My Niche Website Story – Part B – Merging My Websites

I started reorganising my niche websites last week, but then I hit a problem… Should I merge the websites with Profit Duck, or leave them as there are. I’ve been thinking about the possibility of doing this for a long time now, not only would it make it a lot easier to manage all three of my business websites, but it would bring the community all to one place, which could grow into something better. But then on the other hand, I will lose the keywords in the domain names and in turn maybe lose out on search engine result rankings.

There are so many advantages and disadvantages and this is why it has been so hard to make a decision, and now that it comes down to working on the websites, it has made it even harder.

Because of this I have decided to make a small post on the advantages and disadvantages of merging two websites together. So let’s start off with the more positive look at everything.

Advantages and Pros of Merging Two Websites

Links = More Traffic

If the content of the websites is in the same niche then you are likely to gain from merging the two websites, not only will you have more links coming in as each link to each website will now just go to one, hopefully at least doubling the visitors, but also if the content is similar this may lead to more links being created as search engines will find information it previously hasn’t looked at.

Less Money Spent

The main thing I thought of is that after a couple of years I would be able to sell the other two domains on for some profit and in turn this would mean I wouldn’t have to pay for the renting of this domain for many more years, not saving me loads of money, but every little helps. In this section also comes the fact that you wont have to pay twice for such things as advertisements and promotional work, it can all go under the one domain.

Branding

Ah my favourite word, we haven’t seen it in so long!

Branding for one website will be a lot easier than branding for two websites, saving you money, time and effort. As with the above, if the content is the same, what’s the point in having it in two places? All, for people like me who like to start communities, it is easier if your community is all in one place instead of over multiple websites, which may confuse and lose you customers.

Disadvantages and Cons of Merging Two Websites

Losing Links

Although you will probably set up a link redirection, not everyone who links to you may like this so they may remove you from their website. All you really need to do is contact the main linkers to your website and hopefully this will solve the problem.

All well as losing this type of link, you may lose links which were based on the previous domain name, due to you not having the keyword rich text anymore.

Time Lost

You will have to redirect everything on your website, move it all over and spend a lot of time making sure that everything works as it should. You may also have some problems with search engines etc. which will take time to sort out.

The Decision

I’m still thinking about it for my websites, some input from people who chose to do it, or didn’t, would help, so please leave a response in the comments!