After an acquisition, what to do with the acquired company's domain

Three options exist: merge the acquired domain into yours, maintain it as a separate brand, or let it run without maintaining it. The third is never chosen, it settles in for lack of a decision, and it is the one that costs the most.

The case is common among Quebec businesses that grow by acquisition. The acquired company's site keeps running, updated by nobody, with an offer that no longer matches yours, outdated contact details and sometimes prices you no longer charge.

That site still holds value, which is what makes the decision real. Years of inbound links, established positions on product queries, local recognition in a region you specifically want to enter. That value transfers if you transfer it, and evaporates if you wait.

Google documents that permanent redirects do not cause a loss of authority. So the question is not technical. It is whether the acquired brand still has a reason to exist for its customers.

There is also a commercial reason to decide quickly. As long as both sites coexist without coordination, your two brands present themselves to the same buyer with overlapping ranges, sometimes with different prices for an equivalent product. The confusion is settled internally with a memo, but it stays visible in search results for months.

The question that settles it

An acquired brand deserves its domain if it serves a clientele that does not recognize itself in yours: another sector, another region, another price tier. In that case it has to be maintained as a full site, with a budget, not as a frozen storefront.

In every other case, merging is the right move, and the sooner it is made, the more it returns. Every month of waiting is a month where the acquired site loses positions the redirect would have carried over.

The general framework for search is set out in a complete guide for SMBs and large companies.