The Drama of redirecting

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Mateusz Mucha: We've been focused on developing a technology (multiple web/mobile tools of a certain kind) for the past few years and are about to release a kick ass website with hundreds of those tools. We were using two different domains for the project so far, but the website will be on a 3rd. I need to decide what to do with those older two domains.
  
  1. oneofthetoolsname.info - the original domain, just a website with 8 tools, moz domain authority 25, gets 40k visits per month. Earns a bit on AdSense ($250/month)
  2. oneofthetoolsnameapp.com - a website for the mobile app that has 15 of those tools. We just needed to have a website for it and hacked in in a day or two and forgot about it. Moz domain authority 17, I doubt it brings any substantial traffic (the app itself has a considerable traffic - 3000+ installs per day, 2MM in total). It's basically
  3. ourbrandname.com - the domain I purchased a year ago with the intent to be The Website when it's ready. It currently redirects to domain #1.
  
  Now, the question is what to do with #1 and #2. Here are a few more things to consider:
  * I have no use for those old websites. I definitely won't maintain them. I really want that 40k traffic to move to #3, though.
  * #1 is essentially a subset of the new website (8 tools out of 100 that will be available at launch). #1's home page will be one of the sub pages of #3.
  * #2 and #3 have identical WHOIS records, for some reason #1 has a different main contact details (my wife's old physical address), but exactly the same admin and tech addresses.
  
  Here's my plan:
  * redirect most pages from #1 to respective URLs on #3 and every other URL to #3's homepage
  * use the text from those #1's pages on respective #3's pages.
  * redirect the whole #2 to #3's homepage (most links to #2 have the brand name as anchor text)
  
  What do you think about this approach? Am I risking anything? Is it likely I will lose #1's traffic?
• 
  Dave Elliott: sounds about right. Just so long as you aren't redirecting masses of pages from the old site to the homepage.. doesn't sound like you are though and you can easily download the apps from #2 on the homepage of the new new site.
  
• 
  Suraj Gadage: +Mateusz Mucha ;Overall your approach sounds OK to me.  ;However, couple of suggestions to consider: ;
  
  1. Structure of your new brand website:
  yourbrandname.com
  yourbrandname.com/web-tools
  yourbrandname.com/web-tools/tool-1
  yourbrandname.com/web-tools/tool-2
  yourbrandname.com/mobile-tools
  yourbrandname.com/mobile-tools/tool-1
  yourbrandname.com/mobile-tools/tool-2
  
  2. Redirect tool specific webpages of domain #1 to domain #3 tool webpages (depending on web or mobile tools) and redirect other webpages of domain #1 to domain #3's internal webpage (main web tools or mobile tools)
  
  3. For domain #2, I would follow the same approach mentioned above because you have 15 different tools webpages (i'm assuming) and wouldn't redirect everything to homepage because backlinks are of branded anchor text.
  
  Note: Point 2 and 3 approach will help you preserving link equity and your ranking power.
  
  Hope this helps!
• 
  Mateusz Mucha: Suraj: thanks.
  #1. That's what I'm doing. I have 13 categories (physica, finance, etc.).
  #2. Yes, I'll redirect whatever can be redirected to a specific url on the new website and the rest will redirect to the root domain (most will be in the first group, though).
  #3. The app page is basically a single page (plus crap like 'contact'). I'll redirect it to the root domain, even though the name of the app is the same as the name of one highly searched-for tools... but almost all links pointing to it have my brand name as the anchor text.
• 
  Edwin Jonk: From the expert panel in this week's SEO Questions hangout on air on 01:02:50 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/the_drama_of_redirecting +Mateusz Mucha
  
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