Now there are many ways to build a "network" of websites. You can do it the quick (and more expensive) way by going to domain forums and buying a armload of already-built websites that other owners are looking to sell for one reason or another; or you can do it the hard way, by buying unused domains, creating websites, and producing content, one website at a time. Or you can do a combination of both.

Now if you have useful content to supply to these websites, and it's interesting enough to attract visitors, you may be able to earn more money. It makes sense because each of these websites might attract different audiences from different niches, and you'll generate income through your ads, your articles, your affiliates, or whatever your revenue methods might be.

The advantages of owning and operating a web network, is that you have strength in numbers. You can support your other sites through link exchanges, referrals, RSS, or web rings. Each of these sites can help in its own way, because it ends up providing extra backlinks to your sites (how advantageous these backlinks are for search engine results SERPs, is currently up for debate).

Also, if you have customers who are looking for larger business partners, web networks provide an attractive option for those buyers looking to do business with one bigger client, rather than several smaller clients.

Hosting costs can also be consolidated when you have several websites to support the investment. If you're looking at hosting your sites on a virtual private server or a dedicated server, you'll realize that it costs the same money to host one site on that server as it does to host ten sites. Forgiving any additional costs your provider might charge you for bandwidth, you'll realize that the hosting costs are now spread over how many sites you host, so the cost-per-site is reduced.

You'll also find that you might be able to save money on domain renewal costs when you have more domains. Many domain host providers, like GoDaddy for example, will offer discounts on "bulk" renewals.

Networks can also be effectively managed if you can streamline your work, and have a method of updating and creating new content. Try hiring someone to write for your sites if you don't have the time, or better yet, open up the sites to free submissions, offering links in exchange. If your site is worth it, you might even be able to charge money for people to supply content! That's the golden apple right there.

Now finding the right websites to buy or build might be the challenge. You don't want to fall into the trap of creating one website, and then duplicating the site ten or twenty or fifty times, like some webmasters will try to do. First of all, you're polluting the Internet with your watered-down content, which the search engines don't like, and you're competing against yourself because you're trying to attract the same people to all of your websites. I don't know too many people who are going to visit more than one or two sites that have the exact same material.

These so-called "blog networks" are simply a nuisance, and while they might make some money through their blitzkreig tactics, in the end, they're destined to fail, because the search engines will catch up, and they're find a hard time building user bases.

If you really want to be successful managing and maintain a whole slew of websites, make them all original, make them all interesting, and be willing to invest the time and the effort to make them attractive to visitors. Just imagine yourself as the web surfer who visits one of your sites. Would you come back? Would you bookmark it?

Just remember that the real web networks are more than just registering a group of nonsense blog sites and pumping them all with the same worthless posts. The real money will be made by those who can successfully operate professional, content-based website that people want to visit--often.