Branding!

[Delegate]

Hi i have an issue with Branding.

We recently decided to put all our domain names under one "umbrella" and link all our domains to one corporate site. I am a bit concerned about doing this as 3 of our domains have number one rankings across all our Highly competitive Keywords and have been online for over 6 years with well branded domain names.

If one of our new ventures that will also be placed under the same umbrella gets Penalised by Google (not saying that it will) will this affect the rankings on our strong domains? Will Page Rank be affected? The BAD neighbourhood factor is what im worried about.

Is there anything else i should take into consideration before i give the Go-Ahead on this?

[goodroi]

Branding is important but so are search engine rankings. By grouping all of your sites under one umbrella you are just making it easier for search engines to hurt you. If you want to deal with branding you can register similar domains, maintain similar page styles, common logos etc. You should never put all of your eggs in one basket.

[Delegate]

I will not be using any Black Hat SEO techniques or anything risky apart from good old fashion SEO. The site will be just like the others completely above board and packed with quality content.

We were thinking that if they were under the same umbrella it would give any new sites we put out a head start as it would be in the same "Neighbourhood" as our powerful well Ranked sites.

The point of creating similar Logo's and design will not give us the same advantage.

Has anyone done or thought about doing something similar?