Best practice for moving forum to new domain after Google algorithm penalty?

[Chris_H]

I posted a while back and suspected my site had been hit with an algorithm penalty, after some discussion on these forums I thought otherwise. Some time has gone by and I have collected some additional data and I now am pretty certain my site is suffering from an algorithmic penalty from Google. I have attached three screen shots, the first Pre Spam, the second showing the spike in activity during the spam attack, and the last showing the decline in traffic directly corresponding to the most recent penguin panda refreshes.

All of that being said, I am thinking of moving the site from its current domain and starting anew. What is the best practice for this from a Xenforo perspective so I don't breach license agreements. Secondly, should I create a backup of my current users and content to restore to the new domain or will that be considered duplicate information? Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I have submitted a disavow backlinks request but have seen no activity or gotten any feedback from google.

 

[Carlos]

I posted a while back and suspected my site had been hit with an algorithm penalty, after some discussion on these forums I thought otherwise. Some time has gone by and I have collected some additional data and I now am pretty certain my site is suffering from an algorithmic penalty from Google. I have attached three screen shots, the first Pre Spam, the second showing the spike in activity during the spam attack, and the last showing the decline in traffic directly corresponding to the most recent penguin panda refreshes.

I would just leave it alone. Google changes algorithms every 6 months, you were just hit the hardest. I've had a similar situation and eventually, I'd like to take a visit to the Google headquarters to talk about this stuff. Anyway, I just think you should leave this alone, and allow post-Panda algorithm to re-rank your site. I think what happened here is that Google is trying to eliminate spam clicks. This goes in line with most of the changes going on at Google, including the recently announced "No CAPTCHA" in ReCaptcha.

I digress, this is my opinion, and I stick by it.

All of that being said, I am thinking of moving the site from its current domain and starting anew. What is the best practice for this from a Xenforo perspective so I don't breach license agreements. Secondly, should I create a backup of my current users and content to restore to the new domain or will that be considered duplicate information? Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

1. Just move your xenForo installation to another file location and be done with it. To be on xenForo's good side: Just change the URL in customer area.

2. No. As I mentioned earlier, just move your installation where your new domain will "sit."

I have submitted a disavow backlinks request but have seen no activity or gotten any feedback from google.

Google's robots are slow, so it will take a while to disavow links, and re-rank your site.