Originally Posted, Sunday, January 18, 2009
The longer I blog online the more I realize the irony involved in making money with CPC Ads. I’ll get to that in a minute though… first up…
A big fat PR0 – yup – the big G finally slapped me good. Why?
Well when all your pages are reduced to the big goose egg it is usually a sign that they perceive you to be selling links. Am I selling links? Nope. But I can see how they might get the idea based on the amount of links I have on my homepage. I could write them and plead my case – I have a lot of friends and all my links are legit but I’m not going to. I have said this for ages – pagerank has nothing to do with serp rankings and perhaps dominating the MMO niche with a big fat PR0 site will get my point across in spades. For those who were concerned my serp rankings haven’t changed and the SE traffic is still pouring in.
How this happened is likely the result of some “friend” who reported the site as selling links. You will find that dominating a popular niche is a constant battle with competitors and they will do whatever it takes to unseat you.
Which brings me back to keeping anonymous online. Yes I know this goes against every blogger’s deepest desire – to get famous. The thing is I’m not a blogger – I’m an internet marketer and my goal is to make money. You make money by flying under the radar and I want to give you all a prime example of what I mean.
I don’t post often. I get a lot of emails asking me to post more. There is a reason for not posting (aside from being lazy)… I make more money not posting.
Huh… wtf you say.
Tis’ true… let me show you what I mean.
Some CPC Ad Secrets
This has taken a long time to decipher and I’m still not convinced that I have it right so don’t take this as gospel but…
3000 ad impressions a day seems to be a magic number with Google.
The screenshot below shows my Adsense income for January (for this blog only) – the January 18 (today) total is not final as it shows my earnings early in the day when I took the shot.
After two months of lower than normal earnings (lack of advertiser competition I believe) my January earnings bounced back nicely and until a few days ago were on course for a new high with this blog.
Click to Enlarge
Whenever I post I get a surge of traffic – the surge is un-targeted (my readers) and my CPC drops for several days until readers tail off. As long as my ad impressions stay above the 3000 barrier my CPC doesn’t drop more than 10 cents a click. If my ad impressions fall below the 3000 barrier I see a 30 cent drop in earnings per click.
Because I haven’t posted since December 27, 2008 my earnings have been great – my traffic has been 80% search engine and 20% social. In other words I make more money when my readers aren’t flocking to the site – ie. the less I post the more money I make.
Absurd? Yup. Unfortunately this is the key to making money with Adsense.
So what happened on Friday the 16th? My earnings nosedived without me posting.
Less clicks? Nope. I had more clicks on Friday than on Thursday but earned $50 less.
Less Ad impressions? Yup – I dropped below the magic 3000 for the first time in weeks.
and to top it off I began getting a steady stream of un-targeted traffic from the Warrior forum.
The cumulative effect was a quick drop in earnings.
And since my earnings are already in the crapper I figured today was a good time to post a new entry.
And now you know my secret to when I post. I usually only post when my earnings are down and more un-targeted traffic won’t do any more damage.
This is not to say I don’t appreciate all of you who read my blog – I surely do. This blog completely baffles me as it actually has readers and I have made a lot of great friends because of it. Friends can do a lot to help you online so I can’t say social traffic isn’t worthwhile. The conundrum I have is that I make money with Adsense and Social traffic isn’t conducive to that. I, of course, want my cake and to eat it too. If nothing else this blog is a great learning tool when it comes to straddling the Internet Marketing/Social Network approach with straight up SEO. I’ve always known that SEO works – it did 4 years ago and it hasn’t really changed today. The thing is I have learned a lot this past two years about Google and Adsense that I wouldn’t have known if not for the Social traffic.
The thing that interests me now is how to convert Social visitors into earnings without resorting to the A-list method. (selling crap to your readers and advertising crap to your readers) Perhaps if there was something worthwhile to promote… the thing is… there just isn’t.
I get a ton of JV emails – people wanting me to promote stuff – many of the people are legit and well-meaning but they sell crap. Sorry – no offense but if I wouldn’t buy it then it’s crap. I’d really like to see something worthwhile come along one of these days.
I digress – back to the point. For the thousand or so emails I have about how often should you post. If you are using Adsense – only when there is no reason not too.
