I have many directories all with their own URL's hosted on the same dedicated server but on seperate virtual servers. Other then being linked to each other the sites have no "connection" as far as the search engines are concerned. For simplicity and to make just 1 large site of subpages I would like to create a master URL and then have each directory under it such as making a New York page and then having each county as a sub page. How do I go about doing this without a search engine penalty considering all of these pages are currently ranking well and have a PR4....I hope you understand my question...if not I can clarify...thanks in advance!
Best thing to do is make subdomains for each "url", but those subdomains aren't gonna have any PR on the toolbar to start. You can 301 the old domains to the new subdomains to preserve the incoming links.
urmm.. i recently bought a domain and redirect my old url to this new domain name. I have some difficulty to get my pr back but it works well with the htaccess conf. It takes time tho..
I'm doin something similar - combining 3 very similar sites into one ... with 301s ... (see here) goin OK so far ... will update soon. <S>