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Thanks Karl.

Hi Robert, Thanks and sorry for my slow reply. Loads of good points you've raised here. You're quite right to challenge my presumption that the new domain is ranking poorly due to the 301 since there could be many other reasons. It's difficult to describe all the circumstances in a short question, so I guess I was going on my gut feel to some extent. Not ranking in the top 100 for a non-competitive term. I don't think the question of correlation arises here since there are no data sets to relate but I understand the point you make about cause and effect. For me a 302 doesn't really feel like that's what it's intended for so is not ideal. I think when Matt Cutts said 'start again', he meant really start again' i.e. no 301 so removing the 301 and having no other kind of redirect seems intuitively like the best option to me. Cheers.