If you truly want to make money online – stay anonymous. This greatly lowers the amount of “friends” who want to dethrone you. Yes I know this contradicts everything you’ve learned from the A-List but that crap concerns blogging and not Adsense.
In my absence…
- I have several thousand emails piled up… oops
- It’s winter road season here at the Lodge, just finished building the ice road last night, it’s been cold r’ n’ hell for weeks now – 30-40 below zero, everything that can break has broken; water lines, sewage lines, trucks, boilers etc, all fixed except the water line to my house, wife and kids unhappy about that “little” exception, haven’t read a blasted email in weeks – social blogging has some drawbacks and hope everyone understands, Lodge is full and real life has intruded upon my online endeavors once again and probably why I have always liked making money passively with Adsense.
I have lots to yak about but little time at the moment. I will get to it as time permits but I have a water line to look at…
Cheers,
Griz
107 comments:
myln said…
Grizzly (or whatever your name is), you are the only one around who tells the real truth about SEO and making money on-line.
Congratulations!
January 18, 2009 12:42 PM
Carla said…
Hi Griz,
I hate to post a comment because it just gives you one more thing to do, but I wanted to thank you for this post. It answered some of the questions I had about my own AdSense earnings.
I wish I could send you some South Florida sunshine to warm up those pipes!
January 18, 2009 1:27 PM
aravind said…
Hi griz…….gr8 post…….best of luck with ur water line………..bye
January 18, 2009 1:29 PM
Anonymous said…
Griz,
As always, thanks for the honesty and valuable information
January 18, 2009 1:32 PM
Make Nothing Online said…
“A recurring problem is that weekends see a drop in visitors. Friday night until Sunday evening is always the poorest traffic”
I’ve always had more readership across the board during the weekdays. I figure the reason is most people surf the web, to waste time, when they are at work. Why would anyone waste time on the Internet during their free time? Better to let your boss pay for your boredom than take time away from spending time with family, hobbies, getting drunk, etc. I think that’s one reason sites like this are so popular. Surfers are trying to find anything to make money online instead of riding the cube every day. They will click and click some more. Sheer boredom and a dream of not working for the man anymore. It’s a beautiful convergence for a webmaster.
January 18, 2009 1:44 PM
Anonymous said…
Ok, Griz, now I’m feeling bad that I’m here, in case my presence decreases your Adsense revenue.
I’m thinking maybe you need a reservation system or an announcement system, so we know what day it’s okay to stop by.
JL Palmetto
January 18, 2009 1:48 PM
Amanda said…
Hey Grizzly–I can imagine it can be pretty hard to strike a balance between keeping both Google and your readers happy. I guess I never realized that regular posting could actually decrease a blog’s revenue. How strange! It makes me wonder what would happen if you tried to build a blog whose main purpose wasn’t to make readers happy but to only rank well in the search engines. Hmmm . . .
January 18, 2009 1:55 PM
Grizzly said…
JL… today is a good day
Splork – as for people surfing while at work – I wonder just how much time has been wasted since the internet came along… maybe there is a big government grant out there for some researcher to find out! lol.
January 18, 2009 1:55 PM
Grizzly said…
Amanda… hmmm indeed. Seems I had that intention at one time.
January 18, 2009 1:57 PM
Free Acai Berry said…
Great post with the inside story on page rank and google adsense. Everyone says post more. But you say the opposite.
January 18, 2009 2:14 PM
Jerry said…
Hey Griz,
Sorry, but every time you post I’m coming by to read it!lol
Anyway thanks I always learn something important from your posts, and I appreciate it.
Oh, and you better watch out, you just might gain some fame!
January 18, 2009 2:22 PM
Jd said…
Hey Griz,
I am not surprised that beginners searching for MMO click on the Adsense ads on your site. They obviously don’t want to learn anything, can’t read, and maybe they just don’t get it. After all the site is not called “Internet Marketing for Beginners that takes ZERO Effort” and if it was all your traffic could spend all their cash on silly little ebooks.
You’ve got LOADS of great SEO tips on this site and there’s the adsense rub! btw wtf is SEO??? lol
I love your blog but I will probably never click an adsense ad.
However I’d love to goto Northern Canada for some Speckled Trout in the spring or fall. How far away is that from Newfoundland anyway?
Cheers
January 18, 2009 2:24 PM
Medic said…
I had always wondered why you seemed to mostly post on the weekends. Now we have the answer. Great post.
