| Author |
Topic |
Paul_Short |
 Posted - 06/04/2007 : 12:39:03
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K folks, I been hearin' that some of y'all been bellyaching cuz you think the post quality round these parts' been swirlin' down the crapper.
Rather'n complainin so much, lets grab that quality outta the abyss, shake it off 'n show the whiners what we're made of.
Aherm...
We've all seen the threads asking questions to the effect of:
Should I use multiple individual sites and domains, or use subdomains off a single domain?
This is a great topic and rather than have it spoiled by people who have no experience with one or the other, or the inevitable "it depends" (with nothing to back it up), lets get the experts together and outline in detail the benefits of one or the other.
From my own experience of using both, I've had very successful small & large niche sites. Successful meaning: they did well in search engine listings + made money.
For various reasons, both personal and business, I'm building one huge site right now that'll include a lot of different niches on subdomains, like nichetopic.mainsite.com.
Do you think huge content portals like About.com and Wikipedia.org would be nearly as successful as they are today if the founders had registered separate domains fo each niche instead of including it all under a single "umbrella domain"? Would they be better off if they did?
Do you think blog networks like b5media.com would be better off if they consolidated their 200+ (approx. ???) of separate domains under a single domain, ala About.com?
Why? Why Not?
Paul
P.S. Negative crap posted in this thread, will swirl. Only good, insightful and informative replies will survive. Period. |
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Shopautodotca Seocontest |
Posted - 06/04/2007 : 12:50:11
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| Building one huge site will be better than multiple sites in a long run. For SEO purposes, it will take a lot of time to do it for multiple sites. The disadvantage of one huge site is when it incurs a bad reputation (say being banned in the search engines). |
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jdonline |
Posted - 06/04/2007 : 12:55:37
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Multiple domains will keep each site unique for its purpose.
Roofing them all under one "about.com" might devalue them.
I'd rather get information from "TheGardenGuru.com" than a gardening page on "about.com".
Of course you can cross promote sites within the same sort of market. 'Like this site, visit similar.com, from the makers of thesiteyouareon.com'
A network would form that way.
Or maybe you could brand each domain like TechZi.com / CarZi.com | CodeZi.com
If you have a big work force behind you, it's way better to treat each site as a seperate entity.
It's about your vision at the end of the day, where you want to be at the end of it. |
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Paul_Short |
Posted - 06/04/2007 : 13:09:34
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Excellent points so far.
Counterpoint - jdonline, I see exactly what you're saying. There's also something to be said for the fact that larger portals command 'trust', in that, About.com can be seen as having the reputation/resources/standards to hire someone more qualified to write about gardening than TheGardenGuru.com might.
Paul |
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Chris Knowledge |
Posted - 06/04/2007 : 13:38:01
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I prefer multiple sites and here's why:
When I'm in a niche I want to dominate it.
Why get one site to the #1 spot in Google for a particular keyword phrase, when I can rinse and repeat and get the top 4 spots for that keyword phrase using multiple sites and the searchers won't even have a clue that all 4 of the sites belong to the same company?
That's just the way I like to do it, and using subdomains just wouldn't be as effective for what I like to do.
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Michael Ellis |
Posted - 06/04/2007 : 13:40:30
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Paul, I agree that having a big site like About.com commands a level of trust that the smaller ones don't necessarily have, but that kind of site takes a lot of resources to get it to that point. For the lone IM'er, or even the small IM team, it's usually much more effective to separate the topics under unique domains, and building value to each one individually. However, if you have a large amount of resources at your disposal and a team of people that can constantly update the megasite, then I'd go for the big site. My 2c.
Michael |
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steveceleste |
Posted - 06/04/2007 : 13:41:59
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Paul,
From my experience and talking to other marketers about the similar topic, i think one big niche site is better for long term and SEO purposes.
Especially using urls like www.nichesite.com/the-relevant-article.html
It works similar to Bum Marketing.
As for one many main sites, sometimes you have to be careful, for if you are linking them all together through each site, search engines liek google look at this as a bad blackhat technique for better page rank and placement.
Thus if you are going to do multiple sites, I suggest you use multiple hosters, and put 5 on each hoster..
