Starting a huge "general" site and need help

[hdpt00]

Right now I have 4 content mini sites all on one niche in a more general niche. For this general niche I am planning on starting a very large site that encompasses every specific niche.

Right now I have the content for about 4 more specific niches on their own domains. Do you think it would be best to make those sites now and bring in some spare cash or just wait to release the huge site so google sees it as brand new content? It will also be quite the pain doing 301 redirects for each page from 4-8 smaller niche sites.

So basically what I am asking is, while I am expanding my content and having it written for the large site, should I keep making smaller sites or put all my focus on the large site and just release it when it is ready? Also, does anyone have some hints for making a large site (and I mean massive) with free content (hoping to make $ on AdSense and affiliates)?

[ganderla]

(and I mean massive)

How massive is massive?

500 pages?
5000 pages
50000 pages?

[hdpt00]

When fully complete in about 1-2 years I would imagine at least 10-20K pages. It will debut at about 300.

[charlienichols]

I think I'd start populating the (eventually) large site asap. The age and back links of a domain will help lots in organic search results.
Put links from each of the smaller sites to that single site, but don't link them together back and forth.

Charlie