Day 545 – End Of October Totals
Gordon Pinsent quoting from the book Justin Bieber released about his life, lol..
Well, as some of you know, it seems that near the end of October, Google made an algorithm change which totally changed the rankings of many people’s sites…
For some, it was for the better, for a lot, it was for the worse.
I personally have noticed 3 of my top sites disappeared from the 1st page of Google…this resulted in a drop in income.. Up until Oct 24th, my main adsense account had an average intake of $110/day. From the 25th to the 31st though, it’s only been an average of $79/day.
My other adsense account also took a hit on the 28th, going from $18/day to $6/day..
It seems as if my main adsense account is doing a bit better today, the day’s not over yet (6 more hours left) and it’s sitting at $84 so far…but it’s just due to some of my other sites picking up the slack for the 3 top sites that were lost. You see, I have about 10 or more sites that perform well, but they don’t always perform great every single day…so it’s just some of those other sites that weren’t hit, making up for the 3 sites that I lost, for today…
I’m sure I’ve lost a lot more top page rankings for my sites, but I haven’t analyzed past my top few sites…
And who knows why they knocked some sites back while others remained fine. I saw someone post they thought it might be the backlinks, but I have sites that I backlinked identically to the ones that got thrown off page 1 and yet they are still up on page 1 :/…so who knows. But something on the sites that lost their ranking triggered this, whether it’s related to the theme of the site, the content, the backlinks, or maybe it’s a combination of factors.
Anyway, the only answer is to keep on backlinking via a variety of different methods and hope that in time they return. Sites that are thrown back in ranking, as long as they’re not de-indexed, CAN return, only thing you can do is just work on your backlinks. Thing is, you’ll never know when Google decides to bring it back to page 1, so just focus on backlinking up a bunch of your sites and don’t hold your breath for anything returning in “X” amount of time.
Adsense High
One thing of note that happened on the 19th of October was that I saw a nice adsense high on my main account of $160.07 and a grand total of $177.98 overall. I believe this is an adsense high for me and it happened right after I updated some of my top earners with new content. I’m guessing that somehow raised the rankings of these sites which lead to more traffic and thus more money…
The following day I made $142.23 on my main and $152 total… but then following that, I was back down to $92.95, so it seems like that was short lived.
Clickbank
Unfortunately Clickbank seems to have taken a beating this month! I went *8* full days (Oct 14th – 21st) without making a single sale! I’ve never had so many days go by without a sale in forever!
I do know that the drop in hops was part of the problem. I had only 3,595 hops in October and from that made $392.27 Gross….September I had 4,903 hops and $627.45 Gross. Comparing again, August I had 7,095 hops and $896.09…
I can’t say that it’s only because of the hops though because back in February, off of 4,391 hops I made $1,317.91…It could be the products or it could be that I’m not getting hops for the good converting keyword domains anymore.
Here’s a look at what it’s been like the last while:
October Totals
OK, here are the totals:
Adsense Total = $3,711.38 (An adsense high for me! My highest before this was $3,563.67 in March..October’s total is up $389.69 from $3,321.69 last month.)
CB Hops = 3,595 (Last Month = 4,903)
CB = $392.27 GROSS
CB = 21 sales/0 refunds
CB = $392.27 NET
9 UAW Sales = $214.40
1 BLS Sale = $29.10
EBay = $15.10 CAN = $14.90 US
Grand Total = $4,362.05
-Mike
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Any chance on getting an update on your income to see the change since getting mostly Bing/Yahoo traffic?
It would be interesting to see.
Merry Christmas.
@Darren
I think if you added $500-$1500 you would have an idea…(just thinking out loud).
Personally, I’m not sure how you would tell which search engine sent the clicking traffic, you know? You’d still see in your analytics that G has them all beat, so focus on getting more G traffic with SEO and backlinks…
@Mikeman
Oh, missed this one. I just recently noticed that many of my sites are doing the same thing – but the ones I didn’t put any thought into (nor the writers I hired, but not their fault that I posted that chum).