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Ram |
Posted - 06/04/2007 : 14:06:12
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Depends on what your purpose for the site/sites is.
About.com, for example, can do everything. In fact it MUST do everything or it loses values. Because it's theme is that it is a reference site, an encyclopedia.
That's great.
But calling something snotgrabber.com or some such and having a mish mash of subs about internet marketing, SEO, mlm, gardening, dog care, lawnmower repair, candle making, wine tasting, attracting a mate, etc. just to earn affiliate commissions on those products would be a disaster.
Basically, if your portal has a theme that carries through the entire site effectively, do the portal.
Otherwise do individual sites or mini portals on a topic, like affiliate marketing, breaking it down into subs like site building, SEO, adwords, etc.
Cheers,
Ram |
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John Taylor |
Posted - 06/04/2007 : 14:08:50
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Why does it have to be either or?
In some niche markets I have one big portal sites
and a number of smaller sites.
I use each type of site for different purposes and
it has proven to be very successful.
Without going into too much detail...
Large portal site with lots of high quality content
is used to build a substantial subscriber base. I
also generate PPC and affiliate income from the large
sites.
Small mini-sites are used to split test affiliate
programmes and may then be developed into sites that
promote my own products.
It's about approaching a niche market strategically.
John
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Ram |
Posted - 06/04/2007 : 14:21:02
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John is spot on here ... and told a bit more than I was willing to!
There are a whole lot of ways to combine/cross portals and individual sites of all kinds to achieve whatever purpose you want.
Cheers,
Ram |
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Tom Dean |
Posted - 06/04/2007 : 15:10:21
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I'm no expert but here is my experience.
I have a small/medium size? site (1,500+ pages or so) on a generic domain lets call it whatbout.com (not my site).
There are about 25 subdomains that are complete websites and 60 folders that are complete websites all on various subjects. The front page has them categorized portal style. Not all but many of the pages had affiliate links to related clickbank products in the body of the text.
So you had whatabout.com/photography or gardening.whatabout.com
All the sites linked back to the main domain.
The first 8 months adsense earnings were great (to me) along with a trickle of cb sales. Then... google decided they didn't like something (probally dupe content of the mfa sites on the domain or the inter-linking).
Anyway page rank of the folders went kaput along with indexed links. The subdomains held up a little better but adsense earnings tanked. These were not generated sites (te/portal builder) but most were mfa sites w/plr articles that were purchased from sellers & wso's that sold 30 to 50 of them.
So now there are about 100 indexed links and 650 in the "results omitted". Before there were a little over 2,000.
Next go around I am going to try a domain per category like "health" or "business" that way if things go south it doesn't take the whole works with it.
Tom
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ExRat |
Posted - 06/04/2007 : 15:18:09
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Hi Paul,
Forgive me and nuke me if necessary because I want to comment but am not sure if I pass your stern qualifications required for this thread -
quote:
Building one huge site will be of better than multiple sites in a long run. For SEO purposes, it will take a lot of time to do it for multiple sites.
I think it depends. If you view it the Michael Campbell mininet way, then with clever/below radar cross linking you could actually do it quicker.
quote:
From my experience and talking to other marketers about the similar topic, i think one big niche site is better for long term and SEO purposes.
Especially using urls like www.nichesite.com/the-relevant-article.html
It works similar to Bum Marketing.
There is current comment in the SEO world that using keywords after the / are being discounted by big G, whereas keywords in the domain and H1 tags were being rewarded. Sorry, but I haven't got the link - read it about two days ago, probably in Axandra's search engine news.
I hope this helps. |
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John Taylor |
Posted - 06/04/2007 : 17:56:39
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quote:
Originally posted by Ram
John is spot on here ... and told a bit more than I was willing to!
There are a whole lot of ways to combine/cross portals and individual sites of all kinds to achieve whatever purpose you want.
Cheers,
Ram
Ram,
99% of the people on the forum won't even
read this thread. Those that do probably
won't do anything with the information.
Typically, this thread is so valuable...
I had to look for it on page two.
John
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Andyhenry |
Posted - 06/04/2007 : 18:38:22
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Hi,
I wrote about this exact thing a couple of years ago - and people are STILL looking for the same answers :)
To make it interesting, and leave something left for others to contribute :) I'll just comment on the advantages of using multiple sites rather than one:
Obviously there are a lot of variables that only come into play when you get specific about the purpose and goals of any website, so I'll try and stay generic.
