Google Seems to Hate This Domain - is a 301 wise?

[jonnno]

I registered a domain some time ago with the idea of putting a tech directory on it. Google picked it up quickly and all seemed fine. After a while I changed the linkage from basic ?var=val to rewritten using mod rewrite and shortly after Google dropped all the pages (could be coincidence. The site hadn't been running long). I assumed that it would just take a while to iron out and eventually forgot about the webspace.

Recently I decided to start a directory on a different topic. I designed it (has 300+ links) and set it live and gathered a few inbound links. Google spidered it quite quickly and seems to have cached the whole site. Regardless of what I did it performed terribly in Google. I hardly appeared at all for searches and the ones I did appear for I was all but last.

Recently I decided to get another domain name (one that was .co.uk rather than .com - is a regional directory) and switched over to it instead.

The burning question is do I 301 my old pages to the new domain or would that pass possible bad e-karma across? I'm hoping that the 301 would take good pr but not bad....

Cheers

[tedster]

Almost impossible to make that call without having a strong sense of why Google performance has ben so poor for the existing domain. Have you checked for messages in Webmaster Tools? Looked at archive.org to discover if the domain has a shady past? Are you sure that you are not violating any guidelines? Have you tried a reconsideration request?

I'm hoping that the 301 would take good pr but not bad....

I've seen it happen both ways.