Need advice re building a 250 blog network

I'm working on building a network of 200 blogs across several niches. All will be fed original content daily by my pool of writers. I am still trying to decide which route to go, I'd appreciate your help. I am torn between:

1) Buying separate domains for all the sites and doing separate installs of WP on one server (same class C) OR
2) Using subdomains like CATEGORY1.BLOGNETWORKNAME.COM, CATEGORY2.BLOGNETWORKNAME.COM, etc on one server using WP MU install OR
3) Buying separate domains on differing servers using differing installs of WP OR
4) Buying separate domains but using WP MU.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

If they are all different unrelated niches, I would go with option 1

 

Subdomains a bad idea? Didn't weblogsinc use subdoms?

 

Contact Col on these forums. He runs a network of blogs too, and might be able to offer you some sound advice as to how he manages.

 

Subs - not a bad idea but I think if you are investing heavily into it to go upto 250 blogs, the cost of domains would be small compared to each blogs marketing/promotional expenses and assuming you are doing it for selling links, you would get more buyers if they are at different individual domains. just my 2 cents

 

Thanks, man. I appreciate the input. Actually, I am thinking of doing it for actual affiliate sales and possibly PPC. Most of the revenue will be from a sponsorship deal I'm trying to negotiate at the moment.

 

I think subdomains would work fine as well if intended for affiliate sales/ppc. also, if you are negotiating a sponshorship deal, it would be a good idea to check with the sponsors as well - probably you can throw some freebies/incentives their way if they can pay a premium for you hosting it on individual domains - just giving you something for food of thought here - rest of course, would depend on your niche specifics

 

I prefer second one + giving blog space to people for free.

 

If you can afford it Option 3, in my opinion is the best. Assuming that the blogs will be interlinked, differing installations of Wordpress on different virtual servers will give you the best bang for the buck as each blog would have a different ip address.

Each of the blogs would look independent initially because they have no reletionship to the other blogs less the mutual links. Good for SEO...

 

Yep. That would be great for SEO if I was going to interlink them since they would have differing Class C IPs. However, since the categories are unrelated and I have staff trained to generate traffic for each niche, I doubt I'll interlink them. I am trying to figure out the most EFFICIENT way to have this many blogs while leaving room for scalability. If the conversion is there, I'd like to be able to quickly ramp up to 2500 blogs each with unique daily content (no rss-derived content.)

Open to more feedback.

 

Subs are not very good. Google and Yahoo! think you are spamming if you use them. So many spammers are using subdomains lately.

 

Download Wordpress MU and use subdomains.

 

So the blogspot, blogsome, and other blog communities are barking up the wrong tree?

 

Are the themes centrally administered or do I have to upload custom themes for each? Can I just put them in one central admin?

 

Buying separate domains on differing servers is your best option, depending on your budget

 

Yeah, I'm aware of them. I've corresponded with Lloyd (baddog) of gotwebshost. They specialize in multiple class C IPs.

 

It's not hurting content networks like About.com any. Subdomains are fine, and actually a great idea if your main domain is something particularly brandable.

 

Thanks. I'll look into the About.com model even further.