The sites I’ve been changing themes on (going into affiliate marketing more, AdSense less) have all done well and make sales. I wish I had more of a concrete observation … it’s just weird to me.
But that’s the business, ain’t it? Keep swimming.
@Darren
Nah, there’s really no point unless I can show a correlation between work I’ve done and a monetary increase…that only happens when I’m actively trying to increase my income.
I think all the previous daily/monthly updates have served their purpose, and from here on out I’m only going to release updates when I have a point to make or when I have some interesting observation I want to bring up.
@JamestheJust
Ya…
Thing is, this has happened to some of my larger adsense sites too… I’m thinking backlinks will fix the problem.
Hey Mike,
Good to hear from you.
Glad all is well. Just wanted to say that you deserve some time away from everything, after all thats what we work and earn money for isn’t it?
Anyway, will look forward to your posts whenever you get the chance.
Zaheer
@Zaheer
Thanks Zaheer..
-Mike
Hey Mike,
Wishing you Merry Christmas here. Hope you enjoy your holiday and wishes come true!
@leon
Thanks dude, you too.
Unfortunately I’m spending my time re-installing everything as my Windows was corrupted..
Also, got to re-do about 8-10 solid hours worth of work from lost article submissions via Article Marketing Robot.
(If you ever reinstall Windows, make sure to backup the C:\Users\LoginID\AppData\Roaming )!
@Mikeman
Merry Christmas, man – and uh…did you just say “AMR”??
Glad you’re on it, Mike. I blast articles with it (in one shot) after 3-4 weeks of a new site being up. That thing rocks my rankings so far.
@JamestheJust
Merry Christmas James :> Ya…I’m using that and testing out a couple other backlinking tools as of late..
Hi Mike,
just i want to wish for u a MERRY Xmas and a HAPPY NEW YEAR for u and ur family…..looking forward for news from u…bye Buddy.Frank
Hi Mike,
….bye. Francesco
just wanna say u HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011, to ur family and friends and all members and visitors here…..have a great new YEAR!!!!…mmm..and a good income stream too, hehe
@Lucifero
Hey thanks Francesco, happy New Year
Hi Mike,
you’ve probably seen all the talk about authority sites and how Google is slapping all thin websites over Griz’s, Court, Leo, etc.
Right now I’m beefing up all my websites and replacing content that I believe is thin with good, well-written content.
Nonnetheless, I was wondering about the use of UAW on my websites? What do you think about it? I think it is definitely a grey hat technique at least, but do you believe it would get you in trouble in the long run?
I wouldn’t mind sacrificing quick, short-term gains for the better and lasting earnings from completely white-hat websites with good content. I’ve already used UAW in my websites and have seen a definite improve in my earnings; but I wouldn’t mind taking longer to achieve the same goals if I knew that they would last longer by not using UAW.
So, what do you reckon? Is it all about the content on your website or do you think that even if you have good content, you might get slapped by the big G for using UAW? Something like:
Great content (legit site) + UAW = “you would be alright if you haven’t used UAW, now you shall get slapped”
Great content + white hat techniques only = “yes, I like it this way”
Not so great content + white hat only = “hummm, you suck at writing, but ok”
I’m thinking of treating all my websites more like real-business, ones that I would build for real companies that would prefer having a clean website instead of having one that would get slapped by G if they found out some GH techniques were used. I’m thinking always about the long-term here.
Cheers! Hope all is well in 2011!
Hey, Mike -
Just wondering how your rankings are. I checked my analytics and network wide, I can tell there’s a massive drop in traffic and looking a bit further, I’ve lost rankings for all but the EMD keywords.
For a while there, a number of KW’s did really well with just a few EzineArticles (unreal), rode that “high” for a few months actually, high up page one for decent terms.
Then, January 5-6 I just got slammed. I thought it was just post-Christmas…now not so sure.
