Multiple blogs for one site

[SEODinosaur]

Hello, one of my competitors built all these blogs and pointed them to their main site.. Is this white hat?

http://steelbuildingsblog.org/  PR3

http://metal-church-buildings.net/ PR2

http://commercial-metal-buildings.org/ PR2

http://metalandsteelbuildings.net/ PR1

http://steel-storage-buildings.org/ PR2

http://texas-steel-buildings.net/ PR2

http://steel-metal-buildings.org/ PR3

http://metal-buildingstore.com/ PR2

http://metalagriculturalbuildings.net/ PR3

Also I am looking at my links vs. theirs and they have a much higher point score for links... But  the company I am doing SEO for has most of same quality links. Can this be the reason they have an edge?

[AnthonyMangia]

A quick check of the IP addresses (http://www.seochat.com/?option=com_seotools&tool=35) shows that whoever made all of these microsites intentionally diversified the Class C addresses of these websites.  This suggests that someone with a fairly advanced knowledge of SEO is behind this little link scheme.

Microsites aren't anything groundbreaking.  These are pretty well done - the content seems unique and there has been some linkbuilding work done to the websites.  I would definitely say that these are contributing to your competitor's success.

The question then becomes...is this something you should be replicating?  That's a more complicated answer.  Microsites can be effective, especially if you give them the same level of TLC that these microsites have received.  Are they your best use of time and resources?  Not always.  The effort spent to build content and develop links for these microsites is probably better spent creating content and developing links for your main site.

The flipside of the argument is that creating engaging content and attracting backlinks in a niche industrial market can be tricky, and sometimes manual linkbuilding (like creating microsites) is just way easier.  The "white hat" response to that is that with enough creativity, pure white hat SEO success is possible.  I'd recommend reading Rand Fishkin's post, "White Hat SEO: It F-ing Works" - if you read through, he breaks down some awesome linkbuilding campaigns that have been executed in "boring" industries.  It's definitely worth the read.

[SEODinosaur]

All of a sudden this company is no longer ranking for their main keywords... Could multiple logs used for keywords and content harm a ranking or be considered cheating to google? or did they do something else to get punished?