Planet13 - 12:24 am on Jul 31, 2011 (gmt 0)

Hi again, afreshpup:

Just a couple of comments to add from my end:

I just don't see the down-side as long as we make niche specific blogs that answer real questions about the subject matter.

The problem with this is that google is REALLY rewarding big brands at the expense of niche sites. If you check out some of the discussions in the google forum, you will see that there are MANY people cursing google for giving so much love to big brands.

I don't know if this is universal, but in the very small niche that I deal with, brands like amazon, ebay, ehow, etc., - who NEVER used to rank before - are ranking VERY well with content that is NOT focused on the keyword terms.

Meanwhile, lots of focused niche sites are wasting away on page 2, 3, and 4 of the SERPs. What's their crime? Not many inbound links, as far as I can tell.

If you want to rank, then you need BOTH focus AND links (in my humble opinion).

Don't get me wrong, afreshpup; I have nothing against what you are doing morally. It doesn't matter to me at all from an ethics standpoint.

I just think that your time and money could be better spent working on your main site. Stuff like exact match keyword domains and other niche-focus techniques seem like they might be reaching their "sell by" date, in my humble opinion.

Hope this helps.