How are your multi-topic sites fairing right now?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

If you have a site that is about multiple unrelated or semi-related interests, <snip> how is the site holding up in search results? Is one subject ignored or hard to rank for? Are both subjects suffering in your opinion?

It's a bit hard to search for multi-topic sites online since most are about one subject. If you have any results to share I'd love to hear your opinion.

Basically the larger, or big brand, sites can write about *how-to everything* but can the smaller 2-3 topic sites do the same?

[edited by: goodroi at 1:00 am (utc) on Nov 1, 2012]
[edit reason] Let's be careful to avoid specifics in this thread :) [/edit]

[goodroi]

I can think of several blogs that cover multiple topics (imagine a blogger covering his business & personal hobbies) on the same site. Also there are some news sources that write on different topics. The news source that I work on keeps growing but all of the different categories are still related so a user is likely to visit multiple sections.

I would encourage people looking to add new subjects to their sites to make sure it compliments their existing content and ideally builds synergy between all the content. For example if you have a widget e-commerce site, maybe add a widget repair section or a used widget marketplace.

[RichH]

My small hobby site is about six unrelated topics. I was very badly hit by Panda when it first rolled-out in the UK last year and have since suffered a few more setbacks from subsequent iterations.

However, only pages relating to one particular topic have been affected, whilst my pages for three other topics remain at the top of the SERPS.

I have two topics that are in very competitive niches. I've never ranked well for these and probably never will.