Spam Filled Domain, Better To Start Fresh?

[RMcdonald]

Hi Guys,

So I currently work time for a company where I live, doing SEO for them full time.

I have a good few years experience and have the skills to get them the results.

When I started they told me that they had an "agency" doing their SEO and had been using them for over 6 months.

Looking into their backlink profile they have just built a huge number of spam links, see screenshot below:

I have blanked out the actual keywords, but this is just a glimpse of the whole backlink profile.

What are your guys thoughts? They have a .com domain with the same brand name, that I would like to switch over.

Their current domain is around 10 years old with the .com domain ( fresh domain ) being around the same age without all the spammy backlinks.

Let me know if you need more information to comment, I have been working with them for the past 6 months, gaining them a good number of links (whitehat of course ) but, the needle doesn't seem to be moving in terms of rankings.

Thank you to anyone who can share a light on this.

 

[Future State]

Are they currently ranking as well as they'd like to? Are they having problems ranking right now?

The best rule is to "don't fix what isn't broken."

If you really want to move to the branded .com, you're going to want to do a 301 redirect, page to page. Moving the site just to get away from the spam links doesn't make sense when we have access to the disavow tool. If you're anxious about it, create a disavow file of all this crap and submit it and bill them for the time. That way you can keep the good links and still do a 301 redirect to the new domain and not disrupt their rankings. If you move it without the 301s, you're basically starting over (and probably getting fired).