500 Domains... what to do?

Question about using multiple domains with the same website

[ggmike]

Hello everyone, I have a client that has a website for loans. My client has registered 500 location-specific domains all related to his business. For example, NewYork-something-or-other.com, LosAngeles-something-or-other.com etc...

The way he has it set up right now, he has his domains set up so that when you type in example.com it redirects you to www.example.com/index.asp?city=1

Every site is exactly the same, but it changes the header and some of the text to personalize it to that city.

I'm thinking I'll eventually need to set up a dedicated server and have a separate (static) version of each website for each domain (no redirects). I'm wondering, since the sites are basically identical in content other than the names and pictures will this cause an issue with the search engines and also - since they will all be sharing the same 3-4 IP addresses, can this complicate things as well?

Anyone have some advice for this?

[edited by: msgraph at 5:14 pm (utc) on Feb. 12, 2005]
[edit reason] changed urls [/edit]

[ggmike]

Ok... I had an idea. I realize that having all webpages with the same content could create problems.

The issue is that we need to optimize for 500 location keywords + the main service keywords he is optimizing for.

What if I were to create a huge website that has various information on his services and industry, with links to pages that contain information for each of the location keywords? That way each location page could have information relevant to that location plus reinforce the main keywords. The domains could all just point to subpages (location ones) for adwords purposes.

I'm still relatively new to SEO, but does this like a good way to make sure his site comes up for specific location searches (i.e. location + keyword)?

[ggmike]

Ok... I had an idea. I realize that having all webpages with the same content could create problems.

The issue is that we need to optimize for 500 location keywords + the main service keywords he is optimizing for.

What if I were to create a huge website that has various information on his services and industry, with links to pages that contain information for each of the location keywords? That way each location page could have information relevant to that location plus reinforce the main keywords. The domains could all just point to subpages (location ones) for adwords purposes.

I'm still relatively new to SEO, but does this like a good way to make sure his site comes up for specific location searches (i.e. location + keyword)?