At least my main money site is doing well, it went down a week but it’s all back up to normal, a dozen or so #1 spots…
Funny thing: everything I backlinked aggressively got back up. (Ya think?) Checked my on-page SEO with a couple of plugins (Clickbump SEO and SEO Pressor – more or less the same plugin but CBSEO has LSI terms included) – I can see I need to make some changes.
Anyway, just wondering if you’re seeing any funny business since your network is 800 times larger.
@Wix
Just because you asked – UAW doesn’t get you slapped in so far as sucky content will. If you use UAW and abuse it (10 articles without dripping, blast them all, and don’t vary your anchor text or URLs, for example) then you’ll hate me for lying to you.
But if you’re smart with it and use an indirect approach, for example: blast your Ezinearticles or whatever else you use that directly link to your site…
Or at least drip them out…
AND vary anchor text as well as URLs (don’t think that 500 links to your inner page on brown paper bags with the anchor “brown paper bags” looks “natural” to Google…that will just get you into hot water IMHO)…
Anyway – these are simple ways to mitigate your risk. I have been bounced around a bit with UAW on one occasion, and the site bounced from page 8 or so to #3 when the dust settled.
That was strictly UAW, direct links, one article, and my PR was a 2 after that run (I also got 300 backlinks from it – but it was a pretty popular niche, don’t expect that every time if ever).
I wouldn’t worry about it, Wix – make sure you have good content to link to and slam it.
@Mikeman
Hey Mike hope you had a great time for the holidays and are doing well currently.
Just had a question I am hoping you could answer. I was reading your blog as I always do, almost done with
I came across a statement where you said you do not use webmaster tools anymore and this was back in April of last year.
Just wondering why? Is there a specific reason or simply just saving time by not doing so.
Thanks and many thanks for this blog has truly helped me and my partner reach success in this game we call content publishing
.
@mikeman
Have you ever tried to rank for .info, .co, .me, or .us ? I see a lot of chatter saying that it doesn’t matter. There’s plenty of opportunities out there if I want to step outside the .com, .net, & .org path… but just wondering if you had actually done it and what you had to say about it.
Thanks!
@Master Will
The reason for the lack of Google Analytics, or having a single AdSense account for all your sites, is a personal choice that was born out of a number of high earners in AdSense (notably Ben) getting their sites de-indexed or otherwise having Google pull the ads.
If you give Google a footprint (like your ONE AdSense Id…although, if they all tie into the same bank account this is moot: you need separate accounts as well) – like having Analytics on all your sites – then they can decide to play hardball and go through your entire network once they find one site they don’t like.
If you use one template on all your sites, and Google thinks it’s MFA (made for advertising) or otherwise violates their ToS, you’re in the po’ house.
Mike taught me that, too.
@Dan
It doesn’t matter the domain extension, there’s no known current penalty for any of them (unless you have one of the adult extensions they were talking about).
There *was* an attack / penalty by Google against affiliate sites using .info – but that was years ago. Joseph Archibald at AffordableSEOTipsandTricks.com had an article on that a while back, saying how .info’s rank well and he uses them.
Smart because they’re so cheap. Technically, Info domains are for informational sites, Org for non-profit organizations, Com are for commercial sites and Net for those selling fish net stockings.
Or basketball, volleyball, or fishing nets that you don’t wear on Saturday nights. Or whenever you get down that way.
So with the recent algo change in google, is there any chance Mike will post something with his perspective?
Darren – Mike’s in Tahiti.
Actually I’m not sure what’s up, but according to his last few posts I wouldn’t be surprised if he takes his time, but if you want to hear some good/bad news:
My sites (XFactor template/style) all tanked – those that were short on content and on the actual XFactor template. I have the majority of my income coming from 2 sites now, but that’s nothing new for me. They have better content and deeper pages – and plenty of backlinks (one site Google Webmaster tools records as having over 100k backlinks – I have no idea why unless someone’s hitting me with XRumer blasts).
Would be good to hear how you are doing Mike, its been a while!
Yea, there has been a definite change in the algo. Since this is what Mike said he would comment on (noticeable changes) it will be interesting to read what he writes.
