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I have an old website with very bad SEO and PR, but still with some visitors per-day. Lately I've rebuilt the app and the concept of it and I'm going to deploy everything in a new domain.

I would like to not lose those old visitors but I'm wondering if redirecting that old website to my new one is going to damage the SEO in the new website. Don't know also if it deserves to make the move in the Google Webmaster Tools and Bing or better start from scratch.

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Redirecting to the new site will not hurt SEO if your only issues are poor SEO and low PageRank. Poor SEO is just a design issue and doesn't have a negative connotation other than hurting your site's ability to have its pages rank well. Low PageRank is just due to having few links pointing to your pages. That's not a negative SEO signal.

So you should redirect your users to your new site so you don't lose the traffic you have. You also get to carry over most of the little PageRank you have to your new pages (not that PageRank really means anything anymore). It also will help anyone who clicks on a link to your old site to find the new site.

If your site has been penalized or use(s|d) black hat SEO techniques or any other negative ranking factors, then a redirect would not be a good idea as you run the risk of carrying that over to the new site. In this case, you have so little to lose from and SEO perspective that not redirecting and losing that little bit of traffic is worth it in the long run.

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  • Exactly, that website has almost 0 link building etc, in fact it has 0 PR, but still I have some visitors would be a pity to lose. The max I did was to post on some forums with the URL in the signature (few messages, not more than 100 probably). I've read that is not a good practice but I don't think the website is penalized because of that right?
    – danimashu
    Aug 20, 2014 at 21:41
  • It shouldn't be, especially at the amount. Is it possible for you to remove them? Or make them nofollow?
    – John Conde ♦
    Aug 20, 2014 at 21:44
  • Yep, it's possible remove them, unfortunately not make them no-follow. I'll follow those advices. Thanks John.
    – danimashu
    Aug 20, 2014 at 22:10

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