This question comes up almost every time a business I'm working with opens a second site, and in nearly every case the answer is one website, not several. It's worth explaining why, because the instinct to give each location its own domain is understandable even when it's usually the wrong call, and it connects directly to what I've written about how digital operations for multi-location businesses work in practice.
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Why splitting usually backfires
Multiple domains split link equity that would otherwise compound on one site, since every backlink, every piece of coverage and every bit of authority a location earns stays trapped on its own separate domain instead of lifting the group as a whole. This, in turn, multiplies maintenance, because you now have several sites to update, several sets of technical SEO foundations to keep current and several places for something to fall apart. It also creates self-inflicted duplicate content problems, since near-identical service pages across separate domains give search engines every reason to treat them as competing - not complementary.
It's an understandable instinct to want each site to feel local and distinct, not like a satellite of somewhere else. But it's better solved through content and structure on one well-organised site and individual location pages that genuinely represent each place, rather than the far more costly route of maintaining several separate domains that all compete for the same authority.
The genuine exceptions to this rule
There are real exceptions which are worth covering. Genuinely distinct brands under common ownership are a legitimate reason to keep separate sites, since the businesses are truly different propositions to different audiences. Separate ownership is another, where a franchise agreement or a joint venture means the site isn't fully within one party's control. And an acquisition bringing its own existing domain equity is a real case too, since a domain with years of earned authority behind it isn't something you'd give up lightly.
Even the exceptions usually end the same way
Even in those genuine cases, I'd recommend a migration plan rather than permanent separation, with a view toward moving to one consolidated site over time as the reasons for separation stop applying. I went through exactly this kind of decision when I migrated a twelve-location group from one domain to another in 2025, and while that was a rebrand (not a consolidation), the principles were the same. A domain migration on an established site is disruptive and worth avoiding wherever possible, which is precisely why it should only happen when the underlying business reason leaves no alternative.
What migrating to one site involves
Consolidating separate sites into one is a considerable project, not a quick technical tidy-up. Every old URL needs mapping to its equivalent new one with a permanent redirect; internal links need updating instead of being left relying on those redirects indefinitely. The timing is important too, since starting a migration when a business is already stretched by other changes tends to go worse than one that is done on its own timeline.
Content also needs the same care as the technical side. Two sites that grew independently often end up with genuinely different tones, structures and levels of detail, and simply merging the pages without reconciling that leaves the combined site reading like two different businesses stitched together, which undoes much of the point of consolidating in the first place.
What this means in practice
If a new location is opening under the same brand, serving the same kind of customer and staying under the same ownership, it belongs on the same website as everything else, structured properly so that each location gets its own page with a genuine reason to rank instead of competing with its siblings. Splitting into separate sites solves a problem that mostly doesn't exist while creating several that definitely do.
