Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Penalised by Google - Should I Redirect to a new domain?
-
Last month my rankings dropped a couple of pages on Google and am no longer receiving as many visits from Google as I used to. It's coming up to summer which is the time my business naturally picks up yet I can't fix this problem.
I have a crazy idea of redirecting my established site onto a new domain in hopes that the penalty would be removed.
I have tried removing any manipulative links yet my ranking are not coming back.
Anyone had success in redirecting to a new domain?
-
I would definitely NOT redirect a domain that received an unnatural link penalty to a new domain that you're starting fresh on. I wouldn't host that new domain on the same C-block either.
If you were running from the cops would you call them and let them know that you cut your hair, changed your clothes and got a new car?
-
Hi Todd,
Thanks for confirming the redirect will not solve the issue.
I received an unnatural link warning on March 22nd, and the penalty came into effect 2 weeks later even after removing the links.
My blog which is on a different sub domain has had a dramatic increase in SE traffic and I'm now thinking to start fresh on a new site and redirect the blog only.
-
It won't help. In fact, the search results are so finicky right now that you could probably redirect your domain to a competitor and get them penalized. Basically, if your rankings dropped on April 23rd - 24th you're probably not coming back any time soon.
It's not all bad though. Look at it as an opportunity to try out new marketing strategies. You could try going through your site and reducing bounce rates, increasing time on page, improving site speed etc, but honestly I'd work on other marketing techniques. Get a video or data visualization campaign going. Try to get some media mentions. Conduct some interviews and give some yourself.
Did you get an unnatural links warning in webmaster tools?
Goodluck
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Sub Domain rel=canonical to Main Domain
Just a quick one, i have the following example scenario. Main Domain: http://www.test.com Sub Domain: http://sub.test.com What I am wondering is I can add onto the sub domain a rel=canonical to the main domain. I dont want to de-index the whole sub domain just a few pages are duplicated from the main site. Is it easier to de-index the individual sub domain pages or add the rel=canonical back to the main domain. Much appreciated Joseph
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Joseph-Vodafone0 -
HOW!??! Homepage Ranking Dropped Completely out of Top 100 on Google....
So I'm competing for a very competitive keyword, and I've been on the bottom of page 2 for a while now, ranking for my homepage, which is very content rich and has GREAT links pointing to it. Out of nowhere, last week I dropped completely out of the top 100 or so, yet one of my article posts now ranks on page 6 or so for the same keyword. I have great authoritative links, my on-page is spot on, all of my articles are super super high quality, I don't understand how my homepage, which has ranked for the main keyword for months on page 2, can just completely drop out of the top 100 or so.... Can anyone help provide some insight?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | juicyresults0 -
Black hat : raising CTR to have better rank in Google
We all know that Google uses click-through-rate (CTR) as one of it is ranking factor. I came up with an idea in my mind. I would like to see if someone saw this idea before or tried it. If you search in Google for the term "SEO" for example. You will see the moz.com website in rank 3. And if you checked the source code you will see that result 3 is linking to this url: https://www.google.com.sa/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDMQFjAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmoz.com%2Fbeginners-guide-to-seo&ei=F-pPVaDZBoSp7Abo_IDYAg&usg=AFQjCNEwiTCgNNNWInUJNibqiJCnlqcYtw That url will redirect you to seomoz.com Ok, what if we use linkbucks.com or any other cheap targeted traffic network and have a campaign that sends traffic to the url that I show you. Will that count as traffic from Google so it will increase the CTR from Google?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Mohtaref11 -
How to 301 redirect from old domain and their pages to new domain and pages?
Hi i am a real newbie to this and i hope for a guide on how to do this. I seen a few moz post and is quiet confusing hopefully somebody able to explain it in layman terms to me. I would like to 301 redirect this way, both website contain the same niche. oldwebsite.com > newwebsite.com and also its pages..... oldwebsite.com/test >newwebsite.com/test So my question here is i would like to host my old domain and its pages in my new website hosting in order to redirect to my new domain and its pages how do i do that? would my previous page link overwrite my new page link? or it add on the juice link? Do i need to host the whole old domain website into my new hosting in order to redirect the old pages? really confusing here, thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | andzon0 -
Suspicious external links to site have 302 redirects
Hi, I have been asked to look at a site where I suspect some questionable SEO work, particularly link building. The site does seem to be performing very poorly in Google since January 2014, although there are no messages in WMT. Using WMT, OPenSiteExplorer, Majestic & NetPeak, I have analysed inbound links and found a group of links which although are listed in WMT, etc appear to 302 redirect to a directory in China (therefore the actual linking domain is not visible). It looks like a crude type of link farm, but I cant understand why they would use 302s not 301s. The domains are not visible due to redirects. Should I request a disavow or ignore? The linking domains are listed below: http://www.basalts.cn/
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | crescentdigital
http://www.chinamarbles.com.cn/
http://www.china-slate.com.cn/
http://www.granitecountertop.com.cn/
http://www.granite-exporter.com/
http://www.sandstones.biz/
http://www.stone-2.com/
http://www.stonebuild.cn/
http://www.stonecompany.com.cn/
http://www.stonecontact.cn/
http://www.stonecrate.com/
http://www.stonedesk.com/
http://www.stonedvd.com/
http://www.stonepark.cn/
http://www.stonetool.com.cn/
http://www.stonewebsite.com/ Thanks Steve0 -
Website not listing in google - screaming frog shows 500 error? What could the issue be?
Hey, http://www.interconnect.org.uk/ - the site seems to load fine, but for some reason the site is not getting indexed. I tried running the site on screaming frog, and it gives a 500 error code, which suggests it can't access the site? I'm guessing this is the same problem google is having, do you have any ideas as to why this may be and how I can rectify this? Thanks, Andrew
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Heehaw0 -
Separate domain name for a subdomain?
I just created a subdomain to help our main TLD website. I was wondering if it's smart to create a separate TLD for this subdomain and set up a forward and build links to it. Reason I was thinking about it because it would be easier for people to remember instead of typing in subdomain.maindomain.com. But, I don't want the main website to suffer, since the purpose of creating this subdomain and it's content is to help the main domain. Any inputs on this? Thank you.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | FinanceSite0 -
Can you block backlinks from another domain
Wondering if this is somehow possible. A site got hacked and created a /data folder with hundreds of .php files that are web pages selling all sorts of stuff. We deleted the /data folder and blocked Google from indexing it. Just noticed in Webmaster Tools that the site has 35,000 backlinks from other sites that got hacked with the same way. Is there a way to block these sites? I am assuming there isn't, but wanted to see if anyone ran into the same problem. It is a wordpress site is that helps.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | phatride0