Microsites still a viable option with google?

milojones

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Hi Guys, just wanted to ask a quick question about small affiliate microsites (individual product sites) does anyone still do these, do they still rank well or is it just about building out bigger sites on the niche as a whole?

They were massive back in 2008 and worked really well and just wanted to know if it was still an option?

Cheers
 
IMO Shift your thinking to building brands, not sites.
 
That's very true but for some of the verticals i'm looking at brands are not needed.
 
milojones said:
That's very true but for some of the verticals i'm looking at brands are not needed.
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Okay - well are you seeing Microsites ranking in those verticals? If you see them ranking you can build a brand to become an authority OR you can create a microsite in that vertical. But if you don't see them ranking anymore within that particular vertical - you know the answer.
 
I'm sure, through testing, you can figure out a way to get a thin content site to the top of the SERPs temporarily with spam links.... but I highly doubt that they would remain ranked long enough to make any significant money, or the cost of getting them ranked would be prohibitive.
 
At this point, there's really no reason to build a microsite. You could, but brand it, and that would be better. But the best is to build a larger, authority site with a brand.

The reason is all three take the exact amount of time to ramp up. So what's the point of having a finish line 10 feet in front of you when by the time you get there you have enough momentum to glide to 100 feet and then 500 feet in the same amount of time?

Everything in SEO right now, if you want longevity, is taking advantage of compounding power while avoiding repetitive ramp up times. As mentioned above, worthwhile spam is cost prohibitive because it's no longer spraying 100 million links. It's building out PBN's. And why do you think everyone is selling access to their PBN's? Because none of it lasts, so they might as well cash out and have YOU cover the cost of their prohibitive link spamming.

Do it right or don't bother. Yeah, you can make some nice cash continually attempting to cheat the system, but that window is getting tighter and tighter, and the real cash is with real business.
 
Do you have too choose one or the other? Do both.. Microsites are invaluable for ORM, and they provide a diversified backlink profile. It's also similar to a pbn, in that you can control how the sites are linked, and accumulate backlinks to microsites.
 
Depends on the niche. I've seen niches where that is a highly successful path to take... very successful :wink:
 
Chris Sanfilippo said:
Do you have too choose one or the other? Do both.. Microsites are invaluable for ORM, and they provide a diversified backlink profile.
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Yes, microsites work great as satellites around a main site. A brand like GoPro could have microsites showcasing how their camera is used for specific sports. Not only does these sites bring referral traffic back to the main site, but they add depth to the brand and give you more contexts to receive natural links. And microsites aren't necessarily a bad strategy. But you should have an exit strategy so that if the ROI on your time isn't there, you can push the site into a niche PBN and move on.
 
Ryuzaki said:
Everything in SEO right now, if you want longevity, is taking advantage of compounding power while avoiding repetitive ramp up times.
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This is the damn truth.
 
Bee said:
@Ryuzaki What is meant by compounding power in this instance?
Thanks!
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Disregard this -- I'm answering this so I can compare what I'm hoping is the right answer with what Ryu will hopefully say later. Gotta do my daily homework.

Google "supposedly" really likes authority sites, right? Some SEO people talk about building a brand website. You see them everywhere if you get your hands dirty. I'm gonna beat the dead horse again, but just think about The Wire Cutter and Sweethome. They show up in serps for whatever they write about. Their domains are "brands."

Look at their competitors, a lot of them are "brands" as well. ***'sGuide, Top10Rev, and so on. But there are also more "nichy" branded websites that just focus on everything about 1 product.

The more and more focused you get, the less sense it makes for you to write articles about other stuff, right? BestDronesForKids.com can't write about cell phone battery packs. But, TheWireCutter can do both easily.

Now, think about doing link building for BestDronesForKids.com. You do 10 blog comments a day, outreach, guest posting, etc. You're going to have to put a lot of effort into all this to start ranking on the first page I would assume. And when you get there, "that's it."

TheWireCutter ranks for terms that 100+ micro niche sites might rank for, but all-in-one. Just imagine if every single backlink you built to those 100 micro niche websites was actually pointed at 1 website..... So, when micro niche does it, they get XX amount of "link juice." When the wirecutter does outreach to one article on drones, they get XX amount of "link juice." Except those new links are added on top of ALL the other links they built. They've got 10K compounding links and a micro niche has 100. The more sites you open up, the more you spread yourself thin as you try to build them all up, while the wirecutter casts out a hugeass fish net instead of one line at a time.​
 
@Bee, When I talk about compounding power, I'm basically talking about metrics in Google's algorithm that aren't page based. This essentially boils down to domain-wide metrics.

