Redirect PR4 site to PR3 site to combine PageRank

[Oimachi2]

I have 2 sites with the same subject matter that have been hit "mildly" by Penguin.

All the affected pages are toast, but when I create new content it still ranks pretty well.

So the sites are not totally hopeless.

One of the sites has a pagerank of 4 although the domain name doesn't fit my needs anymore.

The other site has a much better brandable name and PR3.

Would it be a good idea to redirect the site with PR4 to the one PR3 and shut down the PR4 URL?

[aakk9999]

I would personally not worry about PR. As your PR3 site has a better brandable name, this would be the way to go.

Would you be redirecting pages from PR4 site to a page on PR3 site OR would you in fact be merging sites (moving all/some of the content from PR4 site to PR3 site)?

[Oimachi2]

The PR4 site content is worthless because it got Penguined...

So I will stop registering the domain name and redirect the whole site to the PR3 site.

Will the all the link juice from the PR4 site go to the PR3 site?

[aakk9999]

Will the all the link juice from the PR4 site go to the PR3 site?

Link juice (minus approx. 15%) will, but so may the penalty too.

Hence I think you should be very careful if you intend to redirect a site hit by Penguin, in case you do not pass on the penalty. Here is more on this - you should study these threads carefully:

Best Way To Redirect Home Page Without Forwarding Penalty / Penguin
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4606464.htm [webmasterworld.com]

301 redirecting Penguin-affected pages?
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4457084.htm [webmasterworld.com]

Moving on from Penguin - 301 domain question
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4513719.htm [webmasterworld.com]
.

[jimbeetle]

So I will stop registering the domain name and redirect the whole site to the PR3 site.

In order to redirect you have to control the domain, so don't drop the registration.