Best way to handle SEO error, linking from one site to another same IP

[foodsleuth]

We committed an SEO sin and created a site with links back to our primary website. Although it does not matter, the site was not created for that purpose, it is actually "directory" with categorized links to thousands of culinary sites, and ours are some of the links.

This occurred back in May 2010.  Starting April 2011 we started seeing a large drop in page views.  It dropped again in October 2011.  At this point our traffic is down over 40%

Although we don't know for sure if this has anything to do with it, we know it is best to remove the links.

The question is, given its a bad practice what is the best fix?  Should we redirect the 2nd domain to the main or just take it down?  The 2nd domain does not have much page rank and I really don't think many if any back-links to it.

Will it hurt us more to lose the 1600 or so back links? I would think keeping the links is a bad idea.

Thanks for your advice!

[UnderRugSwept]

Just speaking to the very last part of your question and hoping I understand you correctly: it will not hurt you to lose those 1,600 backlinks if they're all from the same site that is actually your site. Changes are, Google is already discounting them. And if it's not, it will only be like losing one link, not 1,600, because all the links are from the same site and are not giving you any kind of extra boost.

[AlanBleiweiss]

Redirecting one site to another when the two sites are not highly related doesn't help SEO in a major way.  And if there is or was ever any real value to the directory, if people type that domain and end up on your site but don't get redirected to another directory (or at the very least a new custom page that explains why they were redirected and thus that new custom page at least has content related to the topic of that directory), it will be confusing to them and that in turn would not help SEO either.

Given your situation, if you set up such a page, don't communicate in that description the reason you shared here about why the site was created, because that's not necessary.  Instead, just describe what the directory was focused on overall.  And explain that you hope to one day resurrect the directory on this site, but in the mean time, hope visitors will find your site helpful...

(In other words, use marketing spin to make it sound all positive all around, while keeping topical focus on target to match the value of the 301 from an SEO perspective)

Did that make sense or did I just confuse you further?

[foodsleuth]

Thank you. There are 2 separate sites,  both owned by us.  There are about 1600 links from the "directory" site, back to our main site.

[foodsleuth]

Maybe just a little more confused <g>  Thanks for the assist.</g>

The 2 sites are quite related as to the nature of the content.  Perhaps doing a domain 301 redirect might be the best choice.

We're flying blind here. Clearly traffic dropped significantly but we're out here trying to fix what we are not even sure is broken.