The continuing question regarding authority sites or mini sites may be diminishing in relevance in certain marketing circles. While only operating with a network of minisites, that approach does require a certain amount of risk and greater effort. You will find that authority sites are perceived with much more regard than minisites, and that carries certain benefits for the owner. The minisites do have their benefits, so it really a choice between liking apples or oranges. This strategy can be effective. You can overlook the bigger picture, though, if you focus solely on fast profits. You could subdivide a niche into much smaller categories, each based on a few keywords. You could then put up a dozen or more mini sites, each based on one of these micro niches. It shouldn’t take you long to rank for these key phrases if you chose them wisely.
If you want to please Google, you have to stay current with its latest algorithms, the formulas it uses to rank sites based on quality and other factors. Just like with pay per click advertising, you will incur a lower quality score if your site is deemed, thin. This means that SEO with mini sites will now be quite a bit harder than it used to be if you want to rank well. Even then, you will not get the same amount of traffic that you could earlier in 2010 with an SEO’d mini site. There is an effect that a large website with great content has on a visitor. There is a leap many people make mentally that tells them that the person behind the larger site really is the better authority on the topic. This rarely happens with mini sites. It can, but that is quite rare. Choosing between an authority site or a mini site may come down to how Google influences the rankings in those search results for each type of site. Mini sites can be great tools for any marketer, but you may find you need to spend more time finding ways to attract traffic. Yet you should see more benefits for taking the time and effort to create a bigger site.