I have three commercial sites that sell the same product under a different brand name, and somewhat different sales message. All 3 sites are old, very well established, all linking is organic (a significant portion of them from edu sites). Frequently, multiple sites show up in top 10 SERPs As the sales have been growing and business expanding, I hired a marketing manager, to help me with the long range business goals. One of his suggestions was to only have a single site (and apply 301 redirect to the other sites), for the SEO purposes and also to strengthen the brand, which is now diluted (and the whole business with multiple sites is somewhat shady since I am using three companies to sell three different products, where in fact there is only one). I understand his point, but am very reluctant to proceed because of several factors - current approach has served me well in the past. For different reasons, when one site would drop out of SERPS, the others would take over – I never experienced significant loss of sales during any of the infamous Google updates. It is nice to occupy several top 10 results. Occasionally I had customers complained about the fact that they find the same product under different names – but this is very rare (and obviously if they do purchase it twice, I immediately issue a refund) - I have heard lots of 301 redirect horror stories to make me pause - Even if 301 works as advertised, I think I have a problem of link deterioration which is somewhat unique to my situation. I bought one of the 3 sites. It was a non-commercial site before I bought it (same topic) . I did leave some free stuff on it, so back link loss wasn’t significant. However, I am afraid that, after 301 redirect, the link loss (in the long range) will be much more noticeable, and that I will have in effect destroyed a perfectly fine and profitable site. (my main brand name is contained in a different domain so I have to redirect from this one, rather than to it) So, basically I am conflicted between “don’t fix it if it ain’t broken†and the fact that I want to take my business out of an internet “back-alley†(to quote my marketing guy), and create more legitimacy, brand name recognition etc. Any advice in this matter would be appreciated.
You should trust your instincts. I am managing 5 sites for a company that does the same thing. It would be absolutely foolish to consolidate them. We have our flagship site, which is "the brand" and also has a brick and mortar presence. The "sister" sites are purely internet, have the same database, but are all run as different companies. I have found that some of the internet only sites appeal to demographics that seem to "ignore" the main site. I don't consider it shady one bit. Coke technically owns a lot of the "rival" soft drinks, but they are set up independently, and actually compete against each other. They all have done a GREAT job in respects to individual brand. Coke is the furthest thing from my mind when i think of Mello Yello, and vice versa. I also doubt there would be any benefit from 301ing everything to one site. If that were the case, I think people would already be overdoing it. People would set up networks of sites and grow them for the sole purpose of redirecting them to the site they really care about. I really can't recall any valid mention of this. If it were true, the HUGE potential for abuse would essentially make the 301 useless. You need to fire this guy, because he has no idea what he is talking about. You can keep ALL your sites intact, and still focus your branding effort on just one. You can even create a long term scenario where these other "independent" sites cave in and start distributing this brand.