Should I move my blog
 

I posted this in the SE forum but no-ones paying attention so I'll ask the blogging people
http://greenguysboard.com/board/showthread.php?t=46698

Do you think it's a good idea to move my blog to its own domain, even though it's got a heap of links to it? The blog consistently appears at the back of the index thanks to a penalty of some kind that I can't fix, so all those links don't help me.

And, on a technical note, is it easy to move a WP blog? Surely it's just a matter of pointing the new blog to the existing database and then removing the old files. Lots of 404 errors but maybe I can do a 301 redirect for that?

There are WP database backup plugins... just backup your DB then Import it in your new host... copy files and that's about it.

watch that you copy the .htaccess files as well, some FTP programs treat them (rightly so) as hidden files

Since your not getting any type of SE love, all the organic backlinks you do have seem pretty worthless anyway.

But I would be tempted to leave as is and start a new blog on a new domain. Make the last post explaining your moving. That gives you a chance to start completely fresh implementing all the things you've learned trying to get your blog out of the google cellar.

Moving a blog is a piece of cake. Export your existing database, setup a new blog and then import your old database. Be sure to disable your plug-ins before you export the database initially

I wouldn't move it, mainly because it has many incoming links.

But if the incoming links all point to the main page of your blog you could move it and use a redirect that most search engines know. Maybe there is also a way to redirect your other pages this way (try finding a plugin that might do this).

One final thing you could do is contact google and request to be included again, but then you will have to know what you did wrong that did upset google.

Thanks for the input guys. It's hard to know what to do. I spend a lot of time on the blog and I really don't know why it was give the arse last year. Part of me wonders why I make all the effort if I don't get the SE reward for it.

But I'm not sure I like the idea of abandoning and starting anew, if only because I have all those useful posts from the last 2 years that deserve a chance in Google.

The blog is ranked very well in Yahoo.

I guess you could try to file for reinclusion first, its not like it can hurt anything.

The truth is your not sure what it is google has gotten upset about. It could be that moving the complete blog wouldn't solve your problem. How discouraging would it be to move everything only to find in 6 months nothing has changed.

I agree you do have some great posts that you don't want to lose but you can always link back to those articles when you discuss a similar topic.

I agree, moving it, might not solve your problem. Then again, it could be the rest of your site dragging it down.

Plus if you said it's ranked well in Y, very good reason not to movie it.

Hard choice...:(

Course I am fan of index blogs myself, seen better results.

The blog is on the same domain as my linklist which suffered from last year's changes in Google. I'm also not sure if the linklist script I'm using is a problem. In any case, I think I've decided to leave it as-is. Google might change it's mind. Maybe. One day. I hope...

I redirected a corporate site once using htaccess 301 redirection, Google Sitemap's and re-inclusion requests... my rankings dropped for a few months, but then came back better than ever - but my site wasn't being penalized to start with.

I'd leave it and start a fresh with a new blog just link between the 2