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Thank you!

I think this is just a typical "google dance". It's testing how the searchers react to your content, and is deciding where to put it in SERPs. This happens with new pages all the time. (We manage over 500 websites so I know this from experience.) Did you build any backlinks to these content pages in the meantime?

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!

I'd only move it to a subdirectory if I could somehow link it (or integrate it to some level) from the main domain/site as well. If not, you could keep it on the new domain and link to that domain from the old one with a proper anchor to give it a boost, and since it's topic related it will indeed give it a boost.

Always communicate with your client. If they want to go back to the blackhat firm, explain that the effects of blackhat techniques may very well be temporal and after the next Panda, BlackBear, Gorilla or whatever update they can be easily thrown back to the end of search results. And this "update" can happen anytime, maybe tomorrow maybe only in a year. If they're in for the long term, they have to plan for more than a year... Solid results take time, but they also stand the test of time!

Always communicate with your client. If they want to go back to the blackhat firm, explain that the effects of blackhat techniques may very well be temporal and after the next Panda, BlackBear, Gorilla or whatever update they can be easily thrown back to the end of search results. And this "update" can happen anytime, maybe tomorrow maybe only in a year. If they're in for the long term, they have to plan for more than a year... Solid results take time, but they also stand the test of time!

I'd only move it to a subdirectory if I could somehow link it (or integrate it to some level) from the main domain/site as well. If not, you could keep it on the new domain and link to that domain from the old one with a proper anchor to give it a boost, and since it's topic related it will indeed give it a boost.

I think this is just a typical "google dance". It's testing how the searchers react to your content, and is deciding where to put it in SERPs. This happens with new pages all the time. (We manage over 500 websites so I know this from experience.) Did you build any backlinks to these content pages in the meantime?