Setup for Multiple Websites

You have some options for sure. If your host allows you unlimited domains, for example as with the Hostgator 'Baby' plan, then you can just add domains till your heart's content and manage them all through Cpanel. So yes, you could utilize the cheap domain name extensions and setup a lot of sites cheaply. They'll all be on the same IP address, so you'll need to be a bit careful if you plan to interlink them.

You can do it via sub-directories too. You could name the different sites however you want and they'd be sub-dirs of your main site. Then you could register the domains and park them to the sub-dirs.
If your sites are Wordpress, you could install WPMU and use the sub-dirs with domain mapping. So you manage all of your sites through WP Network admin, install a plugin for managing the mapping. That lets you map a domain to a sub-dir, so they all appear like different sites. But you can update and manage them all through WPMU.

There's options and picking the right one kinda depends on what you have planned for the sites.

.info and other cheap domains are less effective on search engines, because they tend to be used by spammers. on top of this, they are also less credible.

the domains won't be the expensive part. inlinks, or however you plan on getting traffic will make up most of the cost.

the two sides of getting a sale online, to be simplistic, are traffic and conversions. a ton of thin sites aren't going to get much traffic, and the few resources spent on design and copy will hobble your conversions. unless you've found a cheap traffic source it'll be a better investment to work on one site, and go from there.

i don't have any empirical evidence. but of course (or should i say, of horse), i'm correct:

"Top level domains (like .com) are the extensions associated with domain names. For best ranking results, avoid uncommon top-level domains (TLDs). Like hyphens, TLDs such as .info, .cc, .ws, and .name are spam indicators."

google the above. i can't put links in yet; 15 post minimum.

If you wanna go real cheap then yeah, what I'd so is multiple subdomain.domain.com style.

Carl

Yep no problem, but I will point out something to you that many seem to be oblivious of.

When you signed up for your hosting plan they no doubt wooed you with fablous glitzy headliness that shrieked:

Unlimited domains
unlimited bandwidth
Unlimited Disc space
Unlimited this
Unlimited that
blah blah blah

From the front page it looks like you are totally unlimited... er not quite


When you read the TOS (you did read that didn't you) you probably skimmed over something that mentioned 'inodes'

probably not knowing what they were you paid no attention to it.

inodes are files that accumulate on your account through site operations, emails stats etc, most starter accounts limit you to 50,000.
This seems like a lot until you start bunging Wordpress sites up and the email accounts that go with them, the inodes start accumulating at an alarming rate, go over the limit and you may get your account suspended, you may get a warning first, you may not.

You wil be ok for a while but ask your hosting company what your limit is and ask them for a link so that you may check usage yourself.

Huge influxes of traffic may also cause a problem on shared servers because you are hogging the bandwidth.

Hope this helps.

It might also be wise to think ahead. You'll probably need to migrate soon if your sites gets more traffic and you only have one hosting account. Please take this into account as well.

I'm using a VPS which doesn't have to be expensive and run multiple domains from it. There are also no restrictions (certain PHP modules etc) when using a dedicated system.

This will depend on the type of web hosting plan you purchased.

Yes, you can do this. But, keep this in mind. IF you ever plan on selling a site that resides on your sub-domain, you may have some set backs as far as value and you may be complicating things instead of simplifying them.

Also, you may end up having your assets all tied together where the main domain name is tied to all the subdomains as far as value. This is sometimes when you may need to consider selling them altogether versus being able to sell them separately because some of your assets are associated with your main domain name.

I personally have not had any problems ranking .info, .net, .org, .biz, .me, .tv

The only ones I would not use are ones like .us or any of those that restrict the origin (i.e., .us is for U.S. only based individuals and/or businesses and if you are going to sell the domain name, it would need to be transferred to another U.S. based buyer)

Domain names have worth in several ways, if it is not in an Exact Keyword name, it can be developed into an asset through your website development and marketing efforts.

The domain name would then be given value as the assets grow, such as backlinks, it's onsite SEO, its off-site SEO, social traffic, articles submissions, etc. As the domain name and website grows in page rank and traffic, regardless of any revenue it is or is not earning, it still increases in value even if it is not a TLD .com.

I tend to purchase domain names on sale and I use retailmenot.com to see who is running any kind of domain special (godaddy.com and namecheap.com) and also GoDaddy Promo Codes - GoDaddy Coupons, Coupon Codes, and discount codes

Hope this helps...Leah