Two sites into one

[barrowr]

I have two sites owned by one client, he wants to merge them into one keeping one website, but which one? I've been using the Moz Pro to look at the stats for both sites; page authority, inbound links etc, but they're both fairly close in results. The client wants to know what would be the best course to take with these two sites, what site should he keep and which should he merge? Any advice?

[Houses]

Hi,

Do they both do/sell the same thing?

Which one has most visits?

Why do they want to merge them?

[barrowr]

Hi,

Thanks for the prompt reply.

They do sell the same product but in slightly different geographic locations. They basically don't want to maintain two sites when they both more or less say the same thing and see the same product range.

[RyanPurkey]

Hi Robert. There's an excellent blog post on this very process here: http://moz.com/blog/2-become-1-merging-two-domains-made-us-an-seo-killing. Some of the steps they took:

• Identifying which site had the best branding.
• Considering which site has better engagement.
• Addressing which site seemed to have any negative issues.

After that it became pretty clear which to merge into which. A good read! Check out the blog for the full details. Cheers!

[EGOL]

This is a complex question that requires lots of study before giving an answer.

As a generalization, consider these two things...

1. If these two sites have very different content and very different link profiles then merging them will probably be a good idea.  But, if they have a lot of similar content and similar link profiles then merging them could result in a reduction in total traffic.

2. Usually it is best to merge the weaker site into the stronger site.  Usually.

I have sites that I could merge but I don't do it because I am confident that is much more profitable to run them separately.

Your sites might have two different biz models.  One could be very visible and sell lots of merchandise at MSRP and high profit.  The other might be a discount site that ranks deeper in the SERPs and gets sales from the people who dig hard to find bargains.  This allows you to play both games.

In B&M, it is possible to run two toy stores in the same town.  Although they compete with one another they are two stores out of five instead of one store out of four.  Remember there are only ten organic positions on the first page of google and if you hold two at the top that is awesome.

[Houses]

I'd look at which has the most traffic then and which makes them the most money.

The primary site will need to cater for the people who would have landed on the secondary site equally as well as if they had landed direct onto the secondary site though.You don't want to put off people who are already happily using the secondary site.