Microsites and SEO

The subject of microsites (smaller sites operating in the same market under the same owner that are used either in place of or to support a single bigger site) comes up a lot in SEO conversation. I have recently been talking about this to some prospects, so I have decided to write up my thoughts on the matter. It's surprising how beginners are forever tempted to reinvent SEO, and how consistently they revert to ideas that are about a decade old. Creating microsites liberally to target individual keywords is a very common practice among SEO novices and amateurs.

Why it's a bad idea
People usually create microsites for the following misguided reasons:
• With many KID (keyword-in-domain) sites I can target multiple keywords.
• I will cleverly interlink my sites; this will give me some link power.
• I will put my quality content on a separate authority site which will get a lot of links, and then I will link that domain to my commercial site to get it to rank for my keywords.
• Microsites are more focused thematically, so it is easier to rank them for the relevant terms.
• Many directories don't support "deep links" into a single site, but I can link to my multiple home pages from the same directory

(Have I missed your reason? Please let me know what it is and let's consider it separately.)

None of the above are compelling, and most are based on a very old understanding (think Google's original PageRank algorithm). You may get temporary ranking boosts by running microsites, but don’t get your hopes up that the effects will last: they will go away once your rankings are fully evaluated.

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