Domain change after over optimisation
-
Hi Guys,
Wanted to get some second opinions. I have a client who worked with someone on their SEO for about 15months, during which time they reaped the benefits of being top of Googles organic rankings for their main keyword. Unfortunately, the link building that was completed was terrible with no care taken for future updates, over optimised anchor text links on totally irrelevant websites.
Contacting webmasters in order for links to be taken down was an impossible task, these websites were pure spam sites which I doubt anyone oversees with any care. So went the disavow route, it caused a slight increase, but the way Google indexes the website and its pages is still all over the place.
We have a good new content marketing plan in place for the next 12 months, and already have some great in depth articles, videos and interactive infographics created, but the problem is my client really needs some quick wins and cannot risk the domain never recovering fully from the issues.
They own the .com version of the .co.uk they have so my thoughts at this point are to move them to the .com, and the new content strategy can be worked on as if its a new project. For the keywords they target there are sites on the 1st and 2nd page with DA of 16-18, so it wont take long with the new content we have to get them back to a level playing field with the competition. The one worry I do have is Google seeing the .co.uk go down, and the .com appear with the same website on and looking down on the "start from scratch" method.... does anyone know of any examples when they have acted on this?
We started an AdWords account (very small spend) and this has been going to the .co.uk, if we start a new one, with same billing info going to the .com could that also cause problems?
So basically, because of my clients situation, and the level the competition is it, moving to the .com seems like the best move, its just whether there is any risk involved. I've never read of there being any, but thought I'd get some opinions before comitting to it.
By the way, I'm only seeing this as a feasible option as they can still keep branded traffic due to buying both domains at the same time.
Thanks in advance.
-
Hi Kevin,
It's inconclusive how careful you have to be when starting afresh after an irreparable spam penalty - also, while I understand that the client needs to see results, I have anecdotal evidence of horrific backlink spam being resolved and penalties being lifted - my former agency worked on a site last year with a backlink profile full of thousands of bad links. Literally thousands had to be removed or disavowed. It took about six or seven months to fix, unfortunately, but the penalty was lifted earlier this year after the biggest link take-down project I have ever seen.
However, if you simply cannot fix this, I would go with the .com. Penalties certainly regularly pass through redirects, and I would not be confident that other forms of redirection like 302s and meta refreshes wouldn't count in this case too. Even without a redirect, what Mary says about penalties following brands is feasible since it's not going to be a secret to Google that this is the same business on a new domain name.
One thing is certainly true: starting with the new domain is the only way to go if the client cannot commit to a lengthy take-down process. Have another look at whether you have exhausted the disavowal process though... there might be more to get out of that route before you ditch the domain completely. Disavowal is meant to help in situations like this, but it's also true that the team there can be very difficult to get a positive response out of, even when you have done your best to remove the links and are demonstrating that you can't do more.
Cheers,
Jane
-
Hi Mary,
thanks for the response.
We created a new site with new content on the .co.uk at the same time as the disavow. So are you saying its now not safe to use this design/content on the .com?
Im 100% sure there was no on page optimisation penalty, as the old website natural content infact it was hardly optimized at all. They ranked purely on anchor text back links, the level was ridiculous it was around 80% for keyword terms and the rest a mix of generic and branded anchors.
It seems in hindsight the new website design would have been best saved for moving across to the .com, but obviously that is now no longer an option.
**EDIT: Can I also add the .com will be hosted on a totally new IP address **
-
Kevin, There was some recent chatter http://www.seroundtable.com/google-penalty-site-move-18163.html about how penalties can follow a site even if the original (penalized) site is NOT 301 redirected to the new URL. Unless you are sure the hit that site got was all about bad links and not at all about on-page over-optimization, I'd make sure the content on the new dotcom domain was fresh.
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
-
Do we lose Backlinks and Domain Authority of URL when we change domain Name?
Have 1 performing domain (Monthly - 4M visitor ) now we want to change domain name ( Brand name like SEOMOZ to Moz ). I have general knowledge about domain changing prevention tips like 301 redirection and other thing. My concern is about backlinks and DA. How can I prevent any lose from SEO Point of view. (backlink lose) Do I need to change all backlink form source or redirection is enough to get all reference traffic from that backlinks?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | HuptechWebseo0 -
Should I disavow links to a dead sub domain?