Point 1 - Multiple domains DOES give you extra link building options. If you were going to submit your big site to 200 directories and 200 'other' places to get links - you now have multiple links from the same places (one for each site), so there's the obvious difference that more links can make.
Point 2 - With multiple sites you can have all 10 of the top Google listings instead of just one plus a supplemental.
Point 3 - With multiple sites you can brand them all differently and make the sales copy, colour-scheme etc targeted to the niche which each site addresses.
Point 4 - It also makes it easier to segregate the email lists that you build for each sub-niche and therefore makes your follow-up marketing more effective.
Point 5 - Since you have multiple URLs, you can run more Adwords campaigns (you can run one add to each domain, so more domains means more ads - plus they'll be more targeted)
Point 6 - Just because they're separate sites, doesn't mean they have to be small. They can still be authority sites.
Point 7 - Tracking stats is easier with multiple sites because they'll all have individual stats, so no filtering or messing about required.
Point 8 - With multiple sites, you're creating more tangable assets to sell on (or 'flip' if you wanna be trendy), but can still put them together as a package to get the value for everything sold at once. With more ezine lists and more tracking stats etc. it's easier to show value in each area.
Point 9 - If you're selling Ad space in your ezines or on the pages of the sites, then it's easier to show that the advertising will be targeted and more likely that you can have less links on high PR pages (thus increasing the link sale/rental value and ezine advertising revenue)
Point 10 - It's much easier to get conversions when everything is focused and less confusing for the visitors, and easier for them to tell which action you want them to take.
Regards,
Andy
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GrantFreeman |
Posted - 06/07/2007 : 02:21:29
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Andy, that makes a lot of sense. That's great!
I'm currently dealing with alot of tracking issues with products, and I've got a fairly big site. Are you suggesting that you would build a site for each product you sell, and keep the big one?
I can see where you could write copy for different TM's this way, and use multiple keyword phrases. In other words, the big site could target two keywords, and the smaller product focused site could target two other releated keywords.
I think it's more work, but well worth it in the long run. |
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John Taylor |
Posted - 06/07/2007 : 02:57:35
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quote:
Originally posted by GrantFreeman
I think it's more work, but well worth it in the long run.
Grant,
That just about hits the nail on the head. It's about
having a long term plan and working towards achieving
it.
The herd don't usually think strategically, they jump
from one thing to another with no consistent action.
John
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norma |
Posted - 06/07/2007 : 04:54:18
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quote:
Originally posted by John Taylor
Why does it have to be either or?
In some niche markets I have one big portal sites
and a number of smaller sites.
I use each type of site for different purposes and
it has proven to be very successful.
I too have several sites with easy navigation and simple material for my e-books because I need to explain a lot of things. They are more like learning sites. But my affiliate programs and other things are on one large site on which I cram a lot of things that speak for themselves. People can click around and enjoy themselves and pick and choose from many things.
Its all about what you want the site to do for you.
Thanks for discussing this Paul, much appreciated by many here who are wondering how to set up their sites mainly for the first time I would say.
God bless
norma |
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KeepTrying |
Posted - 06/08/2007 : 21:54:50
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My question would be this:
How passionate are you about that mega-site that you're building?
If I'm gonna spend that much time and effort on something, hours that I could've invested in being my daughters' dad, it needs to be a subject that I deeply care about.
I know some veterans may be rolling your eyes at that statement, thinking that they can "manufacture" passion for something that paid enough, but, in my experience, that can't be sustained indefinitely...at least, not by me.
Am I too much of an idealist?
-Joe |
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John Taylor |
Posted - 06/09/2007 : 02:17:31
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quote:
Originally posted by KeepTrying
My question would be this:
How passionate are you about that mega-site that you're building?
If I'm gonna spend that much time and effort on something, hours that I could've invested in being my daughters' dad, it needs to be a subject that I deeply care about.
I know some veterans may be rolling your eyes at that statement, thinking that they can "manufacture" passion for something that paid enough, but, in my experience, that can't be sustained indefinitely...at least, not by me.
