To merge or not to merge? That is the question.

[max.favilli]

I am planning to do something I never did, and I am wondering if it's really a good idea or not.

I have four websites, all of the same company, each one with a different domain and different content:

• one has been the main official site for 16 years, 200 unique per month, indexed for 134 keywords, Domain Authority 17, 13 linking root domains
• one has been used as the main site from 2003 to 2006, it's focused on a specific business they actually discontinued, still online, no update since 2006, 500 unique per month, indexed for 92 keywords, Domain Authority 13, 8 linking root domains
• another has been a built on 2010 and maintained for less than year, and it's focused on a business they never really started, still online, no update since 2010, 3000 unique per month, indexed for 557 keywords, Domain Authority 25, 84 linking root domains
• a fourth one has been also built on 2010 and focused on a business never really started, still online, no update since 2010, 100 unique per month, indexed for 4 keywords, Domain Authority 6, 3 linking root domains

Each website has traffic and links, all links being natural, they never tried to gain links in any way, they never did on page optimization, they never ever thought about SEO. They are not event interlinked.

So, my idea is to merge all of them, putting websites 2, 3 and 4 as subfolders of the main site and replicating the old content there. Because those sites have traffic, incredibly one of the abandoned sites has 3000 unique per month, while the main site just 200!

My doubts are:

1. does it make sense to merge everything from a SEO prospective?
2. A part from doing 301 correctly, what else should I be careful to do or not to do?
3. website number 4 it's really outdated, content and structure is not easy to merge with the rest, traffic is really small, is it worth spending the time to merge it?

Finally I also have a problem; customer didn't want to merge them, they agreed to, but they don't want visitors of the main site to be able to navigate to the old ones, so once moved and redirected I would have to put them in the sitemap of the main site but avoid linking to them on the actual "main" site.

As far as I know google crawler doesn't like to find pages in sitemaps which are not reachable through a linking path on the website, is that correct? Is that going to make all the merging work useless?

Should I convince the client to at least put small links in the footer or on a page linked from the footer?

[max.favilli]

Thanks for you answer.

The first place google bot goes is the sitemap, yes, but is it true or not that finding a page in the sitemap and not being able to reach the same page when crawling the website makes google devaluate the page juice?

About the footer I would just put a link to each subfolder, so just 3 or 4 links, what I don't know is if small links in the footer are enough to make google bot happy, or if it would still devaluate the page juice of the pages. Since they wouldn't have much interlinkage in the main website.

[max.favilli]

Well, from a business prospective, since site-2 and site-3 are about technologies which could still be used by customers of my client, even if they don't provide them anymore, in my mind they could bring in leads. site-3 is still originating natural links even if they didn't update it in four years, it must still be valuable to someone.

The 301 redirect doesn't scares me for site-2 and site-3 because they are wordpress installation, I will download the content and sitemaps, upload the content and use the sitemaps to generate 1-1 redirect rules with a script, it's not complex.

Site-4 is an application and I have no idea where to start to move it, that's why I now think is better to drop it.

[max.favilli]

Thanks. I think I will combine the three more related and discard the last one, it's traffic is small and they would not care of pennies from adsense.

[JarnoNijzing]

I understand all the websites get traffic and rankings for different keywords. Although, you are stating that some of the services and products provided are no longer active and since that is the case (as stated above a service that never launched) then I would look at the point of keeping the content alive as it will not convert any new clients since that service is not provided. How would you get a return on investment for all the merge work.

Like sureshchowdary said above, making a list of all the pages and doing a 1-1 redirect is a lot of work (believe me I know -> in february 2014 I did the same thing for a client redirecting the entire site to new location (+/- 1000 pages)).

So If I were you I would look at the effort needed to perform all the work, make an estimate in what the investment would be and what would be the return on the work. It might just be wise to decide to add some content to the oldest site and redirect all the links but leave the rest of the content.

Just my 2 cents and for your consideration

Jarno

[EGOL]

I agree.   I would not mix diverse topics.   But, if they are related, I would combine them as long as the content is meaningful to someone.  I would monetize the traffic with adsense or other ads.

[max.favilli]

That was also my concern but all the four websites are related to the same branch of business I would say.

It's a software house basically, site 1 is just about them as a company. Site 2 and site 3 are about old technologies they do not resell/implement anymore. Site 4 is an online webservice to exchange messages anonymously, they actually never launched it. It's the one more distant from what they are doing and I agree with them it really looks unfinished and not so professional.

[EGOL]

How closely related are the topics of these websites?

Are you mixing fishing, knitting and hydraulic jacks?

[sureshchowdary]

Hi Max,

Its good to know that even though the websites are not optimized the keywords are ranking and generating traffic.

1)It does make sense to merge. But all the weight age goes to the 1st website. You need to do a 1-1 mapping of all the url's while redirecting which I think is a big task. As you said the customers didn't want to merge them.

2)When we are doing a 301 redirect for the whole website I don't think see any such things which we need to look after.

3)If the keywords are ranking for the 4th website then definitely its worth redirecting your 4th website.

The first place google bot goes when it enters your website is the sitemap.

Its also not a good practice to put more links in the footer section. Limit the number of links in the footer section.