Client bought a smaller competitor in the same niche (accounting software for freelancers). Their site has around 900 pages and about 260 referring domains. Plan is to shut it down and move everything into the client’s site.
Options I’m weighing:
1. 301 every URL to the closest match on the client’s site
2. Only redirect pages with backlinks or traffic, let the rest 404/410
3. Redirect linked pages, and also email the top linking sites asking them to update the link directly
I lean towards option 3 for the top 40 or so referring domains, and 1:1 redirects for anything with links. The rest of the thin stuff can die.
Worried about redirecting a lot of loosely related pages to our homepage, since I’ve read that gets treated as a soft 404.
Anyone done a merger like this? Did you see the acquired links actually pass value, and how long did it take? Also, did asking sites to update links directly get decent response?
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