So, whats wrong with this setup?

[david2936]

I have a single product that is used by 3 different industries (verticals). I want to create separate sites for each vertical because we want to make sure they look to us as specialists in each of their respective verticals.

Our strategy is to have one ecom transactions site, 3 vertical specific sites and 3 vertical specific micro-sites.

Example:

ecom.com/ (http://www.example.com) Transaction Site Separate IP

Vertical1.com/ (http://www.example.com) Vertical Site Separate IP
Vertical2.com/ (http://www.example.com) Vertical Site Separate IP
Vertical3.com/ (http://www.example.com) Vertical Site Separate IP


blah1.com/ (http://www.example.com) Micro-site Shared IP
blah2.com/ (http://www.example.com) Micro-site Shared IP
blah3.com/ (http://www.example.com) Micro-site Shared IP

All the Vertical sites will link to the ecom site for transactions, and all the microsites will point to their respective Vertical sites.

Is this a viable strategy?

[BasicECommerce]

Be careful with your SEM in this strategy. Google will eventually put the pieces together if you have multiple accounts directing to different websites (yes, they do find relationships at the account level. Long story short - we've had problems translate into other accounts due to one account's issue.)

Your vertical sites should probably require SEO while your e-Commerce site should use the SEM. Just remember to keep the content unique and specific to the vertical.

-BEC

[jimbeetle]

What's the purpose of the micro-sites?