New Site or Continue With Old?

[jezsez]

Penguin and the resulting link removal has decimated my site and business. Ranking seem to be getting progressively worse after months of work. Has the time come to ditch my 11 year old site (and brand) and start with a new one? It will kill me to do it but I can't last much longer anyway so something is needed. My main SERP has today or yesterday dropped out of the top 300. From #3

If I went with new site, domain etc, how long, realistically before I start seeing some traffic to it? The SERP is probably a medium difficulty (at a total guess). The rest of the SERPs that my site used to do well for I will split off as seperate niches. But how soon could it be ranking and getting traffic?

 

[jezsez]

Any comments please? I can't decide if starting again with a new site is better than persevering with the old, Penguin hit site.

TIA

 

[lutscher27]

My friends site fall from 4.000.000 siteimpressions to 1.000.000 after panda. Now he/we have found the problem and since two months the site is growing up. Now the site has 1.500.000 siteimpressions. I would hold the site, maybe change from the bottom. The domainage is a big point for google.

 

[jezsez]

Hi Lutscher, thanks. This is what I am hoping too. Would google penalise me if I put up a new site offering the same thing but with new content (same design and layout though)? That way I can hedge my bets a bit

 

[alternatesword]

Hi Lutscher, thanks. This is what I am hoping too. Would google penalise me if I put up a new site offering the same thing but with new content (same design and layout though)? That way I can hedge my bets a bit

The layout and design don't make any sense. If you create new content means no problem.

 

[proweb]

Hi Lutscher, thanks. This is what I am hoping too. Would google penalise me if I put up a new site offering the same thing but with new content (same design and layout though)? That way I can hedge my bets a bit

Use a different design and layout. This way in case your old site bounces back you can have the two sites ranking for the same niche.

 

[lutscher27]

But be carefuel, dont delete your hole old content.

 

[zebrahat]

Don't abandon the site (even if you decide to get rid of it, it will be valuable for the aged domain alone). Perhaps (if it's of manageable size) you could update the long tail keywords, if the current ones aren't as in demand anymore, or conversely have become too competitive. Instead of writing new content, just go into each existing post and add or replace the old keywords with the new, ping it, and see if a different ranking results.

 

[djshades2004]

just by interest.. what is your backlink citation and trust level on majesticseo

 

[assphuck]

Google's manual penalties will expire, so it would be foolish to abandon the site entirely. Some say it will take six months for the penalties to expire. I have not reached that point yet to confirm.

Also, Google's manual penalties are not on a link level. Meaning if you remove the offending links, Google's algorithm won't do a damn thing. You would have to submit a reconsideration request, which I advise against. Leave the bad links and focus on content creation and building quality links instead.

Every year Google is moving more towards being a directory with editors. It's a shame because many of Google's employees are biased assholes and intentionally screw webmasters that have busted nuts to remove links as Google instructed them to do.

 

[jezsez]

Hi djshades
Citation is 29 and trust is 37

 

[jezsez]

Can anyone give me any idea how long it would take to get a new domain ranking? I used only white / grey hat techniques before but I se you guys have much fast results with black hat methods. Can anyone suggest a fast but stable / safe linking method to get a new domain ranking reasonably well? Hopefully soon enough to save my business?

 

[Scritty]

Any comments please? I can't decide if starting again with a new site is better than persevering with the old, Penguin hit site.

TIA

General:
Keep the old.
Specific:
I'd have to know a whole lot more about your site and your niche. But an 11 yeart old site with a lot of content is almost definitely worth saving.
It might take 3-6 months for a full comeback, but it will likely happen in time. But if the site was poor itself and had a poor rep, then things might be different.

Scritty

 

[jezsez]

hi assphuck (nice name BTW!) The penalty is Penguin and a possible manual penalty as well. I have already submitted a reinclusion but I don't expect any joy from it. I have messed with my links so much I doubt it will ever return! Pretty much what google had in mind I reckon.

The manual, if there is one resulted from all sorts of bad mess ups with the .htaccess. My VPS went badly wrong and reverted to an old backed up version of my site and loads of old URL's that were 301'd got reintroduced to google and the site has been terrible since then (even though the mess is cleared up) I suspect that lots of duplicated content hurt me. I wonder if google is honouring the link juice now with the new .htaccess and 301's in place also.

 

[Endire]

This is a great question!

The time frame for a new site with a new domain ranking in SERP's will vary based on the competitiveness of your target keywords as well as the SEO tactics used to get it to rank well.

For a new site, tasks such as creating a sitemap and submitting it along with your new domain to the major search engines, placing appropriate keywords in your site architecture and developing fresh and interesting content will all help a site rank sooner and rank well. Of course these are just examples and there are many more SEO tasks that should be performed on a new site to help it rank.

The competitiveness of your target keywords are also a factor in how long it will take the site to rank high in SERP's. For instance the market for insurance keywords is fiercely competitive whereas the market for antique bicycles is probably not that competitive. If your target keyword is moderately competitive, it may take as long as 4-6 months for a new site to rank high in SERP's. If your words are not that competitive, it may take less time.

Traffic Travis software is a good resource for helping you determine the competitiveness of the keywords you are using.

http://www.traffictravis.com/

Also, here is a good article from SEOBook on length of time it can take for websites to rank.

http://www.seobook.com/how-long-does-it-take-rank-google-how-many-hours-do-i-have-work-each-day

I hope this helps you!

 

[assphuck]

hi assphuck (nice name BTW!) The penalty is Penguin and a possible manual penalty as well. I have already submitted a reinclusion but I don't expect any joy from it. I have messed with my links so much I doubt it will ever return! Pretty much what google had in mind I reckon.

The manual, if there is one resulted from all sorts of bad mess ups with the .htaccess. My VPS went badly wrong and reverted to an old backed up version of my site and loads of old URL's that were 301'd got reintroduced to google and the site has been terrible since then (even though the mess is cleared up) I suspect that lots of duplicated content hurt me. I wonder if google is honouring the link juice now with the new .htaccess and 301's in place also.

If you had a manual penalty, a notice would appear in your Google Webmaster Tools account. At least that's what Google says.

It sounds like your problems are more related to the issues you have onsite with the URL structure changing. Duplicate content will indeed hurt you, but its completely algorithmic. Meaning if you correct the problem, as it sounds like you did with the 301s, your ranks will improve. Google must crawl the old URLs to find the redirects, which may take 1-3 months with a natural crawl.

 

[makemecash]

What's the site?
Have you done an IP test on it to see if it's actually banned?

Based on the fact that's it's an 11 year old site, I highly doubt your site is actually being de-indexed - but rather that you haven't changed your SEO practices and are still spamming crap links everywhere.

 

[prowler]

Keep your old brand up. There is still value here for your customers. Just build new sites to get leads and start getting customers.

If you go after long tail phrases and a few main keywords then it will take a couple months to start getting leads and customers.

Good luck!

 

[jezsez]

makemecash I haven't ever spammed crap links for it. It was hit by penguin for having too many links with on the money anchor text. Some from my own sites, some from friends and some it's naturally picked up over the 11 years it's been online for. A good deal from DMOZ clones. I didn't say it was banned. It's just getting nowhere like the traffic it used to.

 

[jezsez]

Keep your old brand up. There is still value here for your customers. Just build new sites to get leads and start getting customers.

If you go after long tail phrases and a few main keywords then it will take a couple months to start getting leads and customers.

Good luck!

Thanks. Yeah, after all, I am still getting repeat customers that I would stand to lose if I ditched the site totally.