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Thanks Brad,  I don't take that as harsh at all and I don't disagree with you. Yes, search visibility, rankings of local store listings, etc is one of the primary reasons we have operated the sites separately to this point. One of the sites is a recent acquisition so that has just compounded the issue. I should clarify that content is not 100% duplicated, mainly store locator functionality and local partnership content on each site.

The other reason we have not gone the 301 route is marketing perception. Several years ago, this is how we handled it. But the brands operate independent of each other in different areas of the country. It's not a Limited example where they operate Gap, Old Navy, etc. Customers in the Mattress King area of the country, have no idea what Sleep Outfitters is and 301s to the strongest domain was causing huge bounce rates, customer confusion and low visibility for individual store locations.

So there is our issue. Weighing pros and cons and not sure which side is winning right now.

My company currently operates four websites, independently of each other, a corporate website and three separate store brands.

1. innovativemattresssolutions.com - corporate website
2. mattressking.net
3. sleepoutfitters.com
4. mattresswarehouse.com

All of our stores have the same branding, same TV spots, same print ads, etc across the company, we just swap out logos on all marketing pieces.

It is proving nearly impossible for us to maintain four separate websites, currently on three different platforms. all four are hosted separately as of now. We would like to combine all four websites to one Wordpress Multisite installation so we can manage the pages from one place, using the same theme and even content in many places because all brands share the same info, policies, products, etc. We would set up wordpress multi using subfolders for installation and point the URL directly to resolve to the appropriate subfolder. The only site that would crosslink to the others would be the corporate website.

Is this a bad idea for SEO? What other options would we have? Should we keep the corporate site on its own installation, but put the other three brands on a multisite install? Would duplicating content on the three brand pages be an issue? Less of an issue if they were not on multisite?

Any insight is much appreciated.