widget.com, widget.at, widget.de, widget.ch

Better to have 4 separate websites or put content under 1 domain?

[samhot]

Hallo,

we are going to relaunch four websites for four countries soon and we donīt know whatīs best.

Whatīs the better solution:

1: All domains will stand on their own: widget.com / .at / .de / .ch

2: To put a redirect on three domains to the fourth site with different directories; ie. widget.com/ch, widget.com/de, widget.com/at. That way more inbound links would be counted on that site.

Questions: Which strategy will lead to higher PR as well as higher SERP results? Will the sites be penalized because content will be almost identical for the .de, .at and .ch sites?

Thank you very much for your input - quite curious what the answers will be like.

samhot