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301 Redirecting A Domain After Penguin Penalized?

by Dennis Cheesman
26 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hey warriors,

I have a site that was penalized after the google penguin update and lost all my page one rankings which was a lot..

The site was making me around $6000 per month and has now dropped to $400 per month, I never got the unnatural links in WMT or any warnings.

I tried a few google recovery tips and even got more backlinks with different anchor text but still no recovery at all.

I have created another site on a new site that is around 3 months old in the same niche and created some really high quality content about 12 pages, and I have done some manual web2.0 backlinking and the site is now a PR4 and on page 5 for my main keyword, which was on page 2 but dropped back to page 5 at the end of July.

Now I have heard a lot about 301 redirecting to a new domain and peoples rankings coming right back..

But I have also heard that some had lost their rankings on the new site after a couple of weeks and suggest the penalty followed?

My question is:

1) If I 301'd my old site to the new site and the penalty did follow could I just remove the 301 redirect and the new site recover or will it be forever damaged?

2) Would it be better to use a new domain and write content for it then redirect to it?

I know most would say option 2 but I really want the first site to take off as I have put a lot of time and money into it writing high quality content, really awesome design and legit backlinks, I want to build and brand that site, but doing it the legit way takes forever and sites doing it the other way are passing me by like I'm standing still...

I want solid replies not theories... So please only reply if you have 301 redirected a penalized site and been affected either way..

I appreciate your time,
Dennis
#301 #domain #penalized #penguin #redirecting
  • Profile picture of the author dbwebdesignz
    all penaltys will carry over


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  • Profile picture of the author DNAWRealm
    Banned
    I wouldn't 301 redirect a penalised site. Instead, work on fixing it.

    Change the URL structure of your posts. E.G. Change domain.com/hi to domain.com/hello.

    Work on fixing it, and then include backlinks to your money site once fixed.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dennis Cheesman
      Originally Posted by DNAWRealm View Post

      I wouldn't 301 redirect a penalised site. Instead, work on fixing it.

      Change the URL structure of your posts. E.G. Change domain.com/hi to domain.com/hello.

      Work on fixing it, and then include backlinks to your money site once fixed.
      Already did that.. Didn't work...
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  • Profile picture of the author VegasGreg
    I have one big site in the same situation. I just built a newer, cleaner version, but haven't yet 301'd the old site to the new one as I wasn't sure either.

    Hopefully we get some solid answers/proof here other than the yes/no answers. :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author retsek
    Based on my experience ...a 301 would work for something like Panda. You do the redirect, you get an instant recovery. To keep that recovery, you make on-site changes based on what you think caused the penalty in the first place -- thereby not getting yourself hit a second time.

    The problem with Penguin is that it mostly looks at your backlinks; more specifically your targeted anchor text. Doing a 301 points those same backlinks at the new domain and will only give you a temporary fix until Penguin is run again.

    My best advice? Change domains, but do not do the 301 redirect. If you created all those links, you probably still have control over the best of them. - whether it's Web 2.0s that you created, a private network or directory links or even article directories (not saying these are types of links you should get, but it is what is and they still work for now if you're careful). Go back and the change both the URLs and anchor text of those links.

    Use more branded terms. Instead "main keyword" and "other keyword", use "domain.com - main keyword", or "other keyword domain.com". For the homepage use things like "domain.com, www.domain.com, domain, etc".
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  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Cheesman
    The problem with Penguin is that it mostly looks at your backlinks; more specifically your targeted anchor text. Doing a 301 points those same backlinks at the new domain and will only give you a temporary fix until Penguin is run again.
    It seems like if the penalty would pass on to the new site, I could just point it to my competitor and damage his site?

    Not sure though, that is why I want solid answers of people who have done it before..

    Dennis
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by Dennis Cheesman View Post

      It seems like if the penalty would pass on to the new site, I could just point it to my competitor and damage his site?

      Not sure though, that is why I want solid answers of people who have done it before..

      Dennis
      Yeah that's a common question.

      My thoughts are yes, pointing your penalized site to a competitor could hurt them if they have:

      1. a weak site with very little links or a brand new site, or
      2. a site that already has tons of manipulative links but has been doing it on the borderline and so hasn't been caught.

      You're not going to able to do the same with competitors who are established with a strong backlink profile. At best, you'll probably end up making their domain stronger.
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      • Profile picture of the author Dennis Cheesman
        Originally Posted by retsek View Post

        Yeah that's a common question.

        My thoughts are yes, pointing your penalized site to a competitor could hurt them if they have:

        1. a weak site with very little links or a brand new site, or
        2. a site that already has tons of manipulative links but has been doing it on the borderline and so hasn't been caught.

