How many sites is too many sites?

[lludawg]

Is there a limit on how many sites a webmaster can own? Personally, I think it is a better idea to focus on one or two sites rather than having 10+ sites and not being able to fully work on each of them. Let me know if you agree or not!

 

[alphaguild]

I agree on you with keeping it to a few websites. The more sites you have, the more spread out your efforts will be keeping the quality down. Unless a site gets big enough where you can hire a skilled team to maintain it for you and still profit from it then it's best to focus your efforts on a handful of sites at most.

 

[Kleineganz]

I probably have too many sites overall, but I really enjoy making sites. That's probably part of my problem. I eventually get bored of a site and leave it to stagnate while I work on a new one.

 

[kfander]

A year ago, I owned over a hundred domains, so I got rid of the ones that I wasn't likely ever to do anything with. I now have about eighty, and have content on perhaps 40-45 of those, but have plans for the others. There are some that I have just because I bought the .net and the .org along with the .com -- they just redirect to the .com site.

I have created sites that are devoted to very small North Dakota towns, most with populations of under a hundred. It's an easy niche and since these towns don't even have official municipal sites, I can gain the number one or two position shortly after Google discovers the site, usually competing only with the Wikipedia page, which will include a link to my site anyhow. It is a tight niche, so these sites don't see big numbers, as far as traffic goes but I have a site with more than 300 pages on a town with a population of under 50, so it is very likely that anyone who has ever lived in that town, or known anyone who has lived in that town, will come across it sooner or later. Much of my traffic comes from email messages, or from searches on the names of people who have lived there, since I include biographical sketches on early residents. The nice thing is that, although I spend a great deal of time building the site, it's a one-time job, other than to add some little bit that someone might send me, like photos or additional historical information, and I don't have to spend one dime on marketing.

 

[Sam1]

It ultimately depends on your "strategy" as such as a webmaster. There isn't really a number where you can say "oh, now I have too many sites.". If you are building niche websites for adsense/ amazon associates revenue, then the more the better as you are unlikely to update them often. If you are flipping sites, then the more the better. Otherwise, you probably should stick to 3 sites max. You will do better if you focus on improving the sites you have. The only reason why you'd own a crapton of sites is if you have a huge amount of time OR you have to have them for ego purposes.

 

[net_zen]

You're owning too many websites when you stop making back what you invest. Some people build websites for money, others for personal satisfaction - when one stops receiving any of those maybe it's time to stop the new acquisitions and focus on a website or two. Personally, I own 6 domains and each new purchase came out of the need to expand and cover more ground, but this only after my other sites were doing well.

 

[Goat of Departure]

I don't think there is a limit to how many you can run. The only limit you have to consider if your personal limitations. A man can have 100+ websites if he wants to but the question is, can he handle them all? Of course having multiple sites can be good if you're planning on making a lot when it comes to revenues but you have to consider the fact that you have to establish them first and it's not easy task.

If you can maintain more than one site then it's good to have more than one but if you can't even focus and maintain a single site then having another one is really pushing yourself to the limits.

 

[OhioTom76]

I think once you get all the sites built and up and running smoothly, it's feasible to run 10-15 sites, though I wouldn't do more than that. All you would really need to be doing at that point going forward is writing a couple of articles a day and posting one to each site, so by the end of the week there is at least one new article per site. One article per week is a decent posting rate, but 2-3 times week would be better if you can write faster and more efficiently.

The other thing to consider is if it's really worth paying to renew all those domains year after year, since you lose many of the first year discounts.

 

[Soulwatcher]

I have learned from the past its better to just stick to one website. Because its too hard to maintain quality on more then one website. Either one website will prosper and the others will fail, or worst case all your websites fail. I tried to run just two websites, they were two forums on different subjects and both of them failed and I got away from websites for a year. Now I just focus on my new forum and I have no plans to make any other websites.

Greg

 

[calebmelvern]

It depends on so many variables. If you have the budget to hire somebody to manage a portion of your entire network, then things become a whole lot easier. I know a lot of webmasters who have VAs just to set up and organize new domains. It also depends on how large you want a particular site to be.

 

[proxynvpn]

I believe it varies for everyone. You yourself know how much time you have to put into sites so it's up to you how many you choose to run. I myself feel that 2 - 3 is more than enough for me with help from others and I wouldn't go any further than that but I have known people to run 5 or more.

 

[Deka]

I think if technically you just own the sites and you have a person to manage them it's fine to have a lot of sites. But if you're the owner as well as the manager, then that can be troublesome. I guess if you can handle the pressure and workload, it's fine as well. But I doubt that you can equally portion your time and effort to all sites without favouring one. I think we would all have our favourite sites, one that derives most traffic and is the most active.

But if you have the money, why not just have someone manage your different sites? This way, you can be assured that they would get undivided attention and promotion. Compared to you dividing your 24 hours to different sites and in the end, failing to achieve what you desire for them to happen.

 

[wallcat]

I have too many ideas I want to try, but I know it'll be too stressful to maintain them all. I'd rather only focus on one or two so that I can do a really good job on them. I'm bad for taking on too many projects at once, and the lack of focus is more of a hindrance than anything else. I guess I have this anxiety about not wanting to put too many eggs in one basket, but in doing so all of my projects are less likely to succeed.