3000 sites to Graceland

This one shan't make me popular but here goes anyway. Does YouTube fret that too many individuals are posting the same videos on the site; does Google complain that there are too many websites in the world on the same topics; does Wikipedia carp about having too many writers/editors on the same subject; does TED cavil that there are far too many bright people in the world with far too many bright ideas; does your organization agonize that it has 400 Sharepoint sites (and counting) and 3000 websites?

No, no, and no, but YES on the last one. Your organization (unlike the others listed above) likely does chafe that its web environment is disorganized and that its Web governance is anaemic (despite a plethora of committees, councils, boards, and secretariats). And a key evidence is the fact that it has too many websites and web spaces (that aren't managed or contradict each other). The 9 or 11 websites on Topic X is probably everybody's favorite example, and the story of 400 or 480 Sharepoint sites has probably already become a lightning rod among furious assenters. I must confess that there's a certain point to the hand-wringing about the unseemly growth in the number of websites but as is often the case, this may just be the symptom of a different problem.

The question that an organization should really be asking is not 'why the 19 sites on topic X' but 'why are 19 different groups working on topic X' and if there should indeed be 19 different groups working on topic X, 'why aren't they working together or collaborating more'. There may indeed be perfectly legitimate answers to these questions but you can't (and shouldn't) resolve the issue by shutting down the 18 websites whose Webmasters don't care (or exist) any more, or by merging them all into 1 'master' website destined to collapse under the weight of hubris. What Web teams instead should focus on are the user experience and credibility problems that readers encounter -- how do you build common functional search across all websites (even if there are thousands of them) from a common/pervasive location, how do you gradually recede poor quality content from view while taking care to preserve and promote valuable content (even if it old and poorly managed), how do you simplify the user experience without making your content resources simpler. With everything moving to the web, the notion of a website (or websites) is becoming increasingly muddled -- the quest for ONE website may thus be anachronistic anyway.

None of this to deny the need to 'clean up' your Web -- you just need to be sure you are answering the right questions.