Does Changing Domain or IP Help After a Penalty?

[muck99]

I have a site which HAD an Amazon shop system hanging off it (home made, not off the shelf). The shop system was using 302 redirects as at the time I did not know this was Bad! Bad! Bad! (it allowed me to cut page size by having very short URLs to (multiple) amazon stores.) Naturally, when I found out the damage 302 redirects caused, I stopped using them for the pages I show search engines....

After the Christmas 2004 update I moved the shop to another domain. The original domain is now just regularly updated content (a magazine). Trouble is, all pages seem to rank very low in google. I suspect it is being penalized.

Would moving it to a new domain and a new IP address help? If so, should I 301 redirect from the old domain? Or 404 the old domain and let google find the new one?

Thanks in advance for any light anyone might be able to cast on this.

[Rollo]

Well, you may not be penalized... do you show any PR in the toolbar? Do your pages come up when you type in site:yourdomian.com, do any pages at all come up in Google SERPS (such as your company name?) If the answer to any of these is yes, you're not penalized. You may be triggering some filter... if so, welcome to the club.

If you are penalized, I'd try "selling" the domain, that is transfer to different account with different owner info, change hosts, new content... maybe that would help (then again maybe not). If you've got a penalty, I'd just get a new name domain and start fresh, true penalties seem to last a very long time. I had a competator who was doing some agressive link bombing (must have been cross linking), jumped to PR8, was omnipresent in the SERPS for a couple of months, then went to PR0 and stayed there... they are still nowhere in the SERPS and still PR0. This began in late 2003.

[muck99]

Thanks for your reply. Yes, the domain does come up if I do a site: search and also if I search on VERY specific quote enclosed strings.

I just get the impression that it is being ranked rather lower than I would expect.

I am not in a heavily competed for niche as it has little direct commercial value.

thanks anyway.

[Iguana]

You almost certainly don't have a penalty. Google has been dropping sites to almost complete obscurity even when they have unique content, good links, and no affiliate links. Just be patient....