What to do with 4 sites in related niches? Combine?

[youtube1001]

Hello all,

First of all, a very happy new year to you all.

Entering 2021, I am working on reducing the number of sites that I manage.

I have the following scenario and would need your insight on my approach.

Right now, I have a mix of fitness-related sites that are:

1. All 3 of them bought with intentions to further develop
2. 1/3 is making tens of a $ every month on Amazon. Another one is making a few cents. 3rd one not monetized at all.
3. All 3 are ranking for KWs. A few on the first page and many on the 2nd page and on....

My idea is to combine all three and pick the one most brandable (not the one making money), and combine the sites using Google merge tool and 301. I did so in the past and all the KW ranking transferred in a few weeks with no issues.

Alternatively, I can make the site that is making some money to be the final one with the other two 301 redirected to this site.

Do you see any issues with this merging of 3 sites? I am thinking of doing to this mainly to increase the authority and simplify efforts to take one site to next level of earnings.

Thanks in advance,

 

[Ryuzaki]

I think this is the right move to combine the sites. Better to pile all your resources up on one asset since time, content, and links all have a synergistic effect.

If the tens of dollars matter to you, I'd make that the main site that accepts the 301s from the other two. If that money doesn't matter and you're in this for the long haul, I'd go with the one with the brand name you like and that has the most potential.

I don't see any issue here. Where problems arise or results aren't that good is when the domains and backlinks' relevancies aren't tightly related. This will likely work fine. You may not get any massive results since there's not much revenue in place as it is, though, to temper the expectations.

What I'd be asking is if the "other two" sites that will be redirected even have the quantity or quality of backlinks worth dealing with a redirect. It complicates things (it's set and forget but you'll have to keep those domains on hand and renew them, etc.), and if the backlinks aren't there, I'd rather just transfer the content without the 301's. You could set the meta canonical tags to point to the new locations, which would work like 301's in a sense, and ultimately let the old sites go offline once Google understands everything. I'd only do this if there aren't backlinks worth saving though.

Best of luck with it. I see nothing wrong with your plan. Let us know what you decide and how it plays out as you do it!