I suppose it’ll take a week to get back to a normal cpc for you since we’ll all be commenting for the next 2-4 days on this post. But, we do appreciate the sacrifice you make grizz on earnings so we all can comment on all the great info you give us.
January 18, 2009 2:31 PM
Denise said…
Ok I give. Is ad impressions the same as page impressions?
Hi Grizz,
I was concerned with your PR0 statis. But I figured at least it was not de-indexed. So your PR does not effect your rankings in serps just your link juice. Will you be able to bring this PR back up or do you need to dance for Google first?
I’d be happy as hell to have your Friday stats. It still takes me a couple of months to make that kind of money and that is with about five adsense sites combined.
So it sounds like we need to have blogs that have minimal 3000 searches a day to make money with these blogs with adsense.
Guess I still have a lot of work a head of me and a lot to learn.
We had sub zero weather for a few days here and that was more than enough for me. Had to make sure we had heat going to all our water pipes so they would not freeze with those Lake Michigan winds. Over half way through January and the days are getting a little longer.
Thank God!
January 18, 2009 3:00 PM
seo consultant said…
Hi Griz,
Sorry to hear about your pagerank.
I stumbled across your recent debate on blogcatalog, you know it’s one of those guys that have reported your site, right.
I can’t believe you got into a debate with those guys and outed their crappy social blogs. You just knew they were going to respond badly.
However I agreed with your line of argument on there, the guy was asking about SEO, not about how to build readers and social traffic.
You know when Google have investigated your links you’ll have your PR4 back. It’s happened to me before, chugging away nicely with a PR3 – 5 blog and then wam! No PR, the next update will see you right.
Until next time,
January 18, 2009 3:27 PM
Anonymous said…
Hi Griz,
Here is another comment to mess around with your CPC
As you know, I blog mainly in adult, and here you learn very quickly that PR doesn’t mean a lot – except for selling links
One thing I do find PR useful for though is testing out a WordPress theme.
I can have several similar new blogs, similar amount of content, similar amount of backlinks, etc, but when PR time comes around, there are certain WP themes that will get a PR2 (getting any higher in adult is definitely difficult, lol!), while others will get a PR1 or even 0. (and by the way, some of these are Court’s themes).
And this little ‘test’ of mine is proving correct every time so far. Serp results for new blogs are similar to this too.
So it gives me a bit of an idea of how the Google spiders see my blog.
But that’s the only thing I bother about PR for
As to staying anonymous online, I have suffered badly in the past from ‘friend reports’, so I know just what you mean.
Goes with the territory I guess…
One point though, from what I have seen, sales were down across the board in December, up until Xmas day strangely enough, but are picking up nicely again now (knock on wood).
I don’t know how this would affect Adsense clicks, but I guess it must have amounted to some losses even there.
Just something to add to your calculations
Oh yes, and I hope your water works are soon back in order
Zania
January 18, 2009 3:35 PM
Trent Brownrigg said…
Hey Griz, great to see a post from you! I check my feed reader every time I get online to see if you have updated your blogs. Always excited when you do.
I noticed a few days ago that you got the big PR0 slap. Didn’t think it would bother you a bit and it seems I was right.
I got slapped about exactly a year ago. Home page lowered to a PR2 (from PR5) and all internal pages down to PR0 or “no pagerank information available.” It never affected my rankings or earnings at all.
I have asked for reconsideration several times but never got it back even though I am sure I have fixed anything I may have been doing wrong. Oh well.
Anyway, I will talk to you later. Take it easy.
Trent
January 18, 2009 3:48 PM
Want to buy phone said…
Grizz you are the only one who tells truth about SEO ,
Just the other day someone asked why Grizz blog gets a PR0 , I quickly checked your SERP in google using your keyword “MMO” and there behold you are sitting 8th,
I was confused how come PR0 and still he ranks in the top 10 for the keyword “Make Money Online”
Now I understand why.. =)
January 18, 2009 5:04 PM
Artur said…
Hi Grizz, bloggers, readers ..
Grizz your the “honest” man online.
Even if you get low adsense profits when you post, is always a pleasure to read them …
Instead of posting so offen on your blog, have you ever consider to send newsletters to all your readers, on every day/week email sending?
