Redirects/Forwarding

[inhouseseo]

I have two niche e-commerce sites. One is a PR3 with 3K pages indexed, the other is PR0 with 5K pages indexed. Each site has a blog that has been updated regularly. They both rank well for some fairly competitive keywords and some good links pointing to them.

I also have a main site that is PR3.

I am thinking of closing down the sites because they are not generating enough revenue, here are my questions:

1. What is the best way to get the most SEO value from these sites? Do I just do a redirect to the main site? Should I keep the sites and use canonical URLs to the main site? Should I keep the domain as a wordpress blog and point links to the main site?

2. What should I do with the blogs? They are on sub-domains, neither has pagerank.

Thanks

[kchandler]

Making the assumption that shutting down both websites are in the best interest of your company. I would 301 redirecting the niche eCommerce sites back to your main corporate site. In terms of how to redirect them, are there any pages on your main site that are directly related to your other sites? If so i would redirect them there.

Or perhaps create an page on your main site briefly explaining the reason those sites no longer exist and redirect to that. This way you can pass the domain strength as well as ensuring a good experience for the end user.

[inhouseseo]

Actually, that was going to be my next question. So lets say I sell shoes:

Main site is- shoes.com

niche site 1- basketballshoes.com

niche site 2- tennisshoes.com

If I shut down the niche sites, it would be best to 301 them to shoes.com/basketballshoes.html and shoes.com/tennisshoes.html repectively, correct?

Thanks

[kchandler]

In my opinion, yes. This way you are achieving two goals.

1. Passing the domain strength of the niche sites to a related page

2. Ensuring a smooth end user experience

[KeriMorgret]

Hi Dan,

I'm updating older questions that are still marked unanswered. What did you decide to do here? Do you have anything you can share with us, or any more questions?