Multiple Brand Merger - Be or not to be?

I have recently, come across a lot of queries from my clients, specially the big corporates, asking me about the future SEO strategy and whether they should merge their various brands into one and ride the volume bike.

I searched around a bit to understand the pros and cons of this “merger of sites” from the SEO perspective. This is what I got from a Bill Mickey article at www.foliomag.com:

Pros:

1) Critical Mass: A new destination site quickly provides broad, market-spanning coverage that exudes an increased sense of scope and can make your competitors’ sites look ineffectual in comparison.

2) Access: Niche-specific content is represented, but customers have the opportunity to graze content where markets overlap.

3) No More Brand Silos: Corralling content under a broader brand elevates it to a level where more customers can congregate.

Cons:

1) Brand Subordination & Confusion: Sites pulled together under one site may suffer brand dilution. It may also confuse the visitor as to the core service which the company provides.

2) More Work: The new gateway site will be a hungry beast, requiring the constant feeding of new daily content unique to the site.

3) Loss of SEO Advantage: Initially the website will not have a good organic ranking in search engine. We can try to retain current user base and hits as much as possible using permanent redirects and forwarding. This can also be compensated by proper pay-per-click management initially and then toning it down if required.
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