I'm in a strange position where sometimes too much of a good thing can be a challenge. I have a bunch of very good domains which are for a unique niche (ethnic) and I'm trying to start a community/networking/dating site for that niche. I think it could be very successful. The question is the best way to set it up so that there is brand identity yet it takes advantage of the domain assets I have. Of the 20-30 or so .coms, they include some of the following: xNation xCommunity xFun xSoul xParty xSocial xSpeak xAdvice xExchange xContact xAssociation xNewsletter xProfiles xListings I'm trying to get the best of these names to use for the community site and I think it's definitely xNation, even though I do have a few that are shorter. However I'm also unsure how to use the others since they are excellent in themselves, e.g. separately brand xSoul as the dating site, etc. or use as a subdomain, e.g. xSoul.xNation.com, or have them just as links that go from one to another. The challenge with networking sites is that there are some who are there specifically for dating and they should be dealt with individually. They are great for kids but not necessarily for adults and I don't think I want YA myspace clone. On dating sites members want to be able to search by unique characteristics that don't matter in business, e.g. height, build, etc. There is also a different theme you want to present. At the same time you don't want to make people fill out 2 completely different profiles, but I guess having a small amount of overlap isn't so bad. But if we're making 2 completely different sites then it is 2 separate logins with all new information that is not linked together at all. So I've given this a lot of thought but would benefit from the collective experience and wisdom in this forum. Many thanks to all of you in advance and look forward to turning out something new and great.
I see where you are going with this. Trying to establish a brand. Maybe if you have one of those as your central site and the rest can link through that.I personally think having 1 login is better
Thanks for helping me rationalize this. The challenge is that I do have great separate identities as well - perhaps running the other sites off of the central database might work as well. For example, the xSoul site is great for dating and I can have the dating database be on date.xNation.com as well as xSoul at the same time. xSoul can have a link back to xNation as well. I'm wondering if I'll get penalized or if this is beneficial/detrimental for SEO.