Redirecting a small focused site to the main site (instead of linking to it)

[GloriousMorning]

We have a main website that deals in <widgets> and a couple of smaller focused sites which link to this main site.
We are thinking of combining one of these sites with the main site by redirecting the smaller site to a new section in the main site.
This site has been providing our main site with a large number of links. Will redirecting the site and thereby removing those links from a different domain hurt our rankings and traffic?

[edited by: aakk9999 at 3:15 pm (utc) on May 17, 2016]
[edit reason] Sorry, no specifics about what the domain deals in [/edit]

[Walt Hartwell]

I suppose the obvious question is what do you hope to gain by redirecting small site to main site?

In general, if you 301 redirect the small site to a new section on the main site, you'll retain (and forward) the majority of the link juice currently being sent to the small site. If the small site has targeted anchor text in the links pointing to the main site, you might want to spend some time replicating how the current structure works. In other words, if you have specific anchor text pointing to specific main site content, try to make it the same in the new section of the main site.

There will be a period of time while search engines digest the changes. Design the redirect, check it, then implement. It's not a good idea to tweak 301s, do it once correctly.

[tangor]

Like @Walt Hartwell I am curious as to why you'd want to do this? The small site is currently supplying links to main site. Why change that?

Best of all worlds is grow both!