Should I Move to a New Domain?

I think that you can win it back, just look at what Google has actually done...they've tried to improve their search engine so that they give their customers the most relevant result that they can, if you provide the most relevant content, with your keywords in the right places, not spammed, but evident, which will naturally come out if you've got a good, informative site.

So, get some fresh, really juicy content up there and get posting decent articles that the end user will really gain from and submit them to other blog's and sites, contact site owners and ask them if you can do this. If that sounds a bit much try submityourarticle.com (No affiliation), if you've got some money to spend you can get some really serious SEO benefits from these guys.

There's more you could do but give that a try, I think that'll be better. Always better to just be legit, offer real value and provide a real, helpful service to anyone coming to your site is always a much better approach than trying to 'out-maneuver' the search engines, they'll win eventually and you'll be stuck with your main free traffic source out the window.

Be legit, offer value and use simple SEO, videos, articles...you know what to do....

:-)

I would probably advise you to move to a new domain. Reason being it's fresh, has no bad history or links, and you can focus on hiring a professional SEO company to work on your site in the beginning instead of waiting until your site has been penalized.

I disagree with Freddie,

if the site has developed into some sort of brandable site then you are in a bit of a dilemma, however from the sounds of it there isnt much of a fanbase.

You have a penalised website, and all you need to do is spend $10 on a new domain name and you can start with an unpenalised site. Dont pay an SEO company to do anything, every Google update is just as unpredictable as the last and you will find your rankings plummeting again.

Just focus on building quality content and simple, proven SEO methods.

I really dont think its worth keeping a penalised domain when you can get a brand new one for some pocket change and transfer the content.

The mantra behind the online success is Quality, Relevancy and Uniqueness.

So the links you have build so far check if those belongs to same niches. Therefore to check the quality of the linking domain is very crucial.

However, I recommend you no to go for the new domain. Rather you can start building some quality back links with the following procedure:

Create Unique and quality article and submit them to the popular blogs and article directory.

Try to contact guest blogger and ask them if they are interested to publish your writing, and in return you will get a high quality back from them in author bio.

Participate in forums discussion.

Participate in Question + Answering.

Blog comments

Social Bookmarking

Local Business Listing

Classified Ad Posting etc.

I hope these would enough to get you back your previous status.

hahaha, Ok, fine, switch domains, then do what I said :p

Switching domain is not yet the answer when you still
don't have a clue why you got penalized..

If you can PM the link i will have it analyzed and get
back to you in 48hrs once i clear my desk..

New domain.

You can ask the guys themselves on the Google forum, have you given it for reconsideration? Or you can get a better agency. Changing the domain entirely is to big a step yet unless you have tried everything possible.

I did a "parallel": ie. I will still attempt to revive my old, tanked domain name because it is branded for my company. In the meantime, I'll also buy a new domain name and properly perform SEO for it.

So that while I'm trying to get back my old domain name back to the SERPs, I will still get Google traffic from my other domain name.

Well, you can definitely save your site from the penalty, but is it worth doing?
It depends on your website. Unfortunately we do not have enough information about your site or niche.

If it was a company's website I would say it was worth trying. Again, really depends on the fact how the page is connected to your business, also consider the number of natural links, social profiles, etc, etc. If there is something worth saving - then do it. If it is just a blog and you won't lose much - it is easier to change the domain.

Please remember to delete the old website from index before posting the content that was put on your old domain in order to avoid non-unique content.

I can provide advice based on experience. (both a penalized domain and SYA)

Firstly, ditch the domain and start over, but - do not do a 301 redirect, otherwise you'll tank the new site. I've just been through this process.

Be absolutely certain that it was due to Penguin that you were smacked, and NOT Panda, otherwise you're just wasting your time migrating the site to a new domain. Why? Because the issue lies with the content, not the link profile.

Remove the penalized site and start clean. Take this as a lesson. Don't just rely on Google for traffic, and don't build shitty links.

As for Submit Your Article, I've used them and the service does work. Alexa, it's not like a blog network, they are extremely strict with what they accept and publish. (I had numerous articles rejected because of missing commas, and non capitalized letters and so forth)

However, having said that, I tend to agree. Having been through the whole Penguin thing myself, I would avoid it. Even though it works now, it's not worth the hassles of it potentially not working later. And worse case scenarios, penalties coming as a result of it.

Like John above, my advice was based on experience. Had a site drop out of the rankings; was pretty sure it was for excessive Adsense, since I put a bunch on there just to see what would happen (and see I did, hahaha). I tried to get it back by removing the Adsense, doing the whole WebMasters thing that Google recommends, etc. As of today that site gets maybe one or two hits a day.

Put up a new domain with content that was reworked from the old site ("spun", but over 90%), no Adsense, a slightly better theme, and voila, my income came back. The new site has 20-30 visitors a day at the moment, and climbing.

So while I agree with Joseph about the doing it in parallel thing (might as well have those extra couple of visitors as not), I wouldn't worry about rehabbing the old site. More trouble than it's worth for most IM sites.