Does the sandbox still exist?  What if you have a brand new URL and do a 301 redirect from another website because the name of the service business changed?

Thanks for any insight and help.

Take Lonnie's advice. Install Yoast. Use the rel=next tags that the software inserts for you automatically. Yoast will fix it all.

Another WP plugin is called htaccess control. And it is also used for this same purpose... It's a little simpler than the Yoast plugin, and if you already have an SEO plugin you like-- or worst yet-- it is built into your theme, like Thesis...

Just go with htaccess control. It is simple to use and your problems will be solved in minutes.

Thank you Takeshi.

The reason I want to merge them is because we are a major law firm in Phoenix and I think it's search engine spam to try and nail google with niche content sites. Because, really, other than the front page optimization-- they really aren't "niche" sites at all. They just have niche domains and a niche front page description.

Beyond that, nothing but spun content and crappy pages with titles like this:

Phoenix Arizona Divorce Lawyer | Child Custody Lawyer | Child Custody Help | Phoenix Tempe Mesa Tucson | Child Custody Lawyers

I feel that it's "index" spam for us to have multiple sites. What is the "white hat" argument for having multiple websites, for one law firm, in one major metropolitan area? How could I justify it to Matt Cutts?

First of all, thank you in advance for taking the time to look at this.

The law firm I work for once took a "more is better" approach and had multiple websites, with keyword rich domains. We are a family law firm, but we have a specific site for "Arizona Child Custody" as one example. We have four sites.

All four of our sites rank well, although I don't know why. Only one site is in my control, the other three are managed by FindLaw. I have no idea why the FindLaw sites do well, other than being in the FindLaw directory. They have terrible spammy page titles, and using Copyscape, I realize that most of the content that FindLaw provides for it's attorneys are "spun articles."

So I have a major task and I don't know how to begin.

• First of all, since all four sites rank well for all of the desired phrases-- will combining all of that power into one site rocket us to stardom? The sites all rank very well now, even though they are all technically terrible. Literally.

I would hope that if I redirect the child custody site (as one example) to the child custody overview page on the final merged site, we would still maintain our current SERP for "arizona child custody lawyer."

I have strongly encouraged my boss to merge our sites for many reasons. One of those being that it's playing havoc with our local places. On the other hand, if I take down the child custody site, redirect it, and we lose that ranking, I might be out of a job.

Finally, that brings me down to my last question.

• As I mentioned, the child custody site is "done" very poorly. Should I actually keep the spun content and redirect each and every page to a duplicate on our "final" domain, or should I redirect each page to a better article? This is the part that I fear the most.

I am considering subdomains. Like, redirecting the child custody site to childcustody.ourdomain.com-- I know, for a fact, that will work flawlessly. I've done that many times for other clients that have multiple domains. However, we have seven areas of practice and we don't have 7 nice sites. So child custody would be the only legal practice area that has it's own subdomain. Also, I wouldn't really be doing anything then, would I? We all know 301 redirects work.

What I want is to harness all of this individual power to one mega-site.

Between the four sites, I have 800 pages of content.

I need to formulate a plan of action now, and then begin acting on it. I don't want to make the decision alone. Anybody care to chime in?

Thank you in advance for your help. I really appreciate the time it took you to read this.