Advice on Feeder Sites / Spokes, and what to do about old link trades

[acuteschoolgirl]

Okay, after pondering and pondering on different traffic ideas, I decided to start up a bunch of feeder sites on different hubs, all leading back to my main, hybrid, free-paysite. I was always kind of against this idea, because I don't really want to populate the web with a bunch of junk sites I don't particularly like or care to visit. It just seems like an unfun chore to me.

But, this is what I came up with. I create a lot of free, teaser content, to keep my regulars happy and feeling generous in return. I realized that I could use this free content as my own promotional material (like an affiliate would with sponsor content), and publish older content (recordings, text) to other sites/blogs.

For example, I write diaries for several fictional girls. Each girl could end up with her own simple blog on it's own domain, and I could update them 1-2 times, weaving in sales text, and also cross-publish some of that material (pictures, recordings, maybe stories) onto my main site as well (again, modified, prettier, much more polished). But I could separate my free content from my main site, into 10-12 minor sites, on their own domains, and then use them as sales portals for my main site. Okay, that was all covered in theory, in an awesome Cozy Frog article! ^^

Now these are my questions:

#1: I have a good number of link trades on my main page, which was probably a mistake. Is there a proper way to negotiate with people to shift those links to another site, so that I can keep my main site clear and get my PR for it up? I don't want to just delete all the links, and I'm imagining that not all webmasters are around on a daily, much less weekly basis. How do you normally handle this sort of thing?

#2: How many outgoing links should I have on a feeder page, max, for SEO. I'm not really concerned about getting traffic to my sites from the links (that would be nice too), but mostly to establish all sorts of links to my main site and paying for them with these feeder sites. Because they're less important to me, I also don't mind putting my reciprocal links in a better view position, as long as they don't compete with me for the most prominent advertising space (so I send traffic back out)

#3: Duplicate content: If some of my content is duplicated between feeder and main site (pictures, recordings, partial text) will that get me into trouble with search engines? How much is too much?

#4: The Right Idea?: Is this a good plan for generating traffic to my site? Is this the right idea, compared to buying traffic?

[sunfunbill]

Well I'll give ya my 2 cents. My sites have way, way more links on the front page and I do just fine. So I don't think you need to move those links at all.

However I see a big list of directories on yours. Check your stats and see if your getting any hits from them. IMO directories are worthless and do nothing for you. In a month your links will be buried under hundreds of others.

I've never worried about how many outbound links I have on an adult site. Let's face it, any adult site is going to rank about the same with thousands of others.

Be careful with duplicate content. I use to think it did not matter. But after posting the same articles on three blogs I see two have dropped way down in SEO hits while one has gone way up.

So I assume Google sees the other two as worthless sites with copies. They are slowly going back up now that I'm putting original stuff in them. I'd say a duplicate for every 5 to 10 articles is fine.

Yes what your doing is a good idea. But also,,, and I use to think they were worthless, make some free blogspot blogs.

It's amazing how many adult sites are in those. Use that Google follow thing they have for them and find other sites with traffic you want. Then follow all those in the "followers" thing.

Soon they will find you and follow you, all the way back to your main site. Good luck.

[acuteschoolgirl]

Thanks for the advice Bill. ^^