Maybe Aweber, or other SW (Newslettering or eMail Senders) will help you out with that task, and bring benefits in exploring other afiliating partners along the way …
That will keep the social crap away from your blog, cos they will not see new posts, only your subscribers do.
Update: You are N1 for “make money” in google.pt, just in front of Alan`s blog
F..K Google PR.
ps: Man, if there`s cold out here in Portugal, i wonder how it is in Canada? WTF!!
Cumps,
January 18, 2009 5:18 PM
Dwep said…
30 below is unheard of here in florida, sucks about the water line man I hope that its an easy unexpensive fix.
January 18, 2009 5:41 PM
DennisJr said…
Interesting to see how you lose PR and still stay on top of the Serps. Thanks for allowing us to see this. As far as posting. I am actually glad you don’t post too often. That way I don’t feel\think I could have missed something. I also don’t have to continue to visit your comment sections to see what questions are being asked what your response is. As usual,
-Thanks
January 18, 2009 5:45 PM
Stephen Cronin said…
Hah, just read this a day or so after linking to you – not that my traffic is high enough to drive too much untargetted traffic to your site…
January 18, 2009 5:47 PM
Jo Ann said…
Hi Grizz,
Sorry to hear about your pagerank and your water line. (I thought these 40 degree temps in NC were rough!)
I have learned more about how to make money online from you than from all the other sites I have visited combined over the last year. When I first started reading your posts, my sites were all over the place, but I have tried to follow your teachings very closely, going back and making major “tweaks” – and I am finally starting to see some visitors trickle in.
As I read somewhere else, your site is like a freaking encyclopedia! So it’s not surprising that there would be some jealously out there. You are obviously very good at what you do, and I can’t believe you’re willing to share it with all of us without charging like all these other “gurus” do – for useless garbage that isn’t near as informative as yours is.
Hope you’re back on top in short order. That’s where you should be.
Thanks for all your insights,
Jo Ann
Zania (Anonymous):
Are you saying that some of Court’s themes are the ones getting the lower page ranks? I use his themes on several sites, too.
January 18, 2009 5:50 PM
Anonymous said…
Griz,
I want to stay anonymous as well but I wanted you to know that it looks like this month will be my first ever month to break the $1000.00 a month in Adsense earnings. I owe it all to you and Vic.
Can I get a “yes” or a “no” answer. you have LinkVana on your sidebar…does this mean you recommend it?
Thanks
Someone you know
January 18, 2009 7:25 PM
Anonymous said…
@Jo Ann,
yes, I have noticed that a couple of Court’s themes do not do as well as others and only one of them (Dateless Sniper) seems to do as well as another theme I use (Mandigo).
But I haven’t tested all of them, so who knows?
One thing I have noticed though – and this seems pretty common SEO knowledge anyway – it’s the lefthand sidebar themes which are usually the ones to struggle (even when they are Court’s).
I still use a couple of them, because in the work I do, left hand themes are quite useful at times. They catch up with the others eventually anyway. But they certainly do not seem like a ‘quick fix’.
Could be just me though…
Zania
January 18, 2009 7:58 PM
Gerri said…
Excellent post!
January 18, 2009 8:02 PM
Macnabclan said…
I’ve Got It!
When we see that you posted in our rss feed, we type in “Make Money Online” in Google then click on your link!
If everyone did this the problem is solved!
hehe
January 18, 2009 8:09 PM
Anonymous said…
Griz, another great post.
I also found out years ago it’s better to stay in the Shadows rather than come out in the light. Jealous p****s abound every where!
I’ve had about the same experience with Adsense CPC/conversions on Friday through Sunday afternoon with the exception of two niches. Mortgages and auto’s. I figure it’s because come the weekend, people are searching the Internet looking for homes and cars.
Thanks again for all you do,
Don
January 18, 2009 10:21 PM
Phil said…
As of my post, this MMO blog is ranked #2! PRo be damned!! LOL you rock Grizz!
January 18, 2009 10:38 PM
Cash Matrix said…
Hi,
Fantastic post, wonderful breakdowns . Simply put ………. Very useful . Thanks heaps for sharing your experiences and knowledge.
January 18, 2009 11:24 PM
Anonymous said…
dunno why ppl are still obsessed with PR when you can’t make money with it. Say you have pr5 and sell links, people only buy if it’s dofollow and then you get slapped to pr0. so what’s the point anyway.
