Do you wish to safely redirect a penalized site? Well Google just said there is no way to do that! Some of you may have actually pondered on redirecting from a penalized website. If this question has crossed your mind, we now a conclusive answer. Wondering how this information actually came about? Well, this morning in a webmaster hangout on Google+ John Muller mentioned that there was no proper way to redirect a site that has a penalty to a new website without a penalty. The new website would probably be penalized as well.
A question popped upon on Google+ around 7:02 mark from a webmaster. The question was regarding the redirection of a website to a new one when the old web site had a penalty. The main focus was on whether or not the new website would function without any negative effect having been passed on from the old one. The response from John was a conclusive one. He admitted that the question was quite a tricky one as it involved a non-disclosure of information to the person visiting the website. In John’s words the question was perceived as wanting to redirect people to the new web site and at the very same time not wanting people to realize that they are in fact being redirected. Apart from this he stated that there is no real way to do it except, if resorting to the numerous tricks and hacks which promise to safely redirect a penalized web site.
John further explains how it is closely related to cloaking where users see something while search engines see something entirely different. It is something which should be avoided and must not be delved into. Doing so causes one to openly defy the webmaster guidelines and is certainly a practice which isn’t encouraged. It looks like there isn’t any safe method to redirect a penalized website without having to violate established rules and guidelines.