1 mega or 5 macro sites?

[Fwiffo]

I'm currently planning on building a set of sites all revolving the same market. Focus is whitehat base / site with blackhat link building methods.

an similar example that I'm not using would be women's boots, handbags, shoes, accessories, and makeup

am I better building 5 separate "large" sites revolving around each thing (boots, handbags, shoes, etc.), or one "mega" site towards women with a section focusing on each item?

looking for thoughts / feedback / experience

 

[jon_xx_x]

Mega, micro is dying.
Or do both, like I'm doing, and link micros to the mega

 

[5VM5UN6]

Do both ways, more chances to occupy bigger market.

 

[afro25]

If you go for lots of smaller sites, then you have a better chance of having a relevent keyword in the domain, though you miss out on this with a large broad site.

On the other hand, building a large site will gain authority and you 'should' find it easier to rank seperate pages, purely based on the authority of the domain, particularly if you are able to structure it so that the internal linking gives each page quite a large number of links.

Recently i've started concentrating on building authority sites, but have managed to do it with a 3 keyword domain name (3 words, first two make one keyword, last two make another and all three make another) so in my case i have alot of long tails to work on.

Go for the mega site, then if you find that for any specific category you're having a difficult time gaining a good rank, then create a smaller site specifically for that.

 

[ChrisV]

If you go for lots of smaller sites, then you have a better chance of having a relevent keyword in the domain, though you miss out on this with a large broad site.

On the other hand, building a large site will gain authority and you 'should' find it easier to rank seperate pages, purely based on the authority of the domain, particularly if you are able to structure it so that the internal linking gives each page quite a large number of links.

Recently i've started concentrating on building authority sites, but have managed to do it with a 3 keyword domain name (3 words, first two make one keyword, last two make another and all three make another) so in my case i have alot of long tails to work on.

Go for the mega site, then if you find that for any specific category you're having a difficult time gaining a good rank, then create a smaller site specifically for that.

Thanks for the explanation.

I assume it is a bit more difficult to get the ranking for the mega site as oppose to the smaller focused site in the short term.

Thus I think Mega sites is much better for the long term.

Do I understand it correctly?

 

[kelso]

Go for one authority site, it's better in the long run.

 

[afro25]

Thanks for the explanation.

I assume it is a bit more difficult to get the ranking for the mega site as oppose to the smaller focused site in the short term.

Thus I think Mega sites is much better for the long term.

Do I understand it correctly?

No problem
Exactly right, once the site starts gaining authority and has a good few dozen pages, it should start to become easier to rank in the long term.
Though, my first (main) authority site has less than one dozen pieces of content, but google still seems to treat it as an authority site (any new pages are indexed within moments and usually rank very high), probably just because the quality is extremely high.

 

[SahL]

Mega always imo.

 

[Fwiffo]

keep in mind that by "mega" I mean eventually building to (tens of) thousands of pages, adding forum, heavy focus on twitter / Facebook , etc.

by "macro" I mean a few hundred pages on a given topic, however not as expanded as the mega type of site

summary of what I have so far, both from here and my own notes:

benefit of mega:
- true authority
- once it works, works very well
- "black hole" type of SEO - gets so big that the link structures of the site propel the SEO of it even further
- eventual repeat visitors / user involvement

downside of mega:
- one sandbox / deindex and it's done
- takes longer to penetrate into individual markets
- may not have as strong seo capability from the domain name
- may be seen as a "skewed objective" if not focused on one area

benefit of 5 macro:
- still big enough to build to an authority size (hundreds of pages)
- likely quicker to rank (as focused on a certain topic / niche instead of a broader market)
- likely more "seo juice" from specific domain / title names for targeted items
- if one or two get sandboxed / reindexed / don't work, cash flow keeps going
- on-site silo effect from being all in the same niche

downside of 5 macro:
- may not have "escape velocity" to become a larger community / user involved site
- may not have have the self-propelling "black hole" style of SEO from a mega site
- fair bit of repetitive work

benefit of doing both:
- as above, combined

downside of doing both:
- too much & too spread out, good chance no projects get done

anything else I'm missing / should be considering?

 

[The-Truth]

In my experience it is always much better to stick to one thing at a time. That being said, making 5 micro sites will end up in a lower quality when compared to the bigger site. However If this is not something you passionate about and you don't care that the micro sites are lesser quality, perhaps you might take that route. Otherwise I would go with the bigger one. Cheers !

 

[Rushdie]

do only mega, theres no such a risk as sandbox deindex if you have a white hat site...