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To people in the SEO industry the idea of creating multiple domains to host the same content is anathema — you just don’t do that. Why? Because the search engines see it as being abusive and misleading. Most people who ask in SEO forums if they can do this don’t really have deception on their minds. They’re thinking in terms of coverage (of keywords and trademarks) and productivity (getting as much bang for their buck as possible).

In some forums people who are new to search engine optimization can expect to be laughed at, ridiculed, and treated very badly by the so-called “experts” who are supposedly there to help them. When a naive idea like using multiple domains is broached, a new round of carping and belittling is as likely to start up as not. That’s hardly fair to the people who don’t know what they are risking and who took the chance to ask complete strangers for help.

The SEO community often overlooks what is so obvious to people who know nothing about search engines and search engine guidelines. That is, your content needs multiple entry points because you cannot control how people will find it. Intuitively a lot of people get that. And then they make contact with the SEO community and they are indoctrinated to think in terms of Toolbar PR, one domain, one entry point. Many SEOs pay lip service to the long tail of search but when they look at other people’s sites they hardly ever look beyond the first page.

And SEO-designed or optimized blogs are usually very badly “optimized”. They turn off categories and tags, nofollow half the pages, and install useless SEO plug-ins that interfere with a site’s crawlability. These are the people that everyone else turns to for help and advice. Is it any wonder the Web is screwed up in the search results?

The truth is that if you want to SEO multiple domains, you can do it. And it’s not rocket science — not even close. If you have a 20 page site and you want to spread it across five domains, you can do that. Just put 4 unique pages on the five domains. And then have the domains link to each other.

But then they would be INTERLINKED DOMAINS! Oh my, what a sin! Interlinking domains. Whoever thought of interlinking domains must have been a “spam genius”. Why? Because many SEO experts and gurus believe you’ll get banned or penalized for interlinking your domains. I only know of one search engine that ever objected to interlinking domains and that was Yahoo!. They refused to accept multiple listings in their directory for interlinked domains.

It’s not the interlinking that gets Webmasters into trouble. It’s the link manipulation. If you have five domains and link them all together the search engines won’t care. If you create 50 domains or 500 domains and they only link to each other, that’s something different. That’s a link farm. What’s the difference? Call it a matter of scale and intent. No one is going to twist the search algorithms with 5 interlinked domains (especially if those domains have the good sense to link out to other sites that don’t necessarily link back).

When you start pointing 50 links with identical anchor text at a page — or 500 — then you get into link manipulation. That is the core process that every “white hat” link building SEO practices. It’s manipulation, it’s manipulation, it’s manipulation. Accept it for what it is and get over it.

The truth is that if you SEO multiple domains, using the same site under different names, you can do it a right way and a wrong way.

The right way to spread your content across five domains is to give each domain its own brandable function. The content on each domain focuses on what that domain is trying to achieve.

The right way to interlink your sites is to let people know you have other sites. Show them a list of “Other Sites” or “Network Sites” or “Sister Sites”. Don’t intermingle your navigation because that confuses visitors and you may screw up your crawlability.

The right way to show you’re creating something other than a link farm is to link out to other sites from each of your domains. Don’t link to competitors if you don’t want to. You should be able to find relevant, informative content that doesn’t compete with your own content in your targeted keywords.

The right way to make the decision to use multiple domains is to understand the distinctions between the query spaces you’re optimizing for. If you’re optimizing only for a single query space then you’re most likely just creating microsites to support a single site. There’s nothing wrong with this strategy but you still have to build value into each of the microsites. If you’re optimizing for multiple query spaces then you really are creating multiple brand values. It’s easier to create distinctive brands for separate domains than to try to gather them all under one domain.

You don’t want to use the same content for multiple domains. On the surface that looks like the easy way to get a lot of work done but all it does in the end is create even more work for you. Spammers automate the process so they don’t care about the work. Real, legitimate businesses don’t have the inclination to create thousands of spammy sites. They have honest reasons for wanting to grab those five domains.

The best thing an SEO can do is listen to what those reasons are and help the client shape a strategy that requires no more effort than write-once-post-five-times but which achieves the desired result of placing unique, brandable content on each domain.

It’s wrong to simply dismiss the idea of creating five Web sites for one business. Until you know what the business leader is thinking, you’re in no position to judge his motives or methods. He may have the right objective in mind but he doesn’t know how to achieve it. Professional “best practices” SEOs show their stuff when they step up to the plate and help the client achieve the objectives.

There may indeed be pros and cons to weigh. There may be no business case for making multiple brands. Nonetheless, the worst possible thing an SEO can say is “That’s the wrong idea”. The first words out of your mouth should be: “What are you wanting to achieve?” Help the client elaborate from there.