While links directly to a page matter, as well as the age of that page, the social signals, and on-page optimization... they are only one part of the story, and a minor one at that.

The reason is, Google has chosen to deal with spammers by focusing on things that spammers have a hard time faking or won't spend the energy or time. They are short-sighted, and even if they can think about 6 months in the future, they won't act on it. These "things" would be:
  • Brand Signals
  • Time Signals
  • Link Signals
And the way to choke the spammers out and rank higher quality pages in their SERPs is to minimize the amount a page can contribute to its own rankings and focus more on the overall domain.

Here's the thing, a spammer may buy a branded, aged domain with a lot of links, but then if they start spamming they're going to get caught anyways. But forget about spammers. That wasn't the point.

The point is that these 3 items above all contribute together and seem to trip various levels of thresholds related to two vague concepts you'll see people talk: "Trust" and "Authority"

It's not just about the amount of links like it was in the past. It's about WHO links to you, WHO gives you social signals, etc. Things you can't fake or earn with a tiny, ridiculous, made-for-advertising site.

It's basically this... a new site is dampened in its ability to rank as well as it should for about a year it seems. Why wait a year over and over again when you can do it once. If you were to get 20 EDU links and 10 GOV links contextually to a site... are you going to be able to pull that off again with your next domain? If I did pull it off again, I'd rather have 40 EDU links and 20 GOVs all at the same domain. I don't care which pages, because the domain-wide metrics get a huge boost and all pages rise with that tide.

Do any of us really have the time or care, even if we had a huge team, to build a branded social network across 30 social sites and actually use them? And then do it again, and do it again, for each new site? That's why Brand is a part of trust.

Another way to state all of this is guessing which page would rank over the other one:
  • A brand new page with zero links and decent on-page optimization on a domain with 1000 referring domains linking in and 10,000 social signals, and 500 pages of content with links spread all around with lots of branded and random anchor texts, or...
  • A 1 month old page with 100 referring domains linking in with no branded anchor text, and a careful ratio of exact match and partial match anchors, with 100 social signals, on a domain with 25 pages of content and a negligible amount of other links other than the ones to this page.
One page appears to kick ass while another appears to suck. But you can bet your ass the first page is the one that ranks. I see it every time I do keyword research, every single time.

And that's because domain-wide metrics is what stops spammers, and so that's what's heavily weighed in the algorithm. And it takes a lot of time, effort, and money to ride that wave until you have trust and authority.

The reality on my main site is, I can publish a properly optimized page, pop in on page 2 or 3, wait a month, and I'm at the bottom of page 1. By the end of month two I'm top 5. By the end of month 3 I'm top 3 for the main term and all of the related long-tails, all with zero links to the page. A handful of links drives it home later.

Meanwhile all of the exact-match micro-sites are frustrated at the bottom of page 1 because I just outranked their homepage with zero effort. And it's because the rest of my huge site has a lot of cumulative backlinks and social signals and it's been around a long time on a branded domain with actual brand actions going on.
 
Nat said:

TheWireCutter ranks for terms that 100+ micro niche sites might rank for, but all-in-one. Just imagine if every single backlink you built to those 100 micro niche websites was actually pointed at 1 website..... So, when micro niche does it, they get XX amount of "link juice." When the wirecutter does outreach to one article on drones, they get XX amount of "link juice." Except those new links are added on top of ALL the other links they built. They've got 10K compounding links and a micro niche has 100. The more sites you open up, the more you spread yourself thin as you try to build them all up, while the wirecutter casts out a hugeass fish net instead of one line at a time.​
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This is one of the major reasons why I have shifted from creating microsites to working on just one 'authority' site. On top of this, link building is so much easier to do for a branded authority site like for example dailykitten.com as opposed to bestkittengroomers.com.

My microsites are still earning, but I don't work on them or expand on more. I put all my time into one site now.
 
