Thanks for the input everyone. I probably will end up implementing the redirect, but not for a few more months, as it's going to take some serious preparation.

Hi Josh,

To answer you questions,

I have some direct feedback from Google that I have links that look like they are designed to manipulate pagerank. And some of the pages that were hit particularly hard with targeted anchor text were ones that fell a greater amount than the rest of them.

To complicate the matter, the site was hit by the first iteration of Panda on 2/24 last year. It was not torched like some sites were, but fell a fair amount. It has recovered quite a bit on a lot of keywords...except for the short-tail vanity keywords that are doing worse.

So, I think the site is still a little pandalized, though it is hard to say, since this link penalty is likely having an impact...and I believe Google's increased emphasis on brand signals is part of the reason for decreased short tail rankings as well.

I'm making the changes to clean things up but this is a huge site with a lot of history and lots of links and it's not that easy to do quickly.

Also, part of the reason for the redirect is that Google is loving the domain that I'm redirecting to - it has higher rankings than ever across the board. I've always had the domains separate for technical reasons, but that situation is changing so now I have the option to combine them for the first time. So it's not "just" for SEO - it makes some sense for them to be together.

I have a well established domain that's been hit with some penalties. It hasn't been nuked off the map, just downgraded, especially on short-tail, one word type queries. I'm planning on redirecting this domain to another well established domain. The domains already have a history of lots of interlinking and are very similar from a subject matter standpoint.

I feel that the penalized domain has been hit with an "over-optimization" of link anchor text penalty (I'm hoping it's algorithmic, but it could be manual). My question is if anyone has ever heard of a penalty like this being transferred to another domain through a 301 redirect. My hope is that the penalty just puts a cap on how much juice the redirect can pass, rather than transferring the penalty to the other domain itself.

Any thoughts on this?

I have a well established domain that's been hit with some penalties. It hasn't been nuked off the map, just downgraded, especially on short-tail, one word type queries. I'm planning on redirecting this domain to another well established domain. The domains already have a history of lots of interlinking and are very similar from a subject matter standpoint.

I feel that the penalized domain has been hit with an "over-optimization" of link anchor text penalty (I'm hoping it's algorithmic, but it could be manual). My question is if anyone has ever heard of a penalty like this being transferred to another domain through a 301 redirect. My hope is that the penalty just puts a cap on how much juice the redirect can pass, rather than transferring the penalty to the other domain itself.

Any thoughts on this?