I have about 20 websites. These are directories, each devoted to a separate city. I have become convinced that it would be better SEO to move them all into one large website. But I want to avoid engine penalties for duplicate content, so after I have moved them into the larger website, should I just park the originals, or what? As far as engines are concerned how do they treat parked websites?
If you want to preserve the pagerank of each page in the 20 individual sites you'll need to 301 redirect each one of them to their new location. Short of that you can just 301 the domain to the new city's landing page on your the consoludated site. btw, If it was me I would try to do individual pages. Good luck! -jay
Another consideration is starting a 21st site -- a mega directory of the other 20 sites. You could push that and work to get new listings there. Your other 20 would refer people to the 21st. You could then allow them all to evolve in their own way.
Do you have lots of back links to the 20 individual sites? Are the sites fairly old? How much traffic... If you have lots of each of these. My opinion is to think long and hard before making a big change like that...
As Clancey mentioned. If you have alot of SEO done on all 20 sites, then it may be worth keeping the rankings, as eventually when you do a permanent re-direct, you are going to loose some of your rankings. With 20 sites you can specifically target each city with different content etc etc. Providing a truely unique experience for your visitor. Then use the 21st site as a portal to your other sites, this will creat your network of mini-sites. Just dont inter-link your sites too heavily, especially if they are on the same IP. Hopefully you have them on different C class blocks. Brad