        You're not going to able to do the same with competitors who are established with a strong backlink profile. At best, you'll probably end up making their domain stronger.
        That sounds logical..

        I think I will point it to a different domain that I got about 3 months ago, that had been dropped..

        Registrar History:
        1 registrar with 1 drop.

        NS History:
        5 changes on 5 unique name servers over 2 years.

        IP History:
        7 changes on 5 unique IP addresses over 5 years.

        Whois History:
        13 records have been archived since 2010-12-08 .

        IP History says it is over 5 years old correct?

        So it is an aged domain but it has "NO" backlinks in google at all.

        I am going to put up some high quality unique content and get a few bookmark links along with some edu links, wiki links and submit rss feeds to rss feed sites all using random "click here", "visit site" and so on anchor text.

        Then redirect the old site to it using 301 redirect.

        And hope it lasts I just don't feel safe doing it to the site I have been babying...

        Anyone know of safe white hat backlinking services?

        Dennis
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      • Profile picture of the author jack9850127
        Originally Posted by retsek View Post

        Yeah that's a common question.

        My thoughts are yes, pointing your penalized site to a competitor could hurt them if they have:

        1. a weak site with very little links or a brand new site, or
        2. a site that already has tons of manipulative links but has been doing it on the borderline and so hasn't been caught.

        You're not going to able to do the same with competitors who are established with a strong backlink profile. At best, you'll probably end up making their domain stronger.
        i would agree with that, actually it is something about the negative SEO, the point is if you take these sites appeared on the first returning page, you would find that:
        1. authrative sites that with strong backlink profile on which case, even you redirect a penalized site to that, no harm would happen due to the solid backlink prospects
        2. sites ranking high through spam, before google could reconize that ,an additional trick of redirect would have no influences on the ranking.

        i have seen a lot of cases of 301 redirecting to new domain, there is one thing i am sure that when you redirect a penalized site to a totally new domain ,you will take a recovery instantly and i am not sure how long the new site could stay on the ranking,but no more than 1 month, i guess, i have seen : domainA 301 to domain B, domain B-domain C, C 301 to D, D 301 to E, B 301 to E, C 301 to E, A 301 to E, and i am sure that , when the E was detected and penalized by Google, then they will redirect all sites to F!!!!
        someone would deemed it as rediculous to do that cycle, but just one month on the top of the ranking would bring them huge profits compared to the cost, so register a domain and do the process over and over again probably is worthful! i am not so sure how far that cycle could go,but it did works at least at the moment even after Google panda and penguin.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ernie Lo
    ....................................
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  • Profile picture of the author Nicky Papers
    Answer: You will pass the poison of a site that was hit by Penguin to the new site.

    Proof: Since nobody actually provided the proof, all you need to know is on this graph here. MicroSiteMasters - View Keyword Info

    Conclusion: The poison contained in a site that was hit by Penguin carries through in a 301 that's both cross URL and cross domain. With this becoming a reality after Penguin the need for user defined link dis-evaluation needs to exist to prevent negative SEO attempts. But fear not, Google is on it.

    Enjoy!
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    • Profile picture of the author Natlex
      Originally Posted by Nicky Papers View Post

      Answer: You will pass the poison of a site that was hit by Penguin to the new site.

      Proof: Since nobody actually provided the proof, all you need to know is on this graph here. MicroSiteMasters - View Keyword Info

      Conclusion: The poison contained in a site that was hit by Penguin carries through in a 301 that's both cross URL and cross domain. With this becoming a reality after Penguin the need for user defined link dis-evaluation needs to exist to prevent negative SEO attempts. But fear not, Google is on it.

      Enjoy!

      Uhhh, how did that not end up working? He changed his redirect to a 302 instead of 301, isnt that the reason his traffic dropped again? Not saying Penguin won't be re-applied but it looks like the drop was due to the 301 to 302 change in the notes...
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  • Profile picture of the author Nicky Papers
    I should have included this slide deck in my previous post:
    It gives the play by play on the Penguin Recovery attempt.
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  • Profile picture of the author easypr
    If your redirect your website with the help 301 redirection the 90-90% link juice to redirect domain that's why penalty is also passes to new website.
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  • Profile picture of the author WinsonYeung
    I did a 301 redirect from my .com to .org domain and ranking DID came back within 1 weeks. However, this is temporarily and my ranking after 3 week has disappeared again. I have regretted the decision of doing a 301 hoping that the penalty will not carried down.

    Now, I'm shifting my content from .org back to .com and it's time to re-work on the SEO of the site.

