Adsense: Single Large Site vs Several Micro Sites

[careerskk]

Hi All,

When thinking of monetizing with adsense which one works well
a) Single large site with hundreds of pages or b) several microsites with say 30 - 50 pages each ?

Any comment is welcome

[john5000]

Too many variables, me thinks.

I tend to prefer building strong brands that happen to be websites... and depending on the nature of the site, it could be small or gargantuan. They can both work well with adsense.

[thaidomain]

Over the years I have developed about 20 websites. Three of them developed into somewhat bigger sites, while the rest are smaller. When looking at Adsense revenue, the number of visitors is obviously of major importance.
The thing is, my big sites slowly but surely seem to get more and more visitors, while the smaller sites see a decreasing number. I can not help thinking that Google search somehow favors big sites in gives them higher and higher ranking for search terms over time. Therefore, my personal opinion is that it is better to concentrate a developing 'a big site'.

[HuskyPup]

careerskk - Is all the information going to be unique to each micro site?

Are you a specialist in your subject(s)?

Do you have the keyword domains for these sites or are you just going to use generic names?

Will the microsites' information be related to each other? i.e. Will it be black widgets, white widgets and red widgets or generic widgets1, generic widgets2 and generic widgets3?

How much competition is there for the keywords?

What type of CMS/WYSIWYG/text editor will you be using?

Would a microsite be able to stand-up by itself or seem to be a bit chopped out of a large site?

I have both large and microsites, the advantage of large is that if it is seen as a general authority for widgets then anything new uploaded usually is fast-tracked into the SERPs however MY specialist microsites, which incidentally are linked to the large sites, are seen as the de facto trade widget authority specialist sites.

I use the same standard template site I created myself many years ago and all created in a text editor and each site uses the same directory structure.

I can remove all AdSense ads from a site with two simple .inc uploads.

The reason I have both large and small is that my trade is global and I supply my trade widgets from many different countries with each country having its own trade specialities and it made sense for me to do it this way.

Does that help?

[explorador]

It depends on many variables, nice wide view Husky, I agree.

I often approach to this kind of questions myself in a minimalistic way, like: Adsense depends on website content + traffic. (that's my basic view on this context).

So take in count creating new content for the site and getting traffic. What I'm trying to say here is, OFTEN is easier to add great content to a well established site than to a small site and still where you still have to work on getting traffic for the site.

I have some strong sites working fine with adsense and some small sites doing kinda well, I work more on the big ones. Recently I changed my goals to STOP playing with my projects and focus on whatever work$ better, is wiser, but as a webmaster I also enjoy my little toys.

[careerskk]

Hi Husky and Explorador,

Thanks for sharing good and useful information.

Regarding my case, I have good knowledge in specific topics related to health and fitness, skincare etc.

Hence there are two choices left out to me. Either to build a generic health site will all information I know or to build specific micro sites targeting specific viewers. For example one of the topics I knew well in specific is "acne". Now will it be better to create a micro site targeting "acne" or a generic health site?

[ecmedia]

Totally agree with <<OFTEN is easier to add great content to a well established site than to a small site and still where you still have to work on getting traffic for the site. >>

[Swanny007]

Bigger sites are by far better in the majority of cases. I have small sites that never took off and a few big ones that did. There is no comparison, once you have the bigger size and more traffic, things tend to continue to grow even if you don't do much promotion. I usually tell people to "think big" when it comes to sites.

[Jane_Doe]

Have a variety of both kinds. They can all do well and grow over time. Sometimes the little sites will grow without much effort if the content is interesting and people link to them enough.