question for publishers with many small sites

[solobrian]

For the publishers with many small sites, how many pages do you create before moving on to your next project? 50, 100, 500?

[malachite]

That's a bit like asking "how long is a piece of string" ;)

There's no set limit; some sites will have 5 pages or less, others will have hundreds of pages and will be added to on a regular basis. It really depends on the topic.

[solobrian]

i mean the publishers who create multiple small "evergreen" sites, the kind which are created once and left alone.

the last (and first) evergreen i was 10 pages, now i'm making one that has 50, and will see what happens.

on any topic you could write 100s of pages. even the nicheiest of them all can be drawn out. i'd like to get a sense of when adding more pages isnt cost effective anymore in terms of man hours.

[dibbern2]

Cost effectiveness per page isn't a matter of how many pages in a site (my opinion). It's how much are you earning from a page that you make, i.e., whats your return on the time invested?

Track your stats, build your Excell sheets, and watch your data. Eventually you'll get a feel for when it's time to move off a subject and on to a different one. (It's when your new pages no longer return fair earnings.)

There are many here who will disagree with this advice, but it works for me: day after day, month after month. Gets boring though!

[jchampliaud]

The number of pages is not important, what's important is when a site can stand on its own. That could be from one page to over a 100 pages. When I say stand on its own I mean that the site offers the user something useful and is found to be comprehensive within context, i.e. there aren't any really big holes that give the 'under construction' feeling. The subject needs to be covered giving the impression that all info can be found in the site or links to it (the missing info). When you reach this point IMHO you can move on.

[malachite]

The number of pages is not important, what's important is when a site can stand on its own. That could be from one page to over a 100 pages.

Exactly. One of our sites has only one page, and doesn't need any more. But, although the ads on that page have a fairly low CTR, they have high EPC. I suppose it's our "nichiest" site. [He he, like that word! ;) ]

Another site has well over 100 pages, is "evergreen content" and apart from occasionally adding relevant new pages, is left to get on with it. It has a much higher CTR, but also much lower EPC.

Pro rata, those two sites probably earn roughly the same over a month, so as you can see, it really doesn't matter how many pages you have, what matters is what's on the ones you do have :)

[Publisher]

I usually put up about 10 or 15 pages just to get the domain name going and in the sandbox. I than add 2 to 4 pages a month to each site so the the SEs know it's an active site.

In otherwords, I build on each site continually, and eventually, they will all be fairly large sites. In the meantime, they might generate a buck or two.

[OptiRex]

My best eCPM's and CTR's are on sites with between 20-50 pages however they earn nowhere near the 1,000+ page sites but the figures alone do look impressive:-)