I'm analyzing a client's website today and I found that they have over 300 spammy sites linking to a subdomain of their main site. So for example, say their site is clientsite.com, well they have hundreds of links pointing to deadsite.clientsite.com. That subdomain was used at one time as a staging site, and is no longer active. Are those hundreds of spammy sites hurting or potentially hurting my client's SEO? Or is it a non-issue because the links point to a dead subdomain? We believe that that staging sub domain site was hacked at one time, and thats where all those spammy links came from. Should I disavow them?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | rubennunez0 -
Change domains and start over?
We have a fairly new client who has taken part in many questionable SEO technique over the past few years (mainly buying links and directory web pages). In an effort to fix this they hired three separate SEO’s – we are the fourth. Over the past 3 months we have spent lots of time following best practice techniques to clean up and improve their rankings (including link removal requests but not yet disavow), and after some initially positive results, things are looking down again. Given Google’s apparent rolling algorithm updates and the mess we have found, we are wondering if the best option is to change domains and start over (downside is that they are in a highly competitive industry)? My other question pertains to a domain change and if we were to change from a plural to a singular, would that be enough for Google? (e.g from www.domains.com to www.domain.com). The idea is that we start the link building process again – but keep their brand intact. Really appreciate any feedback.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | E2E0 -
Can I Point Multiple Exact Match Domains to a Primary Domain? (Avoiding Duplicate Content)
For example, lets say I have these 3 domains: product1.com product2.com product.com The first 2 domains will have very similar text content, with different products. The product.com domain will be similar content, with all of the products in one place. Transactions would be handled through the Primary domain (product.com) The purpose of this would be to capitalize on the Exact match domain opportunities. I found this seemingly old article: http://www.thesitewizard.com/domain/point-multiple-domains-one-website.shtml The article states that you can avoid duplicate content issues, and have all links attributed to the Primary domain. What do you guys think about this? Is it possible? Is there a better way of approaching this while still taking advantage of the EMD?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ClearVisionDesign0 -
Keyword Named Domains
First, I'm new to SEO so bear with me. My company owns a list of domains with names that are keywords for us. Right now, all those domains are redirecting to our main site. None of the domains has ever had content; they were purchased recently and simple redirected. My questions are: 1) is there any value in having domains that are exact keywords on which we'd like to rank, (i.e. does this work to improve site traffic and ultimately rankings, or is this a black hat tactic)? and, 2) would there ever be any value in turning these sites into landing pages with content and outbound links that lead to our original site? Thanks for your advice.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SpearOne0 -
One good domain generating to much links what to do
I think penguin had no effect yet on spain. propdental.com remain the same.And propdental.es still growing.No penguin 2.0 effect. I think it will need a few more days to see if there is impact on spain.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maestrosonrisas
Althought i have a question regarding coagnitive SEO, (is regarding a link to propdental.es from unidirectorio.com) i think is a good web, but as generated me an very big amount of links)i have this on link from unidirectorio.com that has generated 2400 links to www.propdental.es with this ancor text "clinica dental con dentistas especialistas en implantes dentales ortodoncia invisalign y carillas" Links is comes from this page http://undirectorio.com/Salud/dentistas/ and then generates 2400I can not remove this link. I seemed a good directory with just 3 pages linking out and good page rank on my specific field.I ask google to dont take that link into account, although i am not sure if i did it well.**Can someone tell me how to say to google to dont take in account the links from a domain?**google still shows this link on webmaster tools, i am afraid it ends up been bad. I seems a good directory is not an exact ancor text although containt all work i want to rank.What would be your advice? Do i have any way to make sure that google does not have the links recieved from that domain into account0 -
Spammy Links (from .ru) pointing to my domain! How to deal with it?
Hi all, We run an e-commerce store - I am just looking at the apache logs and I am finding a lot of spammy links that have been referrers to our pages - when I check the links, I cannot find our URL in an HREF on their page so I presume they may be using some country based cloaking? These are the domains that are targeting specific pages on our site:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | bjs2010
http://3xru.ru/
http://saldoconsult.ru/
http://euro-casino.ru/casino/
http://delaymoney.maroderi.ru/
http://intimhot.ru/ How to deal with this? Our site is about cookware and they seem to be pointing these links to very specific products and categories. Never seen anything like this before, help would be appreciated. Thanks, B0 -
Purchasing an EXPIRING domain with quality related links
I'm about to purchase a domain that has highly trusted links pointed to it. I would like to 301 redirect that domain to point to a brand new domain in the same niche. Some of the links that the expiring domain would take me a long time to obtain so I am thinking to use this method to my advantage. I know that this is not really a legitimate way to go to build backlinks, but surely this is going to give me good serp improvement which is my main concern at the moment. I am going to test this method to see if it benefits me in anyway but I would like some opinions to this please.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | umtmedia0