Using Multiple Web Properties for SEO

I know many SEO professionals and amateurs who create multiple web properties using free blogs and sites like wordpress.com and blogger.com just to get links back to their main site. Many of these secondary sites are low quality content and not updated so I doubt their value is very high and they may have very little effect at all.

I’m thinking of testing out a similar strategy using the same types of web properties but actually keeping them updated with fresh and unique content and linking them to relevant blog posts and pages on my main site. The idea is that with fresh content, these sites may have a better reputation with search engines and as a result links to my main site from these secondary sites will be more valuable. What do you think?

Before you answer, let me answer some of the obvious questions many of you will ask and add another question to the mix:

  1. Many of you will ask, why not just put all this content on your main site? My response: I plan on creating content myself for my main blog but plan to create a small outsourced army to create decent content for these other web properties linking to my site. So I’m not neglecting my main site/blog to create this content on other sites. I’m doing both!
  2. If this is done for a long time, the result could be, for example, a Wordpress.com blog with lots of content and relevant links back to my site. However, a ton of links back to my site from one single site may seem unnatural so is it better to link to many relevant sites including my main site only occasionally? I’m thinking this might be the most natural approach but what do you think is a good approach here.
  3. This isn’t the only SEO strategy I am using, just something I add to the mix so feel free to tell me what a better use of my time and resources might be, but realize I am already doing other things to promote my site and build links.

Thanks in advance for your comments. I’m curious to read your thoughts.

I think it a viable solution. You run the risk of google seeing them as doorway pages though. thats bad. I did the same thing for a while. When panda hit my site dropped off the map. Removing any doorway pages was part of my fixing strategy. All I did worked. Everything in moderation. I think if you set up this site and link to yours occasionally and when it makes sense I think it should be a benifit. If you over do it it would be bad.

Thanks, Eric. What would your definition of a doorway page be? How did you have them setup? Was it basically what I described?

The goal may have to be to setup independent blogs that are valuable on their own and then only have a few occasional links to your site. That’s probably the most natural thing to do.

Exactly. I see nothing wrong with that. Neither would google. My other sites were also valuable in their own right. I just over did it on the back links. So I removed all of them. I’ll reinstate them when I site down and find a better strategy. But your right. If they are valuable sites I highly doubt google would see them as doorway pages. Wow listen to me. This is what comes of reading seo articles for 3 months strait.

Makes sense. The more I think about it though, the more I think that my content would be better used as guest posts on blogs that are already established rather than trying to create my own reputable blogs. Guest posting is something I’m already doing but could do more of.