Have about 10 'emd' with Amazon sites - redirect to new authority site?

BCN

BCN

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Hi,

So I have about 10 domains like product.io, product.net, bestproduct.com etc for specific products/categories, they make around 1-2k per month combined, so not much.

I also have a larger authority site with all kinds of products, with silos for different product categories.This one is pretty fresh, but a nicer site overall.

The smaller sites have kinda reached their potential in terms of what content I can post, as they are so specific, and also EMDs. The new authority site is branded and can accommodate infinite (for all practical purposes) content, and even have subdomains for countries. It's a custom build in Node.js and Nuxt, while the other ones are WP (basically I've spent more time on it).

Should I move the content over from the other sites and redirect page to page, redirect all subpages to the silo head on the big site, or something else? I don't see the point of keeping many sites making 100-200$ per month at most, as the time to maintain them adds up, so preferable I'd have just one instead.
 
Go for it!

Merge them and point old site pages to your one site.

I am a big fan of merging sites in the same niche.

As long as all the content is well-written. You could see an earnings increase also.

I merged 3-4 sites together in the education niche and earned more rolling them into 1 site than they did running them separately.
 
One person I advise redirected one "brand-domain.com", generating $2K+ a month from Amazon, to a new "branddomain.com" to get rid of a hyphen. The site tanked and after 1 year still hasn't recovered. $0 a month now.

The problem was branddomain.com was sitting idle for years with not content, just a coming soon page, and therefore had no authority. The 301s didn't automatically transfer the authority to a blank slate like some theorized.

If your MegaBrand.com has traffic already from Google then absorbing some sites here and there is no problem, and should boost your overall authority like some experience. However there might be someone reading this and think their site with less than 1000 visitors a month from Google fits that criteria - it doesn't.

Two sites both with traffic from Google merging together = Double Win. One site with traffic being absorbed into a site with no traffic from Google = Loss.

Why am I emphasizing "from Google"? If Google is sending you traffic it trusts your site. If Google is sending you a lot of traffic it really trust your site. It's also why people with de-indexing problems tend to have little traffic coming from Google in the first place - 1,000 visitor a month is BARE minimum for the trust, I would really put bottom metric at 3,000, ~100 people a day from Google.

Otherwise Google will play games. But 10 sites into 1? Sounds dangerous. Perhaps give each site 3-6 months to full absorb before the next redirect.
 
Even 301 redirecting posts to new URLs on the same domain can end up with them receiving less traffic. It's always a gamble to do it. In a case where you'd lose the EMD bonus but gain the huge authority of a bigger site, I'd do it. But that's not your case yet.

I'm not against you doing it. As you said there's a lot of maintenance benefits to doing it. I'm just not sure it's the right time yet, as CCarter has described. I'd build out the newer site first and get some age, authority, and organic traffic flowing before I made that move.
 
Actually I just realize the OP said it’s a pretty fresh site, absolutely DO NOT DO THIS. The domain should be generating 3,000 visitors a month minimum for 3-5 years before attempting something like this. How old is this the site? (Age = when did google start sending good traffic (100 ppl a day), not WHOIS age).
 
I would take the ones with the most potential and keep building them. The rest I would sell. Even a site making $100-$200 per month could sell for $2k-$5k. Sell some of these and you will have funds to invest in building up the smaller sites plus your larger site.

I don't know much about redirects as I've never done it, but there's some good advice above. If you go down this route, maybe do 1 at a time to see if there are any issues.
 
Thanks for all the feedback!

So the new site is brand spanking new, it's just filled with content (or in the process). I figured I'd redirect one domain wait and then another etc, not all at once.
 
The idea is that the EMDs are very specific, while a branded site I can add on more silos in the long run. Example:

product.net >> brand.com/product
product2.io >> brand.com/product2/
product2.io/review1 >> brand.com/product2/review1/

then I can do brand.com/product3/ brand.com/product/4

so in the long run it will be more scaleable? But obviously not sure if it would work in practice. I just find it much harder to content plan, scale and maintain many small sites that make 100-200$ each, vs one that would ideally make the same, and then have the option to easier add on new content without being bound by a specific EMD.
 
In retrospect, due to all of the variables you're describing plus the complete gamble of how Google will take it, what I'd tell you to do, if you're married to those products on the EMD sites, is to simply have new articles written to target them on the authority site. Then you'll have your cake and eat it too.
 
Sounds extremely risky to me.

I've not done a lot of redirects personally but when you get a ton of them pointing at one site, I'd think Google would think 'red flags' to some extent

Just my 2 cents. A slow transition with natural links also pointed over within the period would be more ideal to me if you do the redirects. Also put a lot of new content up on the main site, between redirects.
 
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