To merge or not to merge, that is the question
 

This is a semi vB related question and I really don't know where to go with it.

I started a very primitive ecommerce site about 4 years ago. There was a free associated forum that went with the site builder, so I started a related forum. The forum was relatively successful, but equally (if not more so) primitive as the ecommerce site.

Wanting to provide a better user experience for the forum members, I upgraded the forum to a vB forum. The forum is growing at a regular pace...nothing crazy, but steady. The categorizes are filling up nicely and the membership is top notch. The forum has in effect, become my customer service dept. for the store.

I recently inquired about designing a comprehensive SEO strategy for the store. After the company reviewed the information, I was told that all of the information I have in the forum is what I need to improve the stores ranking. The problem is...the forum and store are two different domain names. I was planning on changing the forum name and incorporating it into the store, but the more I think of it, I think I might be better off doing the opposite.

The forum gets four times the traffic as the eCommerce site.

Can anyone here offer a suggestion to this dilemma?

hum... you ask for consultation, the company comes with a solution, and now you are asking us if it's a good solution... are you serious?!

are you really serious?!

If the forum is getting the more traffic it seems logical to move the store domain over to the forum...

More logical would be to change the store domain to be a "parked domain" at your forum domain so that in effect both URLs go to the same site.

forumdomain.com/forums/forum.php
storedomain.com/store/store.php

Both will run off the same server so if you typed in

storedomain.com/forums/forum.php
or
forumdomain.com/store/store.php

both would still work.

You'd have to move your store files and database to the same account as your forums, and also keep the same URL structure.

I n the end you'll keep your initial traffic from both sites, but going forward you only advertise/link to your store with your forum domain.

You can use a 301 redirect to redirect people using the old store domain to the new forum domain.

^^ This

Keep both domain names registered and merge them together, using the one which is most successful as the target

Most important advise not yet given though.... BACKUP everything before you proceed.

.. .backups, not save... most people think that saving their backup on their host is "safe"... sorry, no. keep a copy in your own computer and even safer, keep a second on a cd/dvd...

I backup everything 3x (or more)

Why?

To prevent the following...

Data loss
Corrupt backup
* The Unknown

* It's not the things you plan for that you should worry about (though you should still worry). It's the things you never thought of or maybe never thought possible or just thought unlikely, that you should fear.

Well, you obviously didn't read the question or you read something into it that isn't there. The company never told me which domain to make dominant...but thanks for bumping my thread with your pointless remarks.

Thank you, to everyone else who actually tried to help.

to come up with a solution you would need to know a lot more than what is posted

my first instinct is to keep both separate - improving SEO on both sites can improve ROI (traffic, revenue, etc) ... in the long run this is the best option

but like I said, there's not enough information...

The company that suggested I needed the information and number of pages from the forum to increase the ranking of the ecommerce site does work for fortune 500 companies and charges 10's of thousands of dollars to plus a huge monthly fee to perform the SEO. My ecommerce site does not generate nearly those kinds of numbers, but I have to believe there is a a program somewhere for lesser budgets.

Is any of this really necessary or will the site gain ranking on it own based on its own merit?

Don't forget blu-rays for those of us with multiple forums of 10+ GB databases :p