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
-
Does Google only show high rankings to webmasters?
Hello! I'm using Google Chrome browser. On the browser logged in with the Google Web Master account, the keyword ranking of my site is ranked on pages 1 to 2. However, in the case of the Google Secret tab and other browsers that have not logged in to the Google Web Master account, the keyword ranking of my site is only 10 pages. Which one is more reliable?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 1kB_man_YWH
Does it only show higher rankings to webmasters?
Or will you soon be able to see the high ranking that has only been seen by webmasters in other browsers? I desperately need your help. Thank you. I look forward to your kind cooperation.2 -
What to do with internal spam url's google indexed?
I am in SEO for years but never met this problem. I have client who's web page was hacked and there was posted many, hundreds of links, These links has been indexed by google. Actually these links are not in comments but normal external urls's. See picture. What is the best way to remove them? use google disavow tool or just redirect them to some page? The web page is new, but ranks good on google and has domain authority 24. I think that these spam url's improved rankings too 🙂 What would be the best strategy to solve this. Thanks. k9Bviox
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AndrisZigurs0 -
Moz was unable to crawl your site? Redirect Loop issue
Moz was unable to crawl your site on Jul 25, 2017. I am getting this message for my site: It says "unable to access your homepage due to a redirect loop. https://kuzyklaw.com/ Site is working fine and last crawled on 22nd July. I am not sure why this issue is coming. When I checked the website in Chrome extension it saysThe server has previously indicated this domain should always be accessed via HTTPS (HSTS Protocol). Chrome has cached this internally, and did not connect to any server for this redirect. Chrome reports this redirect as a "307 Internal Redirect" however this probably would have been a "301 Permanent redirect" originally. You can verify this by clearing your browser cache and visiting the original URL again. Not sure if this is actual issue, This is migrated on Https just 5 days ago so may be it will resolved automatically. Not sure, can anybody from Moz team help me with this?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CustomCreatives0 -
Advice needed! How to clear a website of a Wordpress Spam Link Injection Google penalty?
Hi Guys, I am currently working on website that has been penalised by Google for a spam link injection. The website was hacked and 17,000 hidden links were injected. All the links have been removed and the site has subsequently been redesigned and re-built. That was the easy part 🙂 The problems comes when I look on Webmaster. Google is showing 1000's of internal spam links to the homepage and other pages within the site. These pages do not actually exist as they were cleared along with all the other spam links. I do believe though this is causing problems with the websites rankings. Certain pages are not ranking on Google and the homepage keyword rankings are fluctuating massively. I have reviewed the website's external links and these are all fine. Does anyone have any experience of this and can provide any recommendations / advice for clearing the site from Google penalty? Thanks, Duncan
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CayenneRed890 -
Domain.com/XXX or domain.com/blog/XXX ?
i have a business and a side blog on the website. is it fine to turn my blog to domain.com/XXX instead of domain.com/blog/XXX? does it in anyway of these affect the SEO?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | andzon0 -
How do you change the 6 links under your website in Google?
Hello everyone, I have no idea how to ask this question, so I'm going to give it a shot and hopefully someone can help me!! My company is called Eteach, so when you type in Eteach into Google, we come in the top position (phew!) but there are 6 links that appear underneath it (I've added a picture to show what I mean). How do you change these links?? I don't even know what to call them, so if there is a particular name for these then please let me know! They seem to be an organic rank rather than PPC...but if I'm wrong then do correct me! Thanks! zorIsxH.jpg
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Eteach_Marketing0 -
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