I'm guessing most people here runs multiple sites at one point or another. From your experience, is it dangerous to fall in love with one particular project and focusing exclusively on it? Or would you recommend spending little time on each site, let it lay and grow, and quickly go on to the next one?
I don't agree with the more sites the better philosophy, but I do think more than one is important... if you're doing it for money. If you're simply running a site b/c you love the topic, one is fine, b/c your income won't depend on it. But if you're running them as a business, like it most things, it's good to diversify. If you sink too much time, energy, and/or money into one, and the niche becomes oversaturated or the technology becomes obsolete, then you're screwed. I'd guess the more is better mindframe would predominantly work for things like MFA sites, although I could be wrong. It's possible there are other situations where that would work; I just can't think of any.
Thats what we do it for..... more than one site or say micro sites. get them performing well on seo. you can get 10 sites from different url's on same se page with same keywprd but it's hard to do with a single site...
But what I'm curious about is, are you doing it that way predominantly because of adsense income (hence wanting a lot of first page placement), or is there another reason to have a huge number of sites? I'm not knocking it. I'm just curious if there's a reason that I'm missing that would be something to consider regarding my own sites at some point.
i think the issue relates more to traffic rather than adsense... adsense on 100 pages of similar site will always generate less income compared to 100 sites of 1 page... because inner pages take more time to crawl than the home page....
I'm under the philosophy that more is better. More diversification of your sites. Various income streams from different types of online income. I'd bet a majority of people on this forum really only use Adsense as there main source of money. Not all, but a good majority. Having multiple sites that drive revenue from memberships, adsense, ebook sales, affiliate marketing, etc... is the best way to go, IMO. If one of your revenue "legs" falls out, you have plenty more to fill the gap with and focus more prominently on. Also, outsourcing should become your best friend. Micro-manage your sites and people that work on all your sites. Focus your energy and time on aspects of your business that make you the most money. For me, web design I can get down for $50 a site (4 hours of work), so I outsource, as that's not a lot of money. Writing articles is another aspect of my business I outsource, as I can get them cheap. Coming up with new ideas and testing is what I focus on, because that part of my business makes me the most money for the time spent.
If your are serious about earning a substantial amount online, you will more then likely need more then one established site under your belt. My goal is to have 5-10 very established sites. That way, it's still all very manageable and if one site gets hit in the SERPs you have only lost a small portion of your total income.
I think more sites depends on how big your first site is. I have created several projects in my online live but one that was of my major interest. As I started it I had nothing besides it and keept it this way for over 2 years now. At first it even started just as hobby and not even generated any income (because no ads ). Now the site has grown quite a bit and takes up a lot of my spare time. I have started a new site in a totaly different sector and I already feel that having a big project and a small one is more then enough for a spare time job. However if you simply make sites to earn money, go with a lot small ones. I do this because I love what I do, and the money is the whipped cream on the ice For everyone who wants to have a look... My main focus project: www.hiphop-battles.com my new project: www.patientenfragen.net (German) (I am becoming a doctor in a year ) StarBuG
Remember that you have only 24 hours in a day.You cannot do too many tasks in a day and even just 1 site has many tasks to do with:marketing,mantaining content,etc..
well, if you are thinking from choosing between 1 big site and a lot of small ones, go with the big site. Being an authority in a certain domain yields you certain benefits (premium publisher rings a bell? ) as you can get better advertising offers etc. But if you are willing to make only BIG sites , it would be worth doing that (provided that you have the money and resources to do it). Focus on one thing at a time ,once you are done with it , move to the next one and so on . Repeat the cycle everyday .
I really think that this is a business decision...and hopefully you are using all this input to season your own recipe. I have gone down both roads....I currently have around 100 sites. Optimizing all 100 takes much more time than just pushing 5 or 6. None of my sites are spammy, they all have original content and are designed to inform. I would shy away from 100 sites (as it becomes overwhelming unless you automate) as much as I would shy away from only owning 1. There is a happy medium in there somewhere...and trial and error is the only way to find yours.
Multiple sites would we better as you can use your knowledge on let say seo, marketing ect. But as said before a day only has 24 hours so it depends on how big the sites are.
The polls seems pretty split about this. If multiple mini sites works out for you, would you consider folks like PlentyOfFish and other 2.0 startups an anomaly? Or do you think they are in a different game altogether?
1EightT nailed it on the head - if you're just starting off, definitely focus your efforts on making one good site - once you've figured out how to do that then rinse and repeat!