Buy Fresh Domain or Repair the old one?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Todd Lohenry: Here's my question: is it sometimes better to just abandon a domain and start fresh than to try to repair the credibility of the domain?
  
  Backstory: I had a business domain and a domain for my name. Over the years, I used the domain for my name to post a lot of thin and low quality content. I recently changed my strategy and I want to use the domain with my name for business purposes.
  
  6 months of writing evergreen content on an optimized content management system has not yielded the kind of results I want. A Raven audit indicates there are thousands of errors that need to be cleaned up. Is it better to just move to a different TLD and start over using best practices?
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  Masatake Wasa (wasaweb): From what you have written, I would say yes, though I'd be interested to hear what others think. The amount of cleaning up required to sort out the mess would be enormous, and unless the domain name itself is worth that effort, time, and expense, starting afresh might be the best and a cost-effective way to proceed.
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  Blade S: If your site is penalized and/or has too many problems to deal with, then it could be better to start fresh. But you need some good audit first, so you won't start fresh if you don't really have to.
  
  Here's what John Mueller said - https://www.seroundtable.com/google-penalty-new-site-18200.html
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  Velena Marhun: Take something unique :) god luck
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  John Griffith: Yes, absolutely. There are some cases where there is no choice but to abandon the domain. Only exception would be high value or brand specific domains with no available alternatives or prohibitive switching costs
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  Velena Marhun: Well, in my case im lucky being the unique named, my name is the domain.
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  Todd Lohenry: +Velena Marhun ;lol. That's the problem. The domain I goofed up is my name: toddlohenry.com
  
  I could use .net instead as I own that as well and it doesn't have the baggage .com does. ;
  
  Do you think it would be better to use toddlohenry.net or howtogetfound.com
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  John Griffith: Go to .net. Use nothing from the old site.
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  Velena Marhun: I prefer your name but it can be hard to make it memorible but then none can take it from you
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  Todd Lohenry: +John Griffith ;not even with rel=canonical?
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  Todd Lohenry: +John Griffith ;I suppose I could use the +Brian Dean ;skyscraper approach on my own content! :-D
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  Edwin Jonk: If I understand it correct there is no problem with backlinks (I did notice some spammy backlinks), and it is all on-site which you fully control.
  
  In that case, you can achieve full recovery. The problem, here, is how long you have to wait until Panda re-rolls for your site.
  
  With regard to the errors, my guess is that they are 404's. For a Panda cleanup it is normal and recommended to serve 404's on old pages that didn't have any unique content.
  
  In other words, the TLD is not toxic in the sense that it has many spammy backlinks, a recovery is possible, and it is a waiting game.
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  Velena Marhun: How is it going with your domain?
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  Todd Lohenry: +Edwin Jonk ;I appreciate your input, Edwin, but I can't play the waiting game. I have decided to move to a new tld and start over...
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  Todd Lohenry: +Velena Marhun ;thanks for asking. I am going to take your advice and change tld's...
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  Velena Marhun: I don't know if it's the right thing but trying is never wrong. .:)
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  K. S. Bisht: if domain is penalized than why should you replace it with new one. Domain name is not a problem.
  
  See, what are the errors and get them fixed.
  
  You can take help from any seo consultant.
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  Todd Lohenry: +K. S. Bisht please clarify...