Combining two domains

[tomcraig86]

Hi guys, a friend of mine has two sites. They both have a fair few links pointing to them, so I think it would be a shame to lose/ignore one of them.

Some of the links are low quality, from previous link building efforts, however at the moment I can't see any real penalisation from Google, so my guess is that it's currently ok... I'm aware that I'll have to remove some of the legacy low quality links soon.

My question is what should I do? Will combining the two websites help?

The main site is Gazebo Shop, but there's another exact match domain to consider... I'd like to keep the main website on the first URL, as that's the one I'm redeveloping now.

Thanks for any help!

Edit: I should add to my question: Should I redirect individual pages to my new category pages to pass Page Authorty/Rank?

[wrttnwrd]

If you're going to redirect it, then take it down and set up a 301 redirect in its place. I may have misunderstood but that's what it sounded like you were planning to do.

[tomcraig86]

Thank you Ian,

What do you think about the exact match domain, just leave it as is?

[wrttnwrd]

I'd go with the Gazebo Shop domain. The exact match domain isn't that great. If it were 'Gazebos.co.uk' I'd think differently.

Here's what I'd do:

1. Clean up the link profiles, first. At least a little. One thing I've seen is that if you set up a 301 redirect from one domain with low-quality links to another domain with low-quality links, that can trigger an algorithmic cluster$#@!*@.
2. When you rebuild GazeboShop.co.uk, try to maintain the same URL structure. If that's really impossible, then redirect old individual pages to their new equivalents wherever possible. Don't redirect individual pages to categories unless you must. I'm thinking more of user experience here - if I click on an old link to a product, I want the product, not the category page.
3. Launch the new site.
4. Redirect relevant individual pages on the exact match domain to relevant individual pages on the new domain.
5. Redirect category pages the same way.
6. Redirect the home page of the exact match domain to the home page of the new domain.

Hope this helps,

Ian