[thelist] Blog URLs - single blog domain or multiple?

[Gersten, John]

We have been advised by several different people that from a search optimization point of view, it is best to position commentary blogs on a separate domain from one's main corporate domain. 

For example, if one's main company website was www.universalwidgets.com, a blog about industry trends should not be positioned at www.universalwidgets.com/blog, but rather at a separate domain such as www.widgetsblog.com. This seems sensible enough; our problem comes with the prospect of multiple blogs.

Does anyone have any sense of an optimum approach when creating more than one "parallel" blog? The choice to us seems to be between:

Approach #1:

www.widgetsblogs.com/legalblog
www.widgetsblogs.com/productblog
www.widgetsblogs.com/runningawidgetcompany etc.

vs.

Approach #2:

www.widgetslegalblog.com
www.widgetsproductblog.com
www.widgetsrunningawidgetco.com etc.?

Obviously there would be slightly higher costs and housekeeping on Approach #2, but we're happy to go that way if putting all the blogs under a single domain would have negative consequences in terms of search-friendliness.

Any info/opinions anyone might provide will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!