Originally Posted by MisterPeabody

This is 100% true. In my network I'm fortunate enough to have three whales that have mad traffic and links, and the other smaller sites benefit from that. But what TAC Amateurs is recommending can work, too, especially if the content doesn't warrant differant sites (as in, all the content is in the 'amateur' niche).

This assumes, however, that the single site owns or pays for the content on the site. Perhaps they do splits with the content producers but structure it so the producer is an 'affiliate" instead of a "partner". But if you do 50/50 splits with the content producers, as I do, then each producer needs his own site, domain, etc.

There are advantages and perils to both but I'd say, in the end, what you wrote is best (paraphrasing): have 2 or 3 "big" sites with a bunch of smaller satellite sites surrounding and integrating with them. Kind of like splitting the baby. LOL