Am I too much of an idealist?
-Joe
Joe,
Have you considered that some of us are passionate about
our businesses because a successful and profitable business
can provide the resources and freedom to choose how we
spend our personal time?
John
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Kelvin Brown |
Posted - 06/09/2007 : 02:55:44
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As already discussed there is more than one approach based on different factors.
Hit and run ( short term) vs long term goals.
The answer to most will be testing to see what works for your goal.
I have a few sites with tons of pages, many more specific to a niche.
Currently, I am working on cross promotion. I took Kurt Melvin up on the wiki offer a few weeks back. 80,000 pages or so. What I do as time permits is link out from my wiki, to tighter niche sites. From some of the niche sites I link back to the wiki leading to more info on a very, very specific topic.
Example: i have a niche site about divorce. I link to the wike for the definition and history of divorce. On the niche site, I use news feeds about celebrity divorce. From some of the blog pages, I link to the wiki page about said celebrity.
The general idea being eventually a person will leave your niche site, instead of them just going to a search engine to look for the next topic, my goal is to give them anchor text to click on to go to the wiki, and once there maybe they will follow more links internal to wiki. But when they tire of wike, hopefully the next link they click on will be to one of my external niche sites.
So, I say again, first it depends on your short and long term goals.
kelvin
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John Taylor |
Posted - 06/09/2007 : 03:05:40
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quote:
The general idea being eventually a person will leave your niche site, instead of them just going to a search engine to look for the next topic, my goal is to give them anchor text to click on to go to the wiki, and once there maybe they will follow more links internal to wiki. But when they tire of wike, hopefully the next link they click on will be to one of my external niche sites.
Kelvin,
That's smart thinking, thanks for the tip.
John
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Andyhenry |
Posted - 06/09/2007 : 10:46:25
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quote:
Originally posted by KeepTrying
I know some veterans may be rolling your eyes at that statement, thinking that they can "manufacture" passion for something that paid enough, but, in my experience, that can't be sustained indefinitely...at least, not by me.
Am I too much of an idealist?
-Joe
Joe - Who said that YOU had to be the one with the passion that looked after it?
Just because you own/facilitate a site, that doesn't mean that YOU pesonally have to create the content.
Or am I just to much of an idealist?
Andy |
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Zombie |
Posted - 06/09/2007 : 11:17:18
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Howdy
Some great info in this thread to digest from all of you. It would seem that the real answer to the question is It Depends. Andy has a good list of the advantages/disadvantages depending on where your thoughts are.
When the multiple sites position is used, would it be required to have multiple hosting plans, and how many sites can you put on one host if you are linking all the sites to each other?
Kevin |
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n/a |
Posted - 06/09/2007 : 11:24:59
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| i feel that niche specific manisites are better than trying to sell everything on one huge site because you can better target the groups you are trying to sell to. I feel also that trying to cram too many things on one big site can cause confusion among your prospects, and a confused mind always says no. I hope this helps out. |
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Andyhenry |
Posted - 06/09/2007 : 11:44:29
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Ok,
Here's the other side of the coin - Large sites:
Large sites are an excellent way to address the long tail of any market as the digital delivery mechanics mean that no cost are accrude while expanding the available products for the markets consumers.
This means, more choice available and more choice usually means that you get a more diverse audience than if you just stuck with the mainstream products/content.
This is really what the long-tail principle is all about, the fact that you don't have to stick to offering only the top products and information in a market, and the scaleability of an online business means that there's virtually no overhead in giving everyone what they want.
So, in this case companies like Amazon really have it right. No bookshop on earth could ever hold the number of products, while gathering statistics about every single user (in order to offer targeted related products and services) that Amazon does.
So, when people want as much choice as possible - why get in the way by building niche sites which only give them what YOU think they want?
This is where the Web 2.0 and Mashups come into play in amazing force.
Giving the users the ability to add products, content or reviews and grow your business for you means that your own vision doesn't even have to be the limit of how you scale.
This situation reminds me of the arguements people have about pricing.
If what you have to offer has value to the other person, and what they have to offer has value to you -you can do a trade. The concept of trying to tell people what value your stuff has to offer is redundant. Just work with what THEY value.
