Rebuilding a site - effect on future ranking

Hello BHW, first post here. Kind of a newbie here so im starting with a question, but I hope to get good at this and contribute to the forums one day. Anyway heres my question :

Like 3-4 months ago when I first got started in SEO I created a little niche site. Wrote a couple thousand word articles with a few images etc.. never really got the site ranked on google as well (it gets first search result when typing w3.exactdomainname.xxx, but thats about it.) Being a complete newbie at that time I made a really bad layout, really bad headlines and keyword selection.. complete mess.

I now have a much better idea on how to setup the site properly and I plan on working hard to rank it. My question is, if I revamp the site (basically starting from scratch), will its ranking be affected negatively by the fact that it used to be a shitty site (or atleast a site that google didnt perceive as good) ?

Is it better to start from scratch with a new domain name? I dont really mind the extra few dollars I guess

Appreciate any help,

leeshoes

Does the old site have any backlinks to the pages? If so you should 301 redirect old pages to the closest equivalent new pages - this will give any equity your old pages had to your new ones.

The fact that your old site had shitty content won't have any negative effects on your new site.

Do you want to start a site with new domain name or the old one. I am totally sure that aged domain names has some value. If you have setup your mind to start with old domain name than its ok but if you want to start with a new domain name then set a 301 redirection on old one. Thats all....

Good question leeshoes,

As mentioned by the other members, just make sure and 301 redirect your new domains to the domains that already have backlinks set up. Virtually any site can be turned around even if it has been penalized in the past. Just focus on putting quality content on the new pages and optimizing them and you should be fine.

Here is a great article from Google on changing your domain name, many of the tricks apply to your situation,

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=83105

Hope that helps,

Shawn

thanks a lot guys I will be trying this