Redirects From Old Site To New

Google taboo?

[LostOne]

Looking for opinions on making existing site work for new local site. First a background:

Existing Site- 5 years old, great traffic numbers.
New Site- 2 months old. Good starting traffic

Reason for redirects:

Industry is becoming a battleground for price cutting. Local market large enough to support lost sales from existing site. Demographics perfect for this product. Expensive durable goods. Older age group buying power, would rather touch and see product and buy local with good pricing..not cut throat.

Individual manufacturer listings in Google:

Existing site ranks extremely well in all search engines(except for MSN but who counts them anyway)for manufacturer names.

Title tags shown in search:

Current:

Manufacturer Name - Direct Buy

New Titles:

Manufacturer Name - Showroom - Location

I was planning on redirects for eight manufacturers we offer. Currently I have changed title tags on two because the manufacturer now disallows internet sales. I have included on product page(existing site) "see our showroom here" with a map attached. New titles have yet to show in SE's. Maybe I should just stick with this approach and forget about the redirects to the new site product page but thought it was worth looking into?

[tedster]

After a period of assessing a new 301 redirect (if you do takes this route) Google will work with a new domain. I'm not sure about doing 6 or 8 new domains at once, however - I have no parallel experience to refer to.

I'd assume that the most important point is how "full" the new sites would be - complete, unique, not duplicating other information, lots for the visitor to see. Also I'd suggest putting any cross links in from the day of launch if you do go this route.

Existing site ranks extremely well in all search engines

That being the case, I would also be reluctant to make major changes. There are certainly ways to tap into local search without creating dedicated domains.

[LostOne]

Thanks Tedster:

I'm not planning on redirecting to eight new sites but only eight pages or so to one new local site to their respective start pages. I've been very careful in creating unique content and not anything copied or similiar...seven months worth! It's amaizing what one can dream up to grab local traffic with important keywords.

I've submitted the new local business to Google Maps about two months ago but is has failed to show in the search results. It actually shows the older site but I'm certain that was taken from the Yellow Pages. I wonder when that will be dropped. I told the YP not to list the old site(business) and invested in some large half page ads in two local counties.

Can anyone provide that link to search Google Local/Maps through WW on the web? I'm on vacation and only working off a new laptop...bad memory. I need to do more research on this subject.