In this case, if they want choice - Give it to them.
ANdy
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Owen Lee |
Posted - 06/09/2007 : 11:56:01
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quote:
Originally posted by Andyhenry
Hi,
I wrote about this exact thing a couple of years ago - and people are STILL looking for the same answers :)
To make it interesting, and leave something left for others to contribute :) I'll just comment on the advantages of using multiple sites rather than one:
Obviously there are a lot of variables that only come into play when you get specific about the purpose and goals of any website, so I'll try and stay generic.
Point 1 - Multiple domains DOES give you extra link building options. If you were going to submit your big site to 200 directories and 200 'other' places to get links - you now have multiple links from the same places (one for each site), so there's the obvious difference that more links can make.
Point 2 - With multiple sites you can have all 10 of the top Google listings instead of just one plus a supplemental.
Point 3 - With multiple sites you can brand them all differently and make the sales copy, colour-scheme etc targeted to the niche which each site addresses.
Point 4 - It also makes it easier to segregate the email lists that you build for each sub-niche and therefore makes your follow-up marketing more effective.
Point 5 - Since you have multiple URLs, you can run more Adwords campaigns (you can run one add to each domain, so more domains means more ads - plus they'll be more targeted)
Point 6 - Just because they're separate sites, doesn't mean they have to be small. They can still be authority sites.
Point 7 - Tracking stats is easier with multiple sites because they'll all have individual stats, so no filtering or messing about required.
Point 8 - With multiple sites, you're creating more tangable assets to sell on (or 'flip' if you wanna be trendy), but can still put them together as a package to get the value for everything sold at once. With more ezine lists and more tracking stats etc. it's easier to show value in each area.
Point 9 - If you're selling Ad space in your ezines or on the pages of the sites, then it's easier to show that the advertising will be targeted and more likely that you can have less links on high PR pages (thus increasing the link sale/rental value and ezine advertising revenue)
Point 10 - It's much easier to get conversions when everything is focused and less confusing for the visitors, and easier for them to tell which action you want them to take.
Regards,
Andy
Thanks Andy, that's very helpful.
And do you have counter-arguments to support big sites? |
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Kurt |
Posted - 06/09/2007 : 12:06:52
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I'm not sure it's an either/or situation.
Right now, I'm building one big site. Later, I'll build a few mini-sites to help funnel traffic to the big site.
To me, the main advantage of a big site is linking. It's probably better to have one site with 1000 links pointing to it than 10 sites each with 1000.
But to be honest, there's too many advantages for both to make a claim that one or the other is better. Again, IMO the best scenario is to have both: One main site with a bunch of smaller sites.
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Andyhenry |
Posted - 06/09/2007 : 16:54:01
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I agree with Kurt,
I'm not saying you should have one or the other.
In fact, with this stuff so much depends on your market, your resources, your knowledge, your goals, that I wouldn't make any assumptions about what way any particular person should do things without understanding what they're trying to do.
There really is not Small site Vs Big site issue, it's down to what fits your situation, but people do ask the question so Paul was right to start the thread.
The only time that these things can get confusing is when you have no plan and therefore don't really know where each element fits and how it will help move the plan along.
As soon as you clear up the details after some decent research, it then becomes a case of how long will the plan take, rather than what actions should be taken.
Andy
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LisaPreston |
Posted - 07/12/2007 : 03:40:23
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I am of the mind that a large, portal-style site (for me) is an excellent gateway to other more focused sites...
For instance, let's say I create a site for the city or county in which I reside.
I create a complete (and generally static) portal to all aspects of the area from tourism to health, shopping to school bus cancellations. Everything that is important to the community.
From there, I can create interactive areas (like blogs, forums, etc) which allows me to pinpoint the areas of passionate interest to my readers.
Once I have a clear picture of what they want, I have seriously targeted markets for a myriad of niche sites I can easily create and plug in.
Is that too simplified?
It seems to work for me, but any additional insight is most welcome.
Cheers!
Lisa |
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Kelvin Brown |
Posted - 07/12/2007 : 18:42:12
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Lisa, it is a great plan.