@Darren
I wouldn’t wait for it, but check out the recent blog post at SEO Design Solutions for an SEO perspective and how to actually avoid the penalty.
It’s pretty clear there is an algo change, like Google announced in January would happen against content farms.
Unique content matters, so do quality linking methods. Will be interesting to see how this plays out with article marketing in general, since I’ve been using it mostly on my sites – but that’s only one form of linking.
Some of you still don’t get it. The algo changes will continue to come, and continue to knock the shitty MFA sites (aka xfactor) out of the SERPs. You can say the content is “quality”, or you have 100 pages of content, or whatever. But it’s MFA at heart, both you and I (and xfactor) know it. Whatever you do now to “avoid penalties” will be short term, because next month or 3 months from now, or whenever — they will be knocked out again. Eventually they’ll be knocked out for good.
And that’s why it’s a terrible idea to build these with any expectations of long term income. I feel sorry for mike because I’m assuming the majority of his sites got knocked out. All that money, time, and effort could have been spent towards building something with real quality…something long term. Oh well, lesson learned.
PS I want to mention that the model is still valid. You can still build these sites, rank them, and make some money. I still do now. But the important part is to realize, yourself, it is what it is — a short term site that’s built to make money from adsense or clickbank (or your network of choosing). Don’t rely on these, but still build them for extra income. But, always be working on a larger, long term project that will be around for YEARS to come…and recycle those MFA sites when they are past their peak.
I’ve taken a break from looking at this site since the New Year as I’ve been focused on other things…
Now I come back and check on it and one of the reasons I took a break is here again, ppl stirring up shit.
Lee, the way you’re talking with a chip on your shoulder, looking for an argument for whatever reason, is trolling..save it for WF or some other forum.
Everyone I know of who has made good money doing mini sites has moved on to make authority sites or to further diversify their income…it’s part of the natural progression in developing your online portfolio.
If you’d been following along on this site you’d have seen me mention this and not posted this stupid BS here.
Now as far as why I haven’t updated…
In response to me providing all this information on my journey to a full time income.. for free, what I’ve got in return are a bunch of people searching for my sites and trying to backwards engineer what I’ve done.
Every month I see ppl running “whois” and other queries on this domain and others…
I never meant for this site to get as big as it got. But now that it’s here, and now that I’ve achieved the goal I set out to which was to obtain a full time income, I am hesitant to provide further insights into what I’m doing.
Why provide all this info for FREE when this what you get in return?
At this point, I’m afraid I can’t say when or if I’ll provide any further information on what I’m up to.. if I do, it’s not going to be as detailed as it used to be.
Well it’s good to know I can stop checking this site everyday for an eventual update, because I was starting to wonder what happened to your posts.
I’ve been here since the beginning and haven’t posted all that much, but have watched you go from small earnings to a full time income. It gives me hope that someone made it who just wasn’t afraid to put in hard work and keep trying.
Regardless, I appreciate your contribution to my own and my friends internet marketing career. You’ve done your job here, even if it wasn’t your original intention.
Peace.
@Tyler B.
Hey Tyler,
Ya sorry dude…if something ever were to happen here, you could probably find out if you subscribed to the feed…but ya, don’t have any plans ATM for any updates.
I’m glad that the site was of help to you and your friend…I created the daily blog since at the time no one did those. I felt that this was something that was missing from the IM community and would be helpful or at least interesting. There are quite a few of them these days to follow though.
@Mikeman
Mike, it’s very simple. You provide inspiring and helpful content. Make a membership site and the trolls are gone. I would gladly pay a monthly fee to see your updates and insights.
