Should I 301 a penalized domain to another domains subfolder?
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I have a niche domain seems to have been hit by Penguin. It had very good rankings before the update, and I think at least a good part of the penalty might be due to overoptimized anchor text.
So here is the question;
If I decide to take this site down, should I 301 the entire domain to a relevant sub-folder of another site? i.e comtemporaryfurniture.com to domain.com/category/modern-furniture.html
Will the penalty get passed onto the new domain?
If the penalty is partly due to anchor text, then pointing it to another site's subfolder would mean the tartget URL has more varied anchor text and could boost rankings.
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Howdy! Did this responses help answer your question, or are you still looking for some more assistance?
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I have to agree with Ryan that not much data is available on this but let’s look at the theory for a while...
As far as I know 301 is a redirection that allows visitor to redirect from old page to a new page and pass all its link value to the new page… this means Google knows your old page and the fact that it had a penguin hit.. Chances are that the penalty will transfer to the new domain as well…
I have one of my client website hit by penguin and the problem is that many of links pointing to the website got a hit by penguin…
I think the best idea is the hard way… I mean get in to every link check if this link is not low quality or Spam and in case of yes contact them and do almost every effort to remove links that are coming from SPAM or low quality sites….
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There are some reports of penalties being passed on through redirects. There is not currently enough data on this topic to know for sure.
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I wouldn't risk it.
Even if the benefits from the 301 are passed on, I don't think it would be too long before they were removed, or worse, a similar penalty was applied to the new domain. In the UK there was one particular niche were I've seen this happen with a number of sites, and they only lasted 2-3 months before dropping down & another 301 coming into place for a new domain. It's only a matter of time before Google gets smart to this pattern and gets quicker at applying more severe penalties in my opinion.
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