Unrelated blog on same domain: how will it affect google

[walkman]

any idea on whether it is a good idea to blog about unrelated things on your site (sell shoes, blog about cats for example on /blog.) Eventually you'll get links from similar blogs, so I am wondering on whether google will like them.

what do you think?

[tedster]

I think it might be OK, but it also might create some troubles down the line. Domains are cheap - if either the regular site or the blog could become a worthwhile project, then why risk it?

[walkman]

the idea was to get more links to the site. (I do have close to 2000 names :)) . I am afraid of someone looking at it one day and saying that 80% of the links /votes are for a different type of content.

[tedster]

Right now, Google doesn't really do much of a job of theming with regard to backlinks. No matter what you might hear around the web, it's really vaporware for the moment, IMO. But the future certainly could look quite different.

If the blog is really going to go far afield and have essentially nothing to do with the topic of the site, I just can't say it makes sense to me. But it still might work out well for a good while, at least to boost PR. Whether that will really help to get good ranking for search terms on the rest of the site remains to be seen.

It would make more sense to me if you blog "on topic" at least some of the time. After all, even Matt Cutts has his occasional cat post.