in our situation since the new site didn't have much authority or credibility. It was ranking well so the client decided to leave it on its own and not redirect or connect it to the older site in any way.

So in my experience, I would have to agree that using the older domain would be best. Of course assuming that the site (content, URL structure, UX, link profile and social signals) is at a higher level than the newer site.

Regarding the redirect from the new site to the old, this is totally a judgement call you will have to make based on the amount and quality of off-site (links & social mentions) between the two sites. IMO the on-page and UX stuff can and should always be tweaked and improved upon. So I don't think that should really be a deciding factor.

Hope this helps in one way or another!