Messed up my domain change

Question

I changed my domain (example1.com) to example2.com and set up 301 redirects and submitted the change with the change of address tool in Google search console. It was only set up for a few days when I decided to change the domain to example3.com because of an issue with example2.com (basically there's a lot of weird links pointing to it from before I bought the domain). I'd rather just point example1.com to example3.com and avoid example2.com altogether, although some pages on example2.com already got indexed. I know this might hurt some of my rankings, but I'm ok with that if it's just temporary because honestly, my site doesn't have great rankings to begin with. It's fairly new and my domain authority is only 3 lol.

My question is, is there a downside to just ignoring example2.com and not pointing it to example3.com? My concern is mostly with long-term effects, like Google thinking my articles on example3.com are duplicate content because some of them were indexed on example2.com. Or that google might penalize example3.com for one reason or another.

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

Here’s what I would recommend.

Ideally, you should set up a 301 redirect from the second domain to the third one. This will help preserve signals and avoid penalties for duplicate content. If unwanted links to example2.com are really a concern, you can try to disavow them using the Disavow Links tool in Google Search Console.

Also, don’t forget to submit a request for a change of address in Google Search Console and use the canonical tag on the third domain to show search engines where the main content is located.