    Regards,
    Winson
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  • Profile picture of the author RadCon
    Same as Winson :

    1/ First try (July - August 2012): 301 redirect to another domain name (3 years old, no drop) which already had some links pointing to it, on the same niche. Same server, same IP, same site : I got 80% of my rankings back but after 3 weeks, penalty was applied to the destination domain.

    2/ Second try last week : I went further this time. Bought a new domain with a hidden whois, hosted it on another server, changed URLs and content then did the 301 redirect. I got some positions back after 4 - 5 days but they were not as good as they previously were (about 30% worse - Example : rankingg #15 instead of #10 before the penalty). And 3 days after : penalty followed. Last step 10 days after 301 redirect : all my rankings disappeared.

    Conclusion : it seems Big G has definitely adressed the issue.

    To answer to the question of knowing if the destination domain was penalized : yes, even after removing the 301 you're still penalized. To my opinion it will stay penalized until the next Penguin update, it should recover after that if 301 redirect has been removed in the meanwhile.
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  • Profile picture of the author Shout Out Digital
    From my understanding of following other SEO professionals as well from my own experience, we have seen the 301 redirect method work 90% of the time. Like I say its not all the time but in 9 time out of 10 cases we have seen the new site rank much better. However these sites that we redirected too also had a domain age and some link profile already. I would suggest building a decent link profile first for your new website with anchor such as domain, website name, click here, read more etc. This builds a very good foundation ready for you to redirect your old website.

    I hope this helps and has been useful. Good luck, Neil
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  • Profile picture of the author Neville Pettersson
    Redirecting to a new is surely not the only option. Or maybe I just don't know enough about it.

    Has anyone tried redirecting only internal pages, not whole site? Also what about redirecting to a FB page or Twitter account or some other profile. Do you think these types of sites are less likely to get slapped ny Penguin? I know for myself all of my FB and Tw profiles have not been ht even though I used the same (now defunct) backlinking strategies.
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    • Profile picture of the author uqmoore
      Originally Posted by Neville Pettersson View Post

      Redirecting to a new is surely not the only option. Or maybe I just don't know enough about it.

      Has anyone tried redirecting only internal pages, not whole site? Also what about redirecting to a FB page or Twitter account or some other profile. Do you think these types of sites are less likely to get slapped ny Penguin? I know for myself all of my FB and Tw profiles have not been ht even though I used the same (now defunct) backlinking strategies.
      Interesting post. I have a site that was clobbered in search but two pages still rank in the top five. I was thinking of doing a 301 on these two pages and make sure none of the clobbered pages point to these pages. For the other pages I would do a custom 404 page with a no follow link to the new site. Another thought is do a 302 on the other pages since many feel that this doesn't pass the penalty.

      Redirecting to a facebook fan page sounds like a great idea actually. I'll likely get a bunch of fans plus I'll have links to the new site there. Hmmmmm....
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      • Profile picture of the author websupportguy
        Originally Posted by uqmoore View Post

        Redirecting to a facebook fan page sounds like a great idea actually. I'll likely get a bunch of fans plus I'll have links to the new site there. Hmmmmm....
        That IS a clever idea. I wonder if there's a way of forcing a "like" out of it along the way? I was going to 302 my bad links but I may try this instead.

        So let me ask, to be clear, if I have bad backlinks I can't get removed (and I do), is 301 redirecting them to my Facebook page a good idea? I think I know how to do that by source domain. Will that remove my bad link karma (not manually penalised) from Google? Or will Google still think those backlinks are pointing to my site pages?
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        • Profile picture of the author uqmoore
          Originally Posted by websupportguy View Post

          That IS a clever idea. I wonder if there's a way of forcing a "like" out of it along the way? I was going to 302 my bad links but I may try this instead.

          So let me ask, to be clear, if I have bad backlinks I can't get removed (and I do), is 301 redirecting them to my Facebook page a good idea? I think I know how to do that by source domain. Will that remove my bad link karma (not manually penalised) from Google? Or will Google still think those backlinks are pointing to my site pages?
          Redirecting to a fb page won't save the penalized site but you could then link to your new money site on the fb page.
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          • Profile picture of the author apg
            This is all good info. Our ideas are a bit different. Since we were effected by Penguin, we would create a new domain with a "Landing Page" that has short content with one link to our new website, a specific new page, and say we've shortened our URL for you to remember more easily. Our current website would be moved to the new domain.

            Has anyone tried this?
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  • Profile picture of the author b4uindia
    This thread is gonna be one of very useful thread for anyone in SEO, eagerly waiting for conclusions made by warriors... and the opening poster
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