Long term strategy to retain link 'goodness', I need some help!

[cewe]

Hi,

I have a few questions around the best approach to retain as much link juice / authority from transitioning multiple domains into 1 single domain over the next year or so.

I have 2 similar websites (www.brandA.co.uk and www.brandB.co.uk) which I need to transition to a new website (www.brandC.co.uk) over the next 2 years. Both A&B are established and have there own brand value, brand C will be a new website.

I need to start introducing the brand from website C onto A&B straight away and then eventually drop the brands from A&B and just be left with C.

One idea I am considering is:

www.brandA.co.uk becomes brandA.brandC.co.uk (brandA sits as a subdomain on brandC website)

Ultimately over time I would drop the subdomain (brandA) and just be left with www.brandC.co.uk

The other option is:

www.brandA.co.uk becomes brandC.co.uk/brandA...with the same ultimate aim as above.

In both above case the same would be done for brandB, either becoming a subdomain of a folder on brandC website

What I need to know is what is the best way to first pass any SEO goodness from the websites for brandA and brandB to the intermediate solution of either brandA.brandC.co.uk or brandC.co.uk/brandA (I see this intermediate solution being in place for approx 2 years). And then how to transition the intermediate solution into just having brandC.co.uk

Which solution will aid growing the SEO goodness on the final brandC.co.uk website? Does google see subdomains as part of the main domain and thus the main domain will benefit from any links going to the subdomain or is it better to always use /folders as google sees these as more part of one website?

...or is there another option that I haven't considered?

I know it's rater confusing so please give me a shout if you want anymore info.

Thanks

James

[cewe]

Hi Nakul,

That is a big help, thanks.

is there a general concensous about how much established SEO benefits gets passed through with a 301? I.e does 100% of link juice etc get passed through from one domain 301'd to another?

thanks

[NakulGoyal]

James

From between the 2 options you have, clearly the sub-folder is a better option. Sub-domains are almost treated as separate domains, and therefore when you 301 redirect brandA.co.uk to brandA.brandC.co.uk, it does not help build brandC.co.uk, which is what I think you'd want.

If you do brandA.co.uk redirected to brandC.co.uk/brandA, it will build some trust on authority for your brandC.co.uk domain.

I hope this helps.