Buying out a competitor. What should I do with their domain?

301 to our site? Splash page with link to our site?

[OffTheRadar]

We are in the process of buying out one of our competitors. The deal includes the domain only, not the actual code for the web site. I am trying to figure out the best SEO strategy for this domain. Seems like my choices are:

a) 301 redirect to our site.
b) Display a splash page with a link to our site.
c) Setup a separate web site selling the same products sold on our primary site.

It seems that (a) and (b) would work to bolster our current site rankings, but of those which is the better choice?

Option (c) could potentially lead to duplicate listings in the SERPs (good) but would be time consuming to setup and maintain. Would the benefits here be worth the trouble?

Our site ranks very well in our area. The site we are aquiring has been around for 3-4 years. It has decent rankings for product-model-number type searches, but doesn't rank well at all for generic keywords.

Thanks!

[minnapple]

Please elaborate on the reason for buying out the competitor.

[arubin]

Can you obtain the rights and access to their data and design? Does the website have deep links from outside sources?

[OffTheRadar]

The primary reason was the opportunity to bring in their inventory at a significant discount. The domain was part of the deal, so I want to make sure to take advantage of it as best I can.

[OffTheRadar]

They are going to provide the website's database (contains customers, orders, products, etc) but not the design. They use a proprietary ecommerce/shopping cart system which isn't easily portable.

The site does have several deep links from other sites.

[edited by: OffTheRadar at 1:09 am (utc) on April 12, 2007]

[haggul]

What is your own site based on? If you have control over the code/structure could you setup another "skin" for it in the competitors brand/colours etc - keep it running as if they have any loyal customers left they may prefer to purchase from there - I was involved in something similar a few years back - 2 sites fed from same database and also fulfilment running through one system.

[oldpro]

run it as a separate website with a different pricing structure and market appeal.

[andy_boyd]

@oldpro

Spot on ... you are buying more than just the name and customer base. You're getting another site complete with aged linkage. Use this by creating a separate business with unique pricing, different layout etc.