Google Penalties - How Long?

[KirstyM]

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Hi All,

I've got an old domain I used to promote lingerie products. I set it up about 3 years ago and used some pretty dubious doorway type contraptions on there.

Obviously its been well and truly kicked from Google for duplicate content, but I'm now thinking of redeveloping it as its listed well in Yahoo. If I get rid of all the old spammy stuff and create a sparkling white hat content site, how long till Google forgives my sins... or would I be better starting from scratch?

I kinda like the domain, so I'm keen to hold on to it if possible!

[Brendon]

Do you know how badly penalised the domain is? What do you get returned for a www.example.com search?

[KirstyM]

I checked just after I posted, and it may not be as bad as I initially thought.
It's ranking top ten for "domain name" and for a www.example.com search shows home page titles, descriptions etc (is that what you meant?).

I have other domains that don't even show up for their own names which are quite unique and optimised into every page title.

[Brendon]

OK, that says that there probably is a penalty in place, but not a severe one. Killing the doorway pages, and getting some serious link building underway should be enough to resurrect the site

[KirstyM]

Cheers, that was my gut instinct!

I've got about another ten sites in a similar situation, guess I should shed the shoddy content and have them sitting waiting for me to re-develop.