TL;DR Version:
Build fortresses instead of crack-houses
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There's a barrier to competition with modern automation processes. Technologies are advancing rapidly. There are countless companies who've been at this game for the better part of the last 20 years, since internet marketing began. There are companies whose entire business model consists of "churn 'n burn", algorithmic and programmatic microsite generation, and generally inundating niches in a systematic manner. There's just no realistic way the "little guy" is going to compete with that in the long term. Sure, ghetto "shaker" sites, WPAI generated sites....you'll make a few bucks here and there, but it won't sustain for most people. For the average, independent internet marketer, it is often still a matter of building a business model on a rocky and structurally unstable foundation versus building a concrete brand that will persevere. Invest in your brand. That's not a bullshit "content is king" statement either, even though people often mindlessly regurgitate the "build your brand" mantra with merely a surface-level understanding.

What people seem to forget or sometimes be unaware of is, there's guys, there's companies out there who have this down to a science. I'm talking down to the point of automation scripts and systems on standby. In essence, choose a niche, run a CLI command or two to fire off a few scripts, sites with thousands of pages generated in no time flat, brute forcing you right out of a niche with ease. While you're busy doing stuff manually, they're using API's, automation, and their own internal, aggregated data sets. Their scripts have scripts, man. You, with your Excel sheets of scraped data and manual spintax. Them with their TERABYTES of accumulated data sets, advanced algorithms, and state of the art linguistic programs. This is the big data age bros. This is the machine learning age. The technical barrier to becoming competitive in certain realms is beyond reach of most. Considering that, if you can't answer your own questions, probably best to focus on building fortresses versus building crack-houses for a living.

None of this was directed at anyone, and was purely intended to help those that might otherwise waste their time working hard vs. smart. I know, because I've been there myself and learned the hard way.
 
Nat said:
Google "supposedly" really likes authority sites, right? Some SEO people talk about building a brand website. You see them everywhere if you get your hands dirty. I'm gonna beat the dead horse again, but just think about The Wire Cutter and Sweethome. They show up in serps for whatever they write about. Their domains are "brands."
​
Click to expand...

The question that this inspires for me, then, is... are site like The Wire Cutter and Sweethome beatable?
How does one approach taking on such a huge site?
 
Bee said:
The question that this inspires for me, then, is... are site like The Wire Cutter and Sweethome beatable?
How does one approach taking on such a huge site?
Click to expand...
Baby steps.

Maybe I'm wrong, but those sites in particular could have better on-page optimization. I think the last time I checked they used 1 h1, no h2, and then h3's all the way down.

But its not all about SEO. You might be able to kill them ith social engagement. Or maybe you figure out how to automate something.
  • Email lists.
  • Offer a unique angle they don't.
  • Always be the first mover. Write about a new product before they do. Watch trends. Jump in before AdWords tells you there is volume.
  • Speak to your audience in a way that encourages more sharing.
  • Add awesome interactive features they don't have.
  • Add sections to your site they don't have that will bring in natural backlinks and discussion - for news, and "interviews with the makers," and quizzes...
The real problem here is that there isn't enough time in the day to try out everything by hand... not that it can't be done.
 
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Bee said:
The question that this inspires for me, then, is... are site like The Wire Cutter and Sweethome beatable?
How does one approach taking on such a huge site?
Click to expand...

One possible option is to identify 1 particular deficiency in their offerings, focus on owning that, and begin to build a brand and recognition around that, then expand outward and scale. Pay particular attention to user feedback, complaints, and perceived issues with the site(s) and their offerings. On the other end of the spectrum, try to keep an eye out towards ensuring that the niche or angle, you've chosen as that unique value proposition, doesn't pigeon hole you in such a manner that it won't really allow you to effectively expand and scale.
 
milojones said:
Hi Guys, just wanted to ask a quick question about small affiliate microsites (individual product sites) does anyone still do these, do they still rank well or is it just about building out bigger sites on the niche as a whole?

They were massive back in 2008 and worked really well and just wanted to know if it was still an option?

Cheers
Click to expand...
Glenn says it better than I could : https://gaps.com/one-page-google/
His point being : making websites is pretty cheap, the keyword tools aren't 100% reliable. Why not throw a bunch of websites and see if they work?
Different purposes, same tool.

To be honest, the way he's doing it (targeting local niches to rent later the properties) makes logical sense and should work.
Also, check out daryl from lion zeal talking about something similar in this podcast
.
 
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