Considering Moving to New Domain and SEO

[DMAC44]

Hello,

One of our sites has been using a domain since 2005 and is shown below.  The domain is terrible for multiple reasons, hyphens and doesn't even reflect our actual company name.  Not to mention its embarrassing when telling a customer to email us at support @ pro "dash, yes the hyphen" gift....  I wanted to change it long ago but feared it would hurt my SEO rankings.  After taking Bruce Clay's training class back in 2004, we managed to rank top 10 for most targeted keywords.  My ranking have slowly dropped over time due to neglect and decaying IBL's.  We still rank for a few targeted keywords but it was just August of 2017 we were still top 10 but something happened and we dropped out of the top 100 right before our holiday season.  We had to run Adwords and BingAds to supplement traffic this holiday season.  So I am wondering before I restart my SEO efforts should I move the domain now before trying to build new content, IBL's, etc?

I was always under the impression Google used domain trust a major factor which wasnt only IBL but also domain age.  Our preferred domain I purchased from another owner and it has ZERO links to it.  It was basically a parked domain with the "domain for sale" stuff.  I am a little nervous about moving it over because Google didnt even have it in its index.  I put up a coming soon page and hosted it on my server, same C Block, and requested a crawl from my webmaster console.  I added some text to the new domain index page and it appears Google is showing results for our old domain!  At first I thought it was duplicate content but its not Google obviously has deciphered current site is my old domain and is displaying the title and meta data from the old domain.  I have never seen this before.  Google cache shows the current domain the new domain url.

A few questions:

Will my site get sandboxed after 301 redirecting and going webmaster console move features etc?

Does this reset the trust factors?  I have read examples in my research where some people say it only took a few weeks and everything was back to normal and others that have said it took years.

Any experience or insight is greatly appreciated.  I am currently relearning SEO and going over the SEO tutorial articles provided on moz.  Thanks again!

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New Domain - matches our company name, no hyphens, better branding

http://www.giftbasketpros.com/

Google index

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.giftbasketpros.com

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Current Domain, since 2005, has ranked well for years until this summer

http://www.pro-gift-baskets.com/

[VeroBrain]

Hi,

As you already noticed on regard SEO, it is not water which passed under the bridge, since 2004, it was a whole flood!

Said that, I strongly recommend that you update the SEO of your old domain before consider a migration or a redirect.
Nowadays, Google knows a lot about the owner of any domain. That is a factor too.

All succesfull migrations bring almost all the SEO rank, whether is a good or a bad one. If your website is now having a penalization due to old back links, link schemes from the past that you might have forgotten or you do not know about, lack of h1: the best option is to fix up all the SEO issues, accordingly to SEO 2018 best practices, before the migration or redirect.

Sadly, Google has long term excelent memory and great data bank. Good luck and Happy New Year!

Mª Verónica

[DMAC44]

Thanks for the response.

I was not saying I wanted to move the domain to somehow circumvent some penalty.  When I asked about trust I was referring to the new domain with zero history not some bad link scheme on my current site.

My drop in rankings has been a slow and gradual drop from #1 to #18ish over the last 8 years.  The recent blackhole drop could be anything but I think I would remember some shady link scheme you are insinuating.  No, I didnt participate in link schemes in the past nor in the current.  I havent kept up to date with the current SEO stuff but I highly doubt sites with such bad link schemes would have survived penguin years ago.  This drop is just a couple months ago well beyond the big algo changes so I highly doubt its some bad stuff coming home to roost as you suggest.

Also I am not sure what you are talking about with regards to water under the bridge and the whole flood???

If anything my IBL have decayed over time by the apparent Ahrefs chart.  The sudden drop, I will figure out what it is but its not what you are suggesting.

[VeroBrain]

Hi,
I am so sorry that a general advice was offensive for you.
You know best what caused what.
I apologize too, on regard a quote I did not translate properly for you.

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[DMAC44]

I think the miscommunication was from my original post where I posted "Does domain trust reset"   I can see how someone would read that as trying to circumvent a penalty.  I meant on a new domain with no history and no index.  My current domain whether its penalized or not has ranked for years so I am very confident this issue can be resolved.

My first step is learning about the disavow tool.  I have never used it but did notice a big quantity of links which according aHrefs was discovered in August.  691 to be exact on August 17th by some spam blog. I did not buy or ask for those links.  I am assuming the disavow tool was made for this type of spam.  I will review my Google backlinks first and disavow any garbage then update my content and try to build good links to it.

There are many things I need to do, years behind.  My site isnt even mobile ready yet.  That project is slated to be finished by March.

[Jgfbjvvnnvvvb]

Isn't done yet. It takes much time to get you back to the old ranking but not sure to be said. It will return 100%. Its same thing I did try on Branches You can check also.