Domain Penalty Transfer via Redirect - WV Flooring

[Web3Marketing87]

Hello Moz-folks,

We are doing SEO for a Calgary based company - westvalleyflooring.com

The domain was ranking really poorly (even though the website was structured quite well). This lead me to believe that it was penalized for poor links. I redirected the domain to westvalleyflooring.ca

We also improved the website structure and content. We began building citations, and eventually, after a few months, it made into page #1.

Unfortunately, after the last pinguin update, the domain virtually disappeared. We waited, but it did not become re-indexed. I elected to change the domain yet again to floorscalgary.com

That domain has now been indexed, but is on page #7. We are building citations for it, but it is a little daunting because it is so far back. Right now, the redirets look like this:

westvalleyflooring.com  --> westvalleyflooring.ca  -->  floorscalgary.com

Should it go like this:

westvalleyflooring.com  -->  floorscalgary.com

westvalleyflooring.ca  -->  floorscalgary.com

Do you agree with my decision to change the domain?

Thanks,

Anton

[Chris661]

Very likely you are just redirecting the penalty to the new domain. This article recently written by Marie Haynes may help.

http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2384644/can-you-safely-redirect-users-from-a-penguin-hit-site-to-a-new-domain

[Web3Marketing87]

In this particular case, I did not see a penalty assigned in Webmaster tools.

Do you think that going back to westvalleyflooring.com would be a good call?

floorscalgary.com temporarily ranked on page #2 or #3 and has now fallen back.
This account has been a big challenge.