Will rankings for my micro site rank better if I 301 redirect it to my main site?

[Robbie8299]

This is my first time asking so I will try to be as clear as possible.

Ok, I have a micro site that is an (exact match domain) and the domain is a couple 3-4 years old and ranks very well for several search terms. The main two terms it ranks for are like this.

houses for rent in XXXXX

XXXXX homes for rent

(XXXXX equals a city name)

The issue is this site has no backlinks, zero advanced SEO, I only did basic optimization to it when i set the site up. Even site structure, url structure all are not good.
The only page I have ever even seen rank is the main root url. But with all that the site does really good in the top 1-2 results for key search terms.

Now, I have a main site that is a very big site that has steadily been climbing in search terms every month with great backlinks, optimized for the city and all.
It currently ranks on second page for the listed search terms listed above.

What I want to do is 301 redirect this microsite to my city page on my main site that is much better optimized for the key city terms.
The 301 redirect would point this "root domain"  (mymicrosite.com) to my city page that looks like this.

www.mymaindomain.com/city/XXXXXXX

If I do this will Google rank my main URL city page as well as it ranks this microsite with zero links, seo, etc, etc. What happens if it does not? Will I be able to turn off the 301 redirect and keep the microsite rankings?

My main reason for wanting this is I want this city page to rank well and I only want to optimize one site instead of both.

Any help would be great!

[RobertFisher]

Glad to help Robbie and it is great to get a report back on what happened. Thanks so much.

[Robbie8299]

Robert,

Thanks for your help and great input for this issue. The 301 redirect so far worked just as I expected it would. Actually after the redirect the new site ranks better than the old site.

One thing I have heard many times is a "301 redirect does not transfer rankings" Well now I have solid proof that this statement is totally incorrect. Because as of today my 301 redirect has launched my target page to page one and ranks better than the old site.

Either way I do appreciate your time and input for this topic.

Thanks!

[Robbie8299]

Thank Robert,

Your first paragraph may have answered my question. Although I have seen this proved completely wrong a few years ago when a major competitor was bought out and they did 301 redirects and it did rank them for the terms for the site that they bought.

The only reason I do not post my url's publicly is our competitors do use SEOmoz so I keep it private. I will send you a private message so you can see the urls directly.

[RobertFisher]

A 301 redirect does not transfer rankings. So if your home page on micro site is ranked first for a given term, it does not mean a 301 will get you ranked first for that term. 
You have to compare the sites two pages (it sounds as if you are saying home page to home page). If one is ranking first for a term XYZ rental and the other is not, what are the content differences, title tag & other on page differences, etc. Have you looked at Google analytics to see if there is info there? Etc.

I would suggest putting the two url's out there and letting a mozzer assist. Or use your private question and get one of the associates to help (they are quite knowledgeable and like what they do - or are great actors!). You get one private question a monty.

Many people get worried that if they put their site URL's up someone is in someway going to learn from you ,etc and get ahead of you. It is really quite the opposite: You ask questions that you think you should know already and someone comes along who has been there and helps you out. Occasionally, there is an incorrect or incomplete answer and someone comes along and corrects the answer (I know, I have had some corrective assistance to a couple of answers I gave... but I manned up and thanked them If the sites are a client site as opposed to an owned site that is a bit different. But I have clients that allow me to post information about some of their sites and I do.

I have yet to see perfection in the SEO world. I have found some pretty smart people here though.

[Robbie8299]

Thanks for the reply Robert.

The main reason I think personally my main site will rank better for these search terms is the microsite is a city specific site and pretty small with no back links or content other than listings so i will not suffer any loss there.

So I want to take this city specific site that currently ranks on first page of Google for many terms and redirect it to my city specific page on my main site. The microsite does not get any traffic to internal pages so I think redirecting the main URL of it to the city specific page on my main site should transfer the page #1 rankings to my main site. I think i will just try it and see what happens.

[RobertFisher]

Robbie,

The 301 redirect would point this "root domain"  (mymicrosite.com) to www.mymaindomain.com/city/XXXXXXX

The key to this redirect is that you want to insure you 301 each url on the micro site to a specific url on the main site. You want to do this in the .htaccess file. You don't redirect the root domain to root domain.

Also you state the "site has no back links, no advance SEO", does it have any DA/PA? If the site has a PA 1, DA of 7 for example, I do not see where it will help you. When you redirect, you are trying to move the links to the main site so that you maintain that link juice to the new site (you will lose a bit 5 to10%). This way, when you change a domain name, sell a business, etc. you do not need to try to go to each site linking to the "old" site and ask them to link to the new.

With "what happens if it doesn't work, can I change back?" While I cannot say I have ever tried to, I can tell you that I have done a few redirects of sites and I always watched the old site to see if it lost value and the other gained.

I have a site we did a full redirect to new site in late August. When we initially did it, the old site home page had a PA 44 and a DA of 39, the new had PA 1 and DA 1. Today 3.5 months later Old site is PA 33 DA 31 and new site is PA 44 DA 33. The big difference is there are only two links showing for the old site now.

Since we handle a lot of Real Estate business, one thing you want to be sure of is that your Google Places and Bing Bus. Portal, Yahoo Local. Have the new site if at all possible. It may be fine for a short run, but you will gain more from having a correct, thorough local presence. Do the same with any citation sites. 
Good Luck.