Linking shallow sites to flagship sites

[franchisesolutions]

We have hundreds of domains that we are either doing nothing with, or they are very shallow. We do not have the time to build enough quality content on them since they are ancillary to our flagship sites that are already in need of attention and good content.

My question is...should we redirect them to the flagship site? If yes, is it ok to do this from root domain to root domain or should we link the root domain to a matching/similar page (gymfranchises.com to http://www.franchisesolutions.com/health_services_franchise_opportunities.cfm)? Or should we do something different altogether?

Since we have many to redirect (if this is the route we go), should we redirect gradually?

[mark_baird]

Your flagship site seems to have pretty good stats. Depending on the quality and traffic going to your other sites i'm not sure i would do anything with them.

If the hundreds of site you have are not ranking and are say PR0 with little to no incoming links I would just leave them as dead and move on without linking or 301ing to your main site as it may look like link spamming or other black hat tactics.

On the other hand if they are more worthwhile useful sites with traffic and ranks etc I would either pick the best few and work on them and make them better or 301 them into your main site if the admin is too much. if they are worth 301ing but not worth anything else i would put them in at top level for simplicitys sake if there is a good number to do.

[Harbor_Compliance]

Your first link didn't work.

Links from these shallow sites probably won't help much for passing link juice (low authority presumably) but if they're getting traffic then you might want those visitors to see your flagship brand where you have the bulk of your content.  In that case, it would benefit the visitor and therefore would be worth doing.

As always be careful with linking to your flag ship site if the shallow sites are linked to by spammy sites.  It seems to already doing pretty well so taking chances for minimal benefit probably wouldn't be worth it.