Merging several FB business pages

[csdude55]

My company has about 60 websites, and I was recently able to purchase a decent domain to umbrella all of them; let's call it abcd.net.

Over the years, I've created 61 different Facebook pages: one for each of the sites (like facebook.com/mydomain), plus one for the umbrella of facebook.com/abcdnet (they won't let me register a 4-letter username, or put the dot in the username). I used to have a dream of hiring an SM Manager to oversee all of them, but it turns out that finding a good employee is next to impossible so I've all but given up on that. I get so little from Facebook that it wouldn't be worth the payroll, anyway; my sites send more than 10 times the traffic to them than they send back to me :-(

Now, I'm thinking it would be better to merge all of these pages to the main umbrella page. But what I need it to do is:

1. when someone goes to facebook.com/mydomain or /mydomain[1-60], they'll be redirected to facebook.com/abcdnet

2. if someone has "liked" or "followed" /mydomain[1-60]*, they'll be switched over to like or follow /abcdnet

3. After 10+ years of posts, I would like all of the posts to be merged to the destination account

4. I need all of the 60 usernames to remain stored, so that a competitor won't come along and re-register facebook.com/mydomain so that he can impersonate me

5. As my network continues to grow, I expect to have 40 more sites in the next few years. So I also need to manage a way to register these new usernames with Facebook, then have them redirect to my umbrella page, too


What do you guys think? Can this be done? And if so... should it be done?

[Robert Charlton]

csdude55, I can't answer your Facebook question, though my guess is that the answer is probably not. The introduction to your question caught my attention, though, and does raise a bunch of flags, and may have bearing on the FB issue.

You had posted...

My company has about 60 websites, and I was recently able to purchase a decent domain to umbrella all of them; let's call it abcd.net.

Not to take this off topic of Facebook... I feel compelled to note that you are very likely to have an issue on Google with the "60 websites" all funnelled into one domain.

Many years back, I was confronted with the question of redirecting maybe a half-dozen domains into one, and did some research and discovered that Google does watch these things. I had it on good authority that too many redirects to one domain, at that time, would result in a spam penalty. The precise number was considered part of Google's "secret sauce" and wasn't mentioned, but a figure of about 30 did come up.

It was also made clear that the issue wasn't about redirecting multiple alias domains into one... as some large companies have many more than thirty.... It was about redirecting too many previously promoted domains into one, as if "link juice" containing keyword rich anchor text and PageRank (the model at that time) flowing into one domain might skew legitimate rankings. My guess is that sixty websites that had been on the web for a while would likely be considered previously promoted.

The Google algo is way different now from what it was 15 years or so back, so I'm not sure what would apply now... whether it's even a concern. My guess is that with 60 sites, there probably would be an issue... and these might resemble doorway or satellite sites.

(Another Google digression... if you're going to merge very many sites, do it very slowly, just to allow Google time to sort things out.)

Getting back to your Facebook questions....

Google and Facebook "algos" are way different, and I don't know whether FB has a popularity measurement analogous to PageRank... call it "Like juice"... but, if they did, FB would probably be suspicious of merging 60 business Pages. You might do a reality check on the numbers, to see how many real likes each of your client's Pages has.

My guess with Facebook, btw, is that it simply doesn't have the tools to do what you want to do... but I leave that to others to answer.

[lammert]

The short answer to your question is: Yes

The longer answer is that you visit Facebook at Merge Facebook Pages [business.facebook.com] and follow the steps.

[Robert Charlton]

Thanks, lammert. Good to know.

csdude55... a question I'd suggest considering before merging is whether the Pages should be merged, or whether they're better off being separate. A lot depends on the nature of the original site, and how the content is distinguished among the 60 current sites, and what function the umbrella site serves.

It may be, eg, if the sixty sites were for different geo regions... say cities... that you'd be better off with regional or topical subdomains under the umbrella domain... and that you should keep the FB Pages separate and local, to correspond to the subdomains.... but I don't know that.

[csdude55]

Robert, you're hitting the nail on the head... each of my sites do target a specific geographic region. The main reason for the umbrella domain is for marketing... it's a lot cheaper to market one site on a statewide level than 60 sites on a citywide level. 60 different billboards at $1,000 /month each is $60,000, but 100 billboards distributed across the state with the same design is only about $20,000!

It also gives me the ability to do TV campaigns that I couldn't do before. And since it has a broader branding, I can justify skipping out on billboards in expensive cities that are $5,000+.

And it's starting to make more sense to target the state, since so much of the discussions focus on national topics instead of local (seriously, more than 90%). The programming lets the user narrow the topics down to state or local, but they can also choose other topics so they can see whatever they want to see.

As for Facebook, it comes down to ROI, really. I send about 10 times more traffic to Facebook than they send to me, so there's little value for me to maintain 60 different pages; it takes all day with little return. If I could merge everyone to a single large account then I could easily promote hot topics on a statewide level in a few minutes.

@lammert, thanks for the link! Sadly, it looks like they pretty much do the opposite of what I was hoping:

If your Pages can be merged, the people who like your Pages and any check-ins will be combined, but posts, photos, reviews, ratings and the username will be deleted from the Page you merge. The Page you want to keep will remain unchanged, except for the addition of people who like the Page and check-ins that were merged from the other Page. The Page you don't want to keep will be removed from Facebook, and you won't be able to unmerge it.

So the usernames to all of my accounts will be up for grabs, and all of the posts would be deleted :-( That's no good, someone would very likely grab up my old usernames as soon as they can with the plan of impersonating me... believe me, there are at least 20 people that do that very thing, almost daily!

I guess that means I have to drop the idea, at least until Facebook improves their policy. Oh well. Maybe I'll just make a post on each account, ask people to please ignore that page and Like the umbrella, and pin it to the top.

[lammert]

If almost all relevant data is deleted, it is obviously better not to merge the pages. I didn't know this, never had the need to merge Facebook Pages.