: Bad links point to old domain - should I disavow on new domain? I am working with a site which we'll call www.newdomain.com, which was hit by Penguin this month despite no unusual practices.

@Kristi941

If your old domain has bad links and passing negative value to the new domain you should not use 301 redirects.
The main purpose of the 301 redirection is to pass all link juice of old domain to the new domain. If your website has bad links and you want to live a new domain why do you want to redirect the old to new? You have a benefit to start working in a good manner and create good links for your new domain.
You can also follow JVerstry point that "Another strategy is to move the valuable content from the old site to the new site and to remove all redirects".

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@Gretchen104

None of the bad links point to newdomain.com, and I worry that a disavow
request via this domain in Webmaster Tools will damage something.

Do the old band links affect the new site?
If so, where do I disavow those old bad links?
On Webmaster Tools for the new domain?


Yes, old bad links affect the new site via redirects. Disavowing on the new domain won't help.

However, disavowing on the old domain may help. If you decide to go for it, you must be very aggressive and patient. I mean disavow anything suspicious. If a page is suspicious, then disavow the whole corresponding website. This likely means you will not recover the rankings you had before, because you didn't deserve these in the first place.

Another strategy is to move the valuable content from the old site to the new site and to remove all redirects. It would take some time to rank again, and probably not as high as before, but it would be better than nothing.

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