Forum Moderators: open
One thing I've been thinking of is instead of creating massive finance or shopping sites with say 20 or 30 thousand pages each......should I be splitting these sites down into more managable/themed/targetted sites?
my thinking goes: Huge site.....fecking ages to deep crawl unless I can get it high PR real quick. very hard to target anchor text to as site so non specific
or 20 or 30 sites with a thousand pages each that i can host on seperate IP's, cross link to boost IBL popularity....target IBL anchor text better...spread PR around better...
splitting my sites up sounds better no?
can anyone here who has experience of this lend a thought or two?
many thanks, Tom.
is what I'm proposing "manipulation"?
is what I'm proposing "manipulation"?
YES
i'm interested in the long term! ;-)
Tom.
If you are talking about 10's of thousands of pages on exactly the same topic - do one site. But if there are a variety of different niches going after different target markets, and each can stand alone as an interesting and informative resource, I would certainly break them up.
I have done this for almost a decade without any problems. The attention span of many visitors is short, so by breaking out sites to match their primary interest, you are saving them considerable time in going through a myriad of subcategories within the same market.
For example, there is U.S. news, world news, sports, business news, health news, legal news, entertainment, etc. Some integrate it all on one site, while others break them out into independent specialized sites that cater to a specific audience. It depends on what your primary industry category is, and whether it makes sense to break them out into subcategory, independent sites. [use common sense for what works for the visitors - not any emphasis on an edge on the search engines].
With that in mind, if it makes sense for the visitor, I'm one of the few that is not concerned about some cross linking between similar sites.
Think quality content for each site, and you'll be fine.
Steve
Absolutely, all the sites will have quality consumer focused content.
I feel that some areas of my site are lost and want to give it the exposure it deserves, hence, splitting up the bigger sites.
however, do you believe that I should be making these sites as different as possible and hosting on different IP's and c names etc etc?
Yes, my motivation behind this is to increase serps but not my intention to draw undue attention to what i'm up to by trying to disguise it too much.
however, making each site as different as possible is the advice coming from a lot of people at present.........
If you are 'up to something' with your site, I think it is destined to have problems in the long run.
If you stand back and look at the 'big picture' for your site(s), then determine what makes the most sense for visitors - if done properly, it generally will also make sense for the SEs as well.
For example, you can not just depend on linking between a handful of your own sites. If you are going to break up the content into multiple sites, each site must have stand-alone appeal to visitors and related sites that want to link to them individually. Your site "A" targets a particular market, then attracts a few hundred outside links; your site "B" targets a different subcategory that attracts links from several hundred different sites than "A."
If your target market does not lend itself to breaking out into legit subcategories, I would just go with a single 'powerhouse' site and not play any games with it.
Steve
what I'm up to is simply cross linking for increased IBL popularity from sites I already own.
Do you guys suggest that it might be in our interest to produce each site then publish it as and when it is finished, rather that publishing the lot all at the same time?
Our desired terms are pretty competitive. Our #1 term being "widgets"...
The way we thought of breaking this up, would be to have 14 or 15 "satelite sites" all interlinked and providing relevant content. Each of these sites will have a niche keyphrase targeted, for instance "blue widgets" "green widgets" "repairing widgets" and so on...
I guess my question is would it be better to bring each of these niche sites out over the period of a few months? We'd rather get them all out in the next few weeks, but will this damage our chances of performing well in the SERP's?
I think this thing that 'networks are trouble' is overplayed. Networks are fine if they are structured for users and not just churned out for no good reason, other than to inflate PR.
It's too many sites on a network (that could/should have been one site) that get you in trouble, and/or excessive cross-linking between sites. If you follow the cliché that you need to make sites for the user not the SE, then as far as networks are concerned, you'll be fine.
Or, you may be able to build some high quality sites that are legitimately networked, but doing that is very difficult.
No, why? Just create meaningful <a href>'s to related pages. Nothing wrong with that.
I always wondered if the search engines do a whois on heavily networked sites. If this was done automatically, and the same name showed up on several sites on a hub, they could easily have someone take a look at the sites.
Lots of web design companies are full service and build sites and register domain names FOR people (especially people with no web saavy). Naturally, their name and name servers are what is found in the whois. Also, you would need to take into consideration that whois info can be (and is) 'faked' and/or private.
So those seo people you want to 'catch' will be faking the whois, while the millions of average innocent web designers and companies out there will be 'automatically' hurt.
even tho.....unless you have a network of sites up to no good eg, black hat stuff, i can't see it getting busted.
if a competitor trys to get you busted for it, chances are they are cross linking their own sites for the same reasons so it serves no purpose for them to try and get you into hot water as the same could and would happen to them!
Tom.
So those seo people you want to 'catch' will be faking the whois, while the millions of average innocent web designers and companies out there will be 'automatically' hurt.
I don't mean automatically as part of the algorithm. I mean automatically as a separate process, possibly followed up with a manual review. Also, if you knock someone down in the SERPS and cost them money, they can and often do fill out complaint forms at Google and the other search engines.
Reasonably, if there are good reasons to set up sites as a network, then yes, they should be fine.
Will they be fine? Depends. ;-)
but NO, networks if done badly, can harm your serps
?
Tom.
Cultivating good inbound links is the foundation to a strong search engine presence. By creating multiple sites from what could have been one, you are creating way more work for yourself.
One website as an umbrella for many individual categories is a viable strategy. Depending on the quality of your content, you can generate deep links into the individual categories within the site, and thus encourage a deep spidering.
The PR level is only part of the story- how deep your inbounds are, and how many of them you acquire, will go a long way to making that deep content work for you.
For what it's worth, I heard a Google engineer comment on this in a link building track at an SES, and he recommended one big site over a network of little sites.
I'm not saying that this is the last word on the subject, though. Not by a longshot. I only wanted to bring up these points because they haven't been mentioned yet.
