One big site or lots of little sites? Which is better for SEO and my business in general?

[monetize-266006]

I realize there are some aspects of what I'm asking that only I can answer. With that said, I'm looking for some discussion about the pros / cons of each, and what are the most important factors that will push me one way or another.

Let's say I have a company that has three products. One big brand, three little brands. Each of the little brands is focused on a particular sub-niche, all of which are in the general health & wellness niche.

1. Either, I could create a large site for the big brand, with subsections for each product, and work hard on turning that domain into a goto site, with lots of articles, etc. The domain name for this one would be a made up word so I can fully control the search results.

2. Or, another strategy would be to create smaller, "sniper" sites for each product, maybe even sites for each major search term that is interested in that product. These sites would have fewer articles. Descriptive, exact match domain names.

Which is the best strategy? #1, #2, or a mixture of both? #1 seems legitimate, #2 seems a bit spammy. What are the pros and cons to each? Can anyone speak from experience about both these practices?

[Entrusteddev]

#1 definitely, one big site is easier to optimise, promote and manage than a series of smaller sites.

with lots of smaller sites link building is a huge job where each link will only benefit the site it links too, where as 1 big site all links to it are going to benefit the domain as a whole.

[EGOL]

I vote for the one big site.

Which will rank better?  One big site with 300 links or three little sites with 100 links each?  My money is on the big site.

Which will be more linkable?  One big site with a cluster of products or three hotdog stands with one product each?

Which will give you the opportunity of cross-selling and larger, more profitable sales?  A big site with multiple products or three tiny sites with one product each?

Which will be more work and expense to run?

I used to have a cluster of little sites and then combined them into one big site... and that big site beat all of the smaller sites and all of their competitors.

[MarieHaynes]

I definitely vote for one big site as well.  I think every person has this idea that multiple sites will help because you will be able to crosslink them.  But the juice you get from those cross links is less than the juice you would get from having all of your links pointing to one site.

I would have one main site and then have 3 folders within the site each with their own focus.

[gmellak]

One big site ... what's the advantage of different sites? if you want to make "microsites" or special promotions, you can go with directories, but keep your backlinks together on one single site. Optimize different pages for different terms, keep your internal linking straight, and if you can constantly do something for your linkbuilding, you're all set.

[monetize-266006]

The supposed advantage of different sites (I think) is that you can game the system to rank quickly for niche terms.

So, let's say I have a product that targets people searching for bodybuilding for the elderly (hypothetical, lol). I could register and quickly create a microsite at www.bodybuildingfortheelderly.com. Which is different, say, than claiming a unique brand name, say jubilados.com, and then pointing people to the bodybuilding for the elderly section on that site. I imagine doing the former would be quicker in the short term, and that doing the latter would be better long term.

Thoughts?

[EGOL]

Hey.... what's wrong with body-building for the elderly?

I agree that in the long term a big kickass site will defeat a flock of hotdog stand websites.

[MarieHaynes]

Keywords in the domain name are not carrying as much value as they once did.  (See the Matt Cutts video below).

The value you that you would get from having your keyword in the domain of a microniche is pretty small.

I think, if you had these two options:

bodybuildingfortheelderly.com

MyMainSite/bodybuildingfortheelderly

...you could still rank the second one really well.  And, any links you build to the second one would help the entire domain.

watch?v=rAWFv43qubI