Need advice: I want to move good content to a Pandalized domain

[Sand]

Here's the situation I'm in:

I have one site that's entirely content-focused. It's monetized strictly through ads, and the occasional (but very rare) affiliate link. The traffic it receives from Google is very solid.

Now, I have another site in the same niche, but this one is ecommerce-focused with no original content. This domain has been Pandalized, which is both fine and expected since the content is not unique, and I get my traffic from elsewhere.

What I would like to do, is migrate my original content to the ecommerce site with the goal of improving sales. But I don't want that original content to be hit by Panda for being on the Pandalized domain.

My gut tells me I should be ok if I moved the content to a subdomain on the ecom site, but I'm nervous.

Does anyone have experience with this?

[bumpski]

Use IFrames on the pandalized site to display the content from the "solid" site. Typically Google does not consider content in an IFrame as part of the site doing the framing. Ready, set, .....

[Sand]

That wouldn't help me bring in traffic to the Pandalized site, though -- which is ultimately the goal of this exercise.

[Dymero]

AFAIK, the main way to get a site un-Pandalized is to provide it with unique, useful content. Your idea seems like it'd work. However, I don't think setting it on a subdomain will necessarily help you or harm you, as I believe Google now sees an entire domain (subs and all) as one entity. Don't have a source on hand, but I'm sure I remember Matt Cutts say this in response to a Webmaster Video question.

Alternatively, how is the ecommerce site on traffic? If it's not getting much, does it make more sense to move the ecommerce stuff to the not Pandalized sites?

[Sand]

The ecommerce site gets good traffic, mostly from PPC and email. Moving that site would be most troublesome, since I have tens of thousands of registered users and I'd have to move all of that information over, edit my AdWords campaigns, rework contracts, and do a rebranding campaign.

Plus, I'd worry that I'd put my 'good' site at risk by moving over the ecom site to that domain. I'm really scared I'd end up torching the domain.

Thanks for your input, though.

I'm thinking I'll move the good content over to the Pandalized domain, and see what happens. If things tank, I guess I can always undo the redirects so all the content will once again live where it is now. It's just scary. I really don't like this whole 'domain penalty' stuff -- it makes it hard to do what's best for us and our users sometimes.

[edited by: Sand at 2:20 am (utc) on Jan 7, 2014]

[oliondor]

But how long to get unpandalized ?

Better start a totally new domain.

[Sand]

But how long to get unpandalized ?

Better start a totally new domain.

That's not an option for me. This is a very well-trafficked and established site. It's never had Google traffic beyond brand searches, and I'm fine with that. If I moved to a new domain, the same thing would just happen again.

My concern is just that I'd hurt my good content by moving it, but I know it could help the business.

[nuevojefe]

Why not just migrate your ecom site to the one that's still ranking well that has all the unique content?