After two advisory firms merge, the combined business should plan to run one primary website whenever a single public identity and service offering can serve its visitors. A second site earns its keep only when it has a defined ongoing role and a named owner maintaining it. Either way, decide what each domain is for before anyone touches a redirect.
The legal close date does not settle this question, and a fresh design does not either. The decision follows from which brand, audience and service paths the merged firm intends to maintain, and from what visitors still need from each existing page.
Key Takeaways
- Choose each site's role from the merged firm's brand and audience plan; two domains existing is not a reason by itself.
- Inventory both sites and decide which distinct destinations stay, which overlapping pages combine, and which pages retire.
- Redirect each retired URL that has a relevant replacement; one consolidated page can serve several old URLs when it preserves their content. Content removed with no relevant replacement returns a genuine 404 or 410 response rather than a redirect to an unrelated page.
- Keep the legacy domain and its redirects maintained well past launch, with a named owner, apart from email and client systems.
- Monitor both the legacy and destination domains after launch without expecting a guaranteed ranking outcome or fixed recovery date.
Decide What Each Website Is For
Most post-merger website questions resolve into three patterns. The first is one combined identity: the merged firm operates under a single brand, and one site carries the services, bios, locations and educational content. When one public identity can serve the relevant visitors, consolidation is the sensible default because every page has one home and one owner.
The second pattern is separate brands with a real ongoing role. Some combined firms keep serving distinct audiences under distinct names, with separate service paths and content. That can justify two sites, but each one needs a named owner, a maintenance budget and a reason to exist that would make sense to a first-time visitor. The third pattern is temporary transition access: the legacy site stays reachable for a defined period so clients can find familiar contacts and documents while the destination is finished. Treat that as a phase with an end condition, because an unmaintained transition site drifts into becoming a permanent one by neglect.
If the surviving site also needs design work, scope that as its own project. Our guide to choosing between a redesign and targeted improvements covers that decision, which stands apart from the merger question.
Inventory Both Sites Before Anything Moves
Before any redirect gets written, build a shared inventory of both domains. Cover the service and location pages, team and bio pages that must stay accurate, educational articles worth preserving, linked documents such as guides and disclosures, and the client-access links people use to reach portals, custodians or scheduling pages. For each item, capture five entries.
- The visitor need it serves.
- Its current URL.
- Its intended destination: stays, combines with another page, moves to a relevant replacement, or is removed.
- The owner who confirms accuracy and approval before launch.
- Anything else that depends on it, such as documents other pages link to.
Do not use traffic alone to decide what survives. A client-service link used by a handful of households each quarter still needs a working destination, and a bio page with few visits may be the page a referred prospect reads before calling. Page importance is a judgment about visitor need; traffic is one input, and a weak one for pages that serve existing clients.
Combine Overlapping Pages With Relevant Destinations
Two merged firms often arrive with near-duplicate pages: two retirement-planning service pages, two about pages, overlapping location pages. Google's site-move documentation recommends that once you have the listing of old URLs, you decide where each one should redirect. That mapping is the core of the consolidation plan.
The distinction that counts is relevance. Two similar service pages can be combined into one stronger destination that serves both sets of visitors. Pages answering different needs should keep or gain their own destinations. Google warns against redirecting many old URLs to one irrelevant destination such as the homepage, which can confuse users and may be treated as a soft 404. The same guidance confirms the corollary: when content from multiple pages has been consolidated into a single new page, redirecting the older URLs to that consolidated page is appropriate.
Not every inventoried page has somewhere to go. When content is not moving to the new site at all, Google's site-move guidance directs the website team to return a genuine HTTP 404 or 410 response for those URLs. Record that branch in the inventory so a removed page serves the correct response instead of a redirect to an irrelevant page. The owner decision is which pages have a real replacement; the website team handles the response itself.
For the technical handoff, Google recommends server-side permanent redirects, such as 301 or 308, when the platform permits them, and sending each old URL to its final destination rather than routing through intermediates. Pass this to the website team as a platform recommendation, not as a promise that rankings will transfer.
Keep the Website Cutover Separate From Other Systems
A website cutover changes one system: the website. Email addresses, client portals, custodian logins, document signing, scheduling tools and any regulator-facing contact details each need their own plan and owner. A redirect going live migrates none of them. The firm's normal review process should confirm that the public identity, contact instructions and preserved client-access links on the surviving site are accurate before launch.
The legacy domain still has a job after launch. Google recommends keeping redirects in place for as long as possible, with one year as a general minimum. Plan for the old domain to stay registered, renewed and maintained well past launch week, and name the person responsible. One year is a floor from the guidance, not an automatic shutdown date; if the old domain still serves client bookmarks or linked documents, keep it working.
Approve a Bounded Launch and Watch Both Domains
Before the switch, review the URL map, confirm each destination answers the old visitor's question, and test the links end to end. Preserve a record of both sites' existing search activity and inquiry volume, so changes after launch can be read in context.
Then expect some movement. Google cautions that with any significant change to a site, you may experience ranking fluctuations while it recrawls and reindexes. Watch crawl, indexing and traffic for the legacy domain and the destination over the following weeks and months. Two qualifications travel with that sentence: may is not will, and no fixed recovery date comes with it. A quiet stretch of traffic after launch does not prove the consolidation failed, any more than a strong week proves it worked. Judge sustained patterns, and investigate specific drops on specific pages.
If your firm is weighing this decision, RIA.Marketing provides scoped website planning and search support for advisory firms, including page and navigation planning, technical review and reporting within an agreed scope. Review our website design and SEO services pages, or book a strategy call to talk through the website side of a merger.
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