Manual action penalty revoked, rankings still low, if we create a new site can we use the old content?

[peteboyd]

Scenario:
A website that we manage was hit with a manual action penalty for unnatural incoming links (site-wide). The penalty was revoked in early March and we're still not seeing any of our main keywords rank high in Google (we are found on page 10 and beyond). Our traffic metrics from March 2014 (after the penalty was revoked) - July 2014 compared to November 2013 - March 2014 was very similar.

Question: Since the website was hit with a manual action penalty for unnatural links, is the content affected as well? If we were to take the current website and move it to a new domain name (without 301 redirecting the old pages), would Google see it as a brand new website?

We think it would be best to use brand new content but the financial costs associated are a large factor in the decision. It would be preferred to reuse the old content but has it already been tarnished?

[DJ123]

I think this white board Friday may help you out a little

http://moz.com/blog/how-google-knows-what-sites-you-control-and-why-it-matters-whiteboard-friday

I would just start creating fresh content on the old site and wait for natural organic links to grow.  The traffic will come back over time.