Hi Mike,
I came across your blog searching for reviews of WP Mage. Don’t worry, I’m not here to steal your game plan, besides it appears I’m a very small fish in a big pond here. I have a couple of blogs I’m looking to boost rankings for and I’ve just read George Browns google sniper and thought I’d try my hand at making a little extra cash, although after reading your real life, not trying to sell anything story, the $400 a month simply from a 3 post sniper site with the simplest of social bookmarking looks a little far fetched. I admire your dedication, but not having six hours a day to devote myself I don’t see how I’m going to be able to retire early on this stuff
Anyway I was hoping the promises of WP Mage were worth the investment? As a newbie I’m still not sure about the whole translating of articles back and forth between languages. The content doesn’t look to always be quality in terms of human readability, however I’m confused as to weather Google also deems it low quality? Also, excuse my naivity, but what is UAW? Cheers, Aerin
@Michel
Hey Michel, thanks man…ya you’re right, that would get rid of them.. But there’s also those who would try to dig in and find out everything they can about you…just comes with the territory I guess, but it’s annoying and it’s a liability..
If I charged, it would kind of make up for that liability …I’ve never been one to get into making money in the IM game though so not sure about that…
@Aerin
Hey Aerin,
Well, I’m not going to say anything about monetary claims made, someone posted about that around the launch of Google Sniper 2, the thread got locked. It was called “Google Sniper 2.0 New Release” you could probably find the thread if you search the WF.
I’ll just say that the system works, but don’t expect $400/month per site. I’m sure you could see $400/month from a exact match domain for a popular product the first month it has been launched. But on avg, you’re not going to see that.
And you don’t need 6 hours a day…I’ve stated this before, I started out on this blog only working 3 hours a day EVERY day(more on weekends). Once you start seeing a bit of success with a method after putting in a good amount of time into it, then you can start to get comfortable with the idea out outsourcing and leverage your time…it’s a process though..you can see how I myself had to work up to doing it if you follow my posts.
I can’t really comment on WP Mage as I never gave it a sincere go..I can say though that I would rather focus on develop quality authority sites though with unique content..
UAW = Unique Article Wizard, it’s a monthly subscription where you can submit spun articles linking back to your site to a little over 1k blogs for backlinks.
-Mike
@Michel
@Michel
Lemme try again…
I meant to say, “No, it wouldn’t,” but Mike sorta beat me to the punch. The progression, though, Mike, that you talk about is a natural one.
Either the algo pushes it onto you or you realize it’s easier, or you find a goldmine site to work on. Then you stick with it and wow – glad you did.
Thanks for your lessons early on, Mike, FWIW you really answered a lot of questions and helped catch me up to speed when I first started (this was the place I asked all the ‘dumb’ questions).
@JamestheJust
Lol..Thanks man
Ey Mike,
Have you tested the ever famous Article Marketing Robot?
@calfred
Hey Calfred, yup..I use that for backlinking, it’s a pretty good addition to your backlinking arenal. You can add your own article sites to it which you can scrape up via Scrapebox so that you submit to more than just the default directories too.
Hi MikeMan,
I’m new to your site and am really enjoying your content. I do have a question for you. I understand you are into CB + MFA sites. For a part of your backlink arenal, do you build Forum Backlinks? I’m wondering if G would ban a MFA site if they found out Forum Backlinks were pointing to a site.
Oh that’s good info! I never even thought about using scrapebox to find more article directories to add to AMR. Thanks!
@Shelly
np Shelly, ya, I submit to about 1k more article directories that way :>
@JasonV
Hey Jason..Not sure what you mean by Google banning, I guess de-indexed? Anyway, I don’t build forum backlinks..regardless of what backlinking you do though you want to make sure it’s varied, that you’re getting backlinks from different sources (Articles/Web 2.0’s/RSS/Other sites in same niche etc..)
I also wouldn’t focus on making any thin sites at this point, but rather focus on building up successful sites.
Hey Mike,
Haven’t commented in a long while! I’m wondering if i can get your email address as i wanted to send you a message in private.
Thanks!
Chris
Mike –
When you set up your hostgator reseller – did you have every domain on its own IP? Or did you have a few on one, few on another, etc?
I’m in the middle of migrating and I had them set it all up for me, they put a few on one and I didn’t necessarily want that. Not a huge deal, but just curious your thoughts.