A Lot of Small Sites VS one Big Site (on the Same Topic)

16 replies
What would be the advantages and disadvantages of :

- Building 10/20 small websites that targets long tail keywords about the same topic. For example, one site targeting "roller blade helmets", another one for "change roller blade wheels" and another one for "roller blade repairs" etc.
OR
- A big website about the same topic. For example: a site with a couple of sections like roller blades in general, roller blade caring, roller blade products, etc. that could be called "roller blade hq" or something similar.

What do you suggest I should start with? The big site or a lot of smaller sites?

Note : I'm a Web programmer so I can setup a Website easily. Setting 10-20 wordpress is not an issue for me. What I'm not used to is SEO (mostly link building).
#big #lot #site #sites #small #topic
  • Profile picture of the author Devin X
    Banned
    One site with lots and lots of content and pages targeting every facet of a specific niche market. If you do this good enough, long enough, and lucky enough, then you'll have an authority site.

    Doing many sites all targeting a specific facet (sniper sites) are now dead, for sure. Even if you did it differently from most sniper sites, there's only so much content you can put up about roller blade care. You know?
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    Always go for one big site.

    One Big Website, Or Lots of Small Niche Websites - What's More Profitable?

    It's near impossible to implement and track everything properly when you have dozens of sites.
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    • Profile picture of the author jrimshot
      10 sites =
      10 x domain registration
      10 x site installs
      10 x site config - terms - disclaimer - contact etc.
      if you have cloning / backup software, it might not be too bad, but then you also have

      10 x updates
      and 1/10th of the content on each for your money/time.

      I'd go with the authority as well.
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      • Profile picture of the author octopus
        Also, after all the reading I made I was under the impression that :
        - It would be easier to rank smaller sites targeting long tail keywords in their domain names than big general site
        - It would be less dangerous to have a lot of smaller websites for ranking in SERPS. For example, if I pay somebody to do my backlinks and he's just bad at it, it's just 1 site out of 20 that will get penalized.
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  • Profile picture of the author humbledmarket
    Banned
    One Big site! Much Much easier to manage and focus on.

    (Tried to do a bunch of small niche site and it was really hard to set up. Too many things calling for attention to properly SEO and set up)

    Also SEO benefit, generally authority sites are more stable than skinny niche sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author octopus
    I read nichepursuits.com and his "how to niche site" posts. The Website he built (bestsurvivalknifeguide.com) seemed "successful". And I read that he quit his job and had 200 small websites like this.

    I also read the "niche duel" posts by Pat on "smartpassiveincome.com". His website seems to get him 5k per month (if I remember correctly).

    So, are they just the exception? Do they have a lot of experience be successful at this? Are those kind of websites dying? Are they just exposing their techniques to sell their program because anyway, this technique won't last? Or is my definition of "small site" not really what they did?
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    • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
      Originally Posted by octopus View Post

      I read nichepursuits.com and his "how to niche site" posts. The Website he built (bestsurvivalknifeguide.com) seemed "successful". And I read that he quit his job and had 200 small websites like this.

      I also read the "niche duel" posts by Pat on "smartpassiveincome.com". His website seems to get him 5k per month (if I remember correctly).

      So, are they just the exception? Do they have a lot of experience be successful at this? Are those kind of websites dying? Are they just exposing their techniques to sell their program because anyway, this technique won't last? Or is my definition of "small site" not really what they did?
      The majority of these sites, (if not all) are based completely around search engine rankings. This is dangerous because it means you have no redundancy.

      You're always only ever going to be one algorithm update away from losing everything.

      Build out an authority site. Build an audience, and most importantly, diversify your traffic sources.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ryan David
    Big site...no question about it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Ellis
    In today's Internet marketing climate, one "mega" site is by far the best option.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sushiman1111
    What John Romaine said. One big authority site is better for a whole host of reasons, the big one for me being less stuff to keep track of with one site vs twenty.

    Just think about it: How long does it take you to log into a site? Let's say it's a minute when you add everything up. That's 20 minutes a day vs one minute that you're spending not doing a damn thing but logging in. You may not think that 20 minutes a day is a lot, but over the course of a year it adds up to two full weeks of full-time employment. (100 minutes/week times 52 = 5200 minutes. Divide that by 60 and you've got over 85 hours spent.)

    Now think about site updates, plug-ins, theme changes, etc. How much extra time are you going to spend doing all that? Having multiple sites can cost you months - literally months - of productive effort.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    You wouldn't read 20 books at once.

    Same principle.
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  • Profile picture of the author CatK
    I agree, an authority site is the way to go these days. Patience is required, but worth it especially if you want to build a long term business.
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  • Profile picture of the author AndrewCavanagh
    Originally Posted by octopus View Post

    What do you suggest I should start with? The big site or a lot of smaller sites?
    I would suggest you do both.

    But think "all roads lead to Rome".

    In other words you want a lot of pages on your smaller sites pointing
    to pages on your big site with related high quality content.

    Over time you want the big site to be seen as a major resource.

    Having smaller sites that sub niche for specific longer tail keyword
    phrases should help you rank high for those phrases.

    Kindest regards,
    Andrew Cavanagh
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