There's no clear preference, but a couple good rules of thumb are:

* Keep the a site targeted on a clear purpose

* Make sure your content speaks to your keywords

If your content is all of a certain theme (i.e., it's all about sports) then there is no problem. If you have some content about sports and other stuff about knitting, probably best to have the content on two separate sites, since there will be no content synergy and/or depth.

The advantage of everything on one site is that you can quickly show depth of content and, if it's optimized with keywords, you start your way toward higher page ranking.

The advantage of lots of sites is that you can crosslink the heck out of them, another key factor in raising page ranking for each. (Google likes inbound links.)

Obviously, given what I've said here, the best scenario is lots of sites with lots of content and all generating lots of traffic and lots of additional links. But barring this perfect world scenario, I refer back to the rules of thumb as a good place to start.

These are very simple answers to what is probably a more complex dilemma for you, so feel free to ask for additional information. I also note here that I am not a search expert, but have a marketing podcast that brings on experts to deal with these types of issues all the time.

Links below include the SEMPO site for finding qualified search consultants, a Wikipedia article on the subject of search optimization, and my own site for additional listening and blog posts.
Source(s):
http://www.sempo.org/home

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

http://beancast.us


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