Roll-Up SEO: From Fragmented Brands to Category Dominance

The Roll-Up Problem

PE roll-up strategy: acquire regional players, consolidate operations, create category leader. Works great for operations. Works terribly for SEO if you don't think about it.

I worked with Rocketyouth during their roll-up phase. Over 20 acquisitions in less than two years. Each acquisition came with its own website, its own content, its own SEO strategy (or lack thereof). Left unchecked, they would have been cannibalizing themselves into oblivion.

Instead, we built a coordinated SEO strategy that contributed to their $100M funding round.

Three Roll-Up Approaches

1. Brand Consolidation

Merge everything into one master brand. Redirect all acquired domains to the parent. Consolidate content. This works when brand equity is low and the parent brand is strong.

• Pros: Maximum link equity concentration, single content strategy, clearer positioning
• Cons: Risk of losing local/regional traffic, complex redirect mapping, potential ranking volatility

2. House of Brands

Keep brands separate but coordinate strategy. Each brand targets different geographic or demographic segments. Content is differentiated to avoid internal competition.

• Pros: Preserve existing brand equity, multiple SERP positions, test-and-learn across brands
• Cons: Higher management overhead, risk of cannibalization, diluted link building

3. Hub and Spoke

Parent brand owns category content. Acquired brands keep operational pages (locations, specific services). Internal linking connects them strategically.

• Pros: Best of both worlds, scalable, clear content hierarchy
• Cons: Requires careful architecture planning, complex to execute

The Critical Questions

Before any consolidation, you need to answer:

• What's the keyword overlap? If two brands rank for the same terms, one will cannibalize the other.
• Where's the link equity? Some acquired brands have strong backlink profiles. Don't destroy that value.
• What content is performing? Some of that "duplicate" content across brands is actually ranking. Careful what you kill.
• What's the geographic strategy? Local SEO for regional brands requires different handling than national plays.
• What's the exit timeline? A 3-year hold has different SEO implications than a 7-year hold.

Common Mistakes

• Redirecting too fast. Rushing domain consolidation without proper mapping destroys rankings.
• Ignoring cannibalization. Keeping all brands live without coordination means they fight each other.
• Killing content that ranks. That "outdated" blog post might be driving 20% of organic traffic.
• Losing local signals. Regional brands have local SEO equity. Consolidation can wipe it out.
• No unified tracking. You can't optimize what you can't measure across the portfolio.

What I Do

I start with a portfolio-wide SEO audit. Every brand, every domain, every ranking. I map the overlaps, identify the conflicts, and build a consolidation strategy that maximizes total organic traffic, not individual brand metrics.

Then I execute systematically. Phased redirects. Content consolidation. Internal linking architecture. Ongoing monitoring to catch problems before they become crises.