Merging several domains into one, a redirection question

[MandLoys]

Hi,

We have a client who recently acquired a bunch of domains in all kinds of niches, each domain has a WordPress site on it, with content and backlinks. Clients wants to "merge" all these domains into categories in his "main website", moving content and "moving" backlinks as well.

The syntax we came up with is the following: (sample domains of course)
potatomixers.com will be updated with .htaccess 301 redirect:
 Redirect 301 /fastpotatomixer.htm http://www.mainwebsite.com/home-appliances/fastpotatomixer

1.) I'm not sure about the domain's root though. Where would I redirect potatomixers.com, to mainwebsite.com/home-appliances? Won't that be a problem that the new one is a "larger" category that has other posts as well, not only potatomixers?

2.) If this gets into the .htaccess (with several other lines for the other content as well of course), won't the first line "override" all the other ones?

Redirect 301 / http://www.mainwebsite.com/home-appliances/
Redirect 301 /fastpotatomixer.htm http://www.mainwebsite.com/home-appliances/fastpotatomixer
Redirect 301 /easypotatomixer.htm http://www.mainwebsite.com/home-appliances/easypotatomixer

etc.

Thanks!

[ufmedia]

Assuming your syntax is correct (I think it is, based on 301s I've done in the past), here are my tentative responses:

1. It's generally best to redirect to links that are as close to the original in terms of content.  If you don't have a potato mixers page, I'd suggest building one and pointing the old link to it.
2. The first line shouldn't override all the others.  You're saying the domain (i.e. the home page) should be pointed to home-appliances.  The other two redirects deal with different links.  So you should be okay.  However, htaccess is tricky, so as is always the case with 301s, test the heck out of 'em when you implement them.

Good luck!

[MandLoys]

Thank you!