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Ok, thanks again. BIG HELP!!

Robert, thanks. That definitely answers my question. The biggest thing was whether or not users can access rootdomain.com or if that gets redirected to the new directory as well.

If I understand your answer, you're saying leave the root domain or index page, etc. up there, redirect the content to the new directories and just stop updating the old domain... Right?

Thanks!

Ok, thanks for the answer...

Do you think I should 301 the root domains or just 301 the content pages?

Yes a well optimized Google Places page can have a huge impact on getting local query traffic.

Hope you get it worked out. Good luck!

Do you have a Google Places account? Is it their website or their Google Places listing that is ranking for the keyword? Do you have "Web Design Memphis" or a similar phrase on your homepage title tag? Do you use that phrase on your site?

I've found including all of the geo information in the footer generally works well. Creating a link between your Google Places account and your web page could help as well.

Hello,

My company has four websites in the same vertical and we're planning to integrate them all on our main company site.

So instead of www.siteone.com, www.sitetwo.com, www.sitethree.com, etc.

It would be www.branddomain.com/site-one, www.branddomain.com/site-two, etc.

I have a few questions...

Should we redirect the old domains to the new directories or leave the old domains and stop updating them with new content... Then have the old content, links, etc. 301 to the same content on the new site?

Should we literally move all of the content to the new directories?

Any tips are appreciated. It's probably pretty obvious that I don't have a ton of technical skills... my development team will be doing the heavy lifting. I just want to be sure we do this correctly from an SEO perspective!

Thanks for the help, please let me know if I can clarify anything.

E

Thanks for the reply. Both answers show that there is no harm here and potentially a lot of benefits.

Great tips, thanks. And the percentage sign... never thought about that.

My editorial team won't budge with their headlines which are excruciatingly vague ... But I have managed to convince them to let me optimize the title tags and the URLs.

Is this sub-optimal or are there some benefits to having a title tag that varies from the page headline or what our dev team calls the "reader friendly" title?

For example...

Their headline: Increase Your Retirement by 20% with This Safe, Simple Strategy

My title tag: Compound Returns: How to Increase Your Retirement 20%

Thanks for the help,

E

Last time I saw Matt Cutts speak he said every search result is personalized, logged in or not. They use a lot of different identifiers to serve results. So yes, computer to computer the results can and will vary.

This is a good reason putting too much emphasis on rankings can be problematic.

If you want to check rankings, I recommend using a rank checker tool like the one Aaron Wall offers... http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker

Last time I saw Matt Cutts speak he said every search result is personalized, logged in or not. They use a lot of different identifiers to serve results. So yes, computer to computer the results can and will vary.

This is a good reason putting too much emphasis on rankings can be problematic.

If you want to check rankings, I recommend using a rank checker tool like the one Aaron Wall offers... http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker

Do you have a Google Places account? Is it their website or their Google Places listing that is ranking for the keyword? Do you have "Web Design Memphis" or a similar phrase on your homepage title tag? Do you use that phrase on your site?

I've found including all of the geo information in the footer generally works well. Creating a link between your Google Places account and your web page could help as well.

Yes a well optimized Google Places page can have a huge impact on getting local query traffic.

Hope you get it worked out. Good luck!