Becoming our own affiliate - moving service to new domain

[idolw]

So we have quite a big site A (some 100k pages) offering some sort of service and ranking for the keywords connected to the service.
However, we decided to change the character of the site A and make it a content-only site, while moving the service to a new, more universal domain (site B).

In the long run, we want the site B to be recognized as a service provider and to promote it.
As the service provided is relevant to the site A, we want the site A (which has rankings and traffic) to become an affiliate of the site B.

Now my question is: would that be safe to do that?
Site A might be treated as a thin affiliate while site B is unable to rank high from day 1.

What do you think we should do in the short term?

[tedster]

The way to avoid having any site classed as a "thin affiliate" is for it not to be "thin". That is, offer lots of value for the visitor to the affiliate domain that is not available through the parent domain.

Getting site B to "rank from day 1" is a major task for any domain move, even if the sales are made on a different domain in an affiliate fashion. The new domain needs to build a new history, establish trust, attract independent backlinks, etc, etc.