Multiple domains for the same business

[alicaomisem]

My client purchased over 500 URLs for targeting various customers and ranking for different keywords. It is for the same business though. What is the best strategy to deal with this kind of approach in your opinion. They use different meta data for each of the URLs starting with brand name in meta title. Are there any other points to keep in mind when developing strategy for all those URLs. Is this  a good approach?

[WilliamKammer]

This is not a good approach. Instead of 500 different domains, it sounds like those domains should probably just be pages or paragraphs on a single domain. You're effectively splitting your link juice 500 ways by trying to get ranked for 500 different domains.

It's impossible for you to take the time and effort on each domain, so the entire campaign will suffer. Instead focus on a single domain, and build that up to cover the areas you want to.

Google knows all about people who try to game the system by buying a bunch of domains. Not only is this a bad approach, it can leads to Google being very unhappy with your brand.

[alicaomisem]

In this case, would you advise to remove all of those URLs?

[WilliamKammer]

Yes. Unless you've noticed that a couple of those domains have gained traction. Then you can redirect a couple, but not all 500.

[EGOL]

My client purchased over 500 URLs...

OMG!   I would allow at least 400 of them to expire and buy beer with the savings. 

It's impossible for you to take the time and effort on each domain, so the entire campaign will suffer. Instead focus on a single domain, and build that up to cover the areas you want to.

I am in complete agreement with William.  I would work on one site and only use a second domain when my main site was killing the SERPs for a specific topic area (not a keyword - a whole topic area).

[David-Kley]

Optimizing and managing 500 different domains is not only impossible under a normal workload, but also will make each site harder to rank.

Like William stated, you are splitting any link juice over 500 different sites. I would focus your efforts on a few domains that produce excellent results, and either let them expire or park them all on top of one domain.

[Bryan_Loconto]

There is no real need to use all those domains. Build the trust and authority with your primary brand URL. Maybe use "some" others if there is any real value but 500, jeeze!!! That will be a ton of work and I think you'd be spreading yourself too thin.

The best plan of action IMO is to focus on properly optimizing and building the TRUST for the company's branded URL. Forget all that old school "microsite" nonsense