Is it worth redirecting an old domain name which was hacked to my new website?

[james.rose]

I had a website which got hacked and malware added to it.

I have since closed that website down but I still have the domain name.

That domain name prior to the malware was incredibly well ranking for its niche and had a good range of high quality links to it and a domain age of 6 years.

I'm now creating a new website which is similar to the old one (the same but with a different platform and layout).

Is it a  good or bad idea to redirect the old domain name to the new website?

[james.rose]

Thanks mate.

I suppose given my new site hasn't even been indexed as yet I was more thinking how much penalty there could be...

I thought maybe I could redirect and then somehow let google know that the malware isn't present on the domain any more is all.

I'll leave it alone as it doesn't sound like its worth the risk.

[RichardSEO]

Its not about google being "smart enough." Its the fact that your old domain carries a penalty and if you 301 it, the penalty will be passed on.

I have tested this in the past and the penalty ALWAYS gets passed on to the new domain.

As a pre-caution, either test it on another domain or just forget about it and start fresh.

[james.rose]

So google won't be smart enough to check the new site?

I would assume my page was penalized as it had that warning this site may contain malware message..

[RichardSEO]

If the previous domain was penalized and its still penalized, then it is a good idea to not re-direct. The penalty will carry over.

You can simply grab a fresh domain, re-direct the domain in question and see the results. If its positivie, then go ahead and redirect to your new site.