Leosghost - 2:49 am on Mar 18, 2011 (gmt 0)

1#

I thought it might make sense to point (.htaccess) the domains to my homepage

That can be worthwhile

2#

and inside category pages

However that can make life very complex in the future if you want to give each domain name it's own domain.

3#

in case someone actually typed the word/phrase into the URL bar.

Unless they actually include the dot com ( or whatever ) at the end most browsers nowadays on the average persons machine will treat that as asearch and uhse whichever search engine is installed as default o get to the "serp" for the query

Take it a step further: I interlinked some internal pages using domain names to get to specific category pages. Also, people review my products and I'm thinking about having them link back to my site using an alt domain instead of page URL.

See reply to 2#

My thinking is that a link like: ProductCategory.com looks clickable AS IS

Only if it is actually "clickable" ..like in a serp

and the longer MyDomainName.com./Specific-Category-Page/ would require anchor text to look more appropriate.

Depends on the actual individual "widget" as to which "string" looks the most natural when slipped into a page or paragraph of text to be linking in to you

Note: there is a discussion elsewhere on WM about the benefits of using URLs instead of anchor text.

Not all situations are alike and not all "solutions" can(not) be applied to other sites/pages/domains/widgets ..

Is what I'm doing stupid? Asking for ranking trouble? Smart, but not done correctly? Etc.

I'd recommend A:B:C type testing ..and let it run for at least 3 months to be able to see which worked best

Panda was no help to me so I need to take action.

Panda is not rolled out entirely yet to everywhere ..depends where your best ROI traffic is from..I wouldn't react too hastily wait til the water is still(ish) before deciding if you rose or sank a little or a lot definitively .

Is there any advice on how to best use multiple domains that perfectly describe my business and product categories?

I'd peel them off and make smaller tighter focused domains if I could and interlink them either a to B to C etc ..or better A to H to Y to ( someone else's domain ..and ask them to link back to A ..( thats a little simplified ;-) ..more "hops" is better ;-)