jonrichd - 11:47 pm on Apr 25, 2006 (gmt 0)

It seems to me that the only way this would work would be if Google could remember the cutover date from olddomain to newdomain, and forever and perpetually credit links it found to olddomain prior to the cutover date to newdomain, and links it found after the cutover date to olddomain.

This would, in effect, make olddomain a virgin website as of the cutover date, subjecting it to any sandbox penalties, and requiring anyone who bought it, or even the same owner if he decided to redeploy the domain, to create their own new link juice to get something out of it.

The question is whether Google has the horsepower to do this (remembering the age of any link). And, what do you do when olddomain had a DMOZ listing in some category, which would get credited to newdomain after the cutover. Then, the domain owner gets DMOZ to update its listings to newdomain, which is fine, but new owner establishes a new website in the same category and gets it listed. Therefore, what looks like a link that should belong to olddomain should really belong to the new owner. Would Google be able to tell what went on, or would newdomain get the link credit? There are a lot of potential pitfalls.