I need to go back and update my own site.
kelvin |
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Carl DiNello |
Posted - 07/13/2007 : 13:24:49
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This has been a very interesting and informative thread. I am not experienced enough to make a qualified argument for either method, and in fact, have been going back and forth with these two option's for some time now.
However, the opinions and statements made here, both pro and con for each method, have made it a great deal easier for me to understand just what will be best for my own goals.
My thanks for this discussion,
Carl |
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visit_faraz |
Posted - 07/13/2007 : 13:28:19
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I have already subscribed to this thread and keep reading the views and suggestions provided by the senior warriors here. Really very informative.
bye,
faraz |
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BIG Mike |
Posted - 07/13/2007 : 13:32:14
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I agree that the distinction of either/or shouldn't be made. I’m presently in the process of building an enormous corporate site, but am still building smaller site targeting products and services on separate domains.
Ultimately, these all funnel traffic to the corporate site, which is the real moneymaker. It centralizes everything from the mini-sites (for lack of a better term) but the linking, targeting and performance of the combination of the two is just downright exceptional.
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R0b |
Posted - 07/13/2007 : 13:37:49
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| My latest series of sites are geo-targeted, and I debated whether to have city names as subdomains on a main URL or to buy 100 individual city URLs. Well, I went with the latter because I think it makes them seem more local and more authentic. |
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seobro |
Posted - 07/13/2007 : 13:41:17
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Google has hit more than one of my sites with a PR0. Sometimes if the wrong person links to you it can be bad.
Try to keep you options fluid. |
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jbsmith |
Posted - 07/13/2007 : 14:10:12
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To me biggest advantage of large sitest is the branding that having one wide site gives you which can lead to more influence in terms of partnerships, attracting outsource help (look at the network of writers that just beg to write for about.com), advertising revenue, etc...
The major disadvantage is that you have placed all your eggs in the one basket - if something happens to the site's ranking or business model, then your dead, there is no distribution of risk.
I personally keep one large portal site with a dozen other smaller niche sites as experimental.
Jeff |
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Steven Wagenheim |
Posted - 07/13/2007 : 14:21:20
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Maybe my theory on this might be too simplistic for many, but having be
trained by a professional gambler (yes, it does relate) my theory is to
minimize risk rather than maximize reward.
With one authority domain, if something unforeseen happens to it, the effects
are felt throughout the domain. Nothing is spared.
With multiple sites, if something happens to one of the sites, the others are
not affected, at least not directly and not to the same degree.
Sure, there are advantages to a massive authority site like about.com, but
those sites can be abused by outside forces like spammers (take a look at
what just happened with Squidoo) and thus your site can end up a pile of
ashes.
In other words, I'd rather be safe and not as rich as I could be than sorry
and possibly broke. |
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JohnQuiet |
Posted - 07/13/2007 : 14:33:01
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I'm not sure I qualify for an "expert" opinion, but I need to say that multiple sites would offer some unique advantages from the SEO standpoint and may create far more total income in the long run.
They are easier to target with unique keyword searches AND may result in higher RETURN visitors, since they are easier to find in someone's history or favorites.
Also, if you TURN SOMEONE off for any reason, they may NOT RETURN to your Mega Site to buy other offers again. If you have an affiliate offer on some other site, they may not know its you and still keep buying in the future. I'm not saying we should 'hide' behind an affiliate offer, just distance yourself from your "home" site.
johnquiet
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bobcath |
Posted - 07/13/2007 : 15:12:57
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My Grandmother used to say "don't put all your eggs in one basket", simple, but sums it up for me.
Regards
Bobby |
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aboutalhah |
Posted - 07/14/2007 : 05:03:43
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Same thing for me: Build your big site first, focus on it. And once it is an autorithy, build other mini sites and your own mini net (Michael Campbell) fashion.
quote : Originally posted by Kurt
I'm not sure it's an either/or situation.
Right now, I'm building one big site. Later, I'll build a few mini-sites to help funnel traffic to the big site.
To me, the main advantage of a big site is linking. It's probably better to have one site with 1000 links pointing to it than 10 sites each with 1000.
But to be honest, there's too many advantages for both to make a claim that one or the other is better. Again, IMO the best scenario is to have both: One main site with a bunch of smaller sites.
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Multi Sites vs. One Huge Site. Expert Thoughts?