Griz, don’t bother trying to educate ppl on this…let them chase pr…less competition for those in the know.
January 18, 2009 11:52 PM
Noob said…
Hey Grizz,
happy new year and I hope you get everything fixed at the North pole aka Canada. I have Been busy getting some new blogs up and running. I noticed that my cpc has been down for the last three weeks across two of my niches. I think advertisers took a long hard look at the economy and also took the day off for the holidays, CPC has returned to normal now.
Hope you get your PR back. Hate to see good people get smacked for no reason. Gotta get back to work on my blogs. Later. Take Care !
January 19, 2009 12:09 AM
Stephen Cronin said…
Hi Grizz,
Since reading this earlier today, I’ve worked out how to show Adsense to search visitors only (on Blogger blogs).
Would that help with this problem? Presumably it would as long as as you get 3000 ad impressions without the social traffic and things like the Warrior forum.
I’m planning on writing up instructions sometime soon and checking with the Adsense team about whether they’re okay with it (although the final Adsense code stays the same, you have to edit it slightly to generate it).
January 19, 2009 1:15 AM
Earn Passive Income Online said…
NOW you tell me not to use my real name LOL. A bit too late really! I never intended to put Adsense on my flagship blog though – its more to build my brand – and future fame LMAO
What’s referral traffic like for you – is it as bad as subscribers? I’d love to link to this post because it supports an argument Im having over at my blog – but I won’t if it will hurt your earnings
January 19, 2009 3:01 AM
Anonymous said…
$4/day man, my new niche is awesome and the long tails I’m getting are hilarious too.
And who is this “friend”? you should post his website so we can play with him
Speaking of making money online, have you ever heard of “Second life”? It’s been giving me $5-20 bucks a month, pretty random, for the past TWO years lol. Not bad for something I spent a couple of hours doing.
If you didn’t know, Second Life is a virtual world where people exchange real life money for linden dollars. I believe it’s $270 something linden dollars ($L) to 1 USD. There’s this one girl(anshe chung) on SL that is famous for making a million USD from renting/selling out “virtual real estate”. It was on forbes website I think.
Anyway, I’ll stop lowering your earnings now. lol
Good luck with the pipes.
-boo
January 19, 2009 3:52 AM
Dinheiro said…
as always, another perfect post grizz, another great “trick”
January 19, 2009 4:05 AM
Yvette Kelly said…
Hey
I agree with Mcnabclan.That is what I will do for you.Whe we get notified of new post I will access you via google search.My tiny little contribution because I do love your posts and dont want you to stop or slow down completely.
January 19, 2009 4:44 AM
Terry Didcott said…
Hi Griz,
Pipes freezing and its only 30 below? Ha! Cheap knock offs… Must’ve bought ‘em same place the wanker who reported your site buys his (or her) piles cream needed for all that sitting down and typing love letters to the Gestapo.
Glad to hear you’re back indoors out of the scorching sunshine – gotta watch out for those strong UV rays you know lmao!
January 19, 2009 5:06 AM
KateC said…
I really enjoyed your post, I think it is awesome that you have seen a pattern in your earnings. It can sometimes be really hard to know what make money online and then be brave enough to test your theory. I am going to look further into adsense myself. also going to subscribe to your feed, I have not seen your blog before.
January 19, 2009 5:25 AM
Monika Mundell said…
Hey Buddy,
I thought you died and went to heaven. Hahaha… kidding aside though I say join the crowd as the gods slapped me too. Maybe it is time to place some adsense on my blog as well now as I too have stopped to do the social rounds a while ago resulting in less comments and interaction on my blog but to be honest I couldn’t care less.
As it stands the blog is not making me much money (except the odd affiliate sale) and I rather build my niche sites than waste time blogging for nothing. I guess I learned the thickheaded way, LOL. Never mind, keep it up and fix those damn pipes.
I actually feel sorry for your wife and kids to have to endure those temperatures without hot running water I guess. Brrr….
Monika
January 19, 2009 5:45 AM
Rich said…
I think this is the post that aspiring money makers should read, especially bloggers. Most of them want to be Darren Rowse someday – a good money maker and popular at the same time. Of course, there are some others like him too. But I am sure you can only name of few, the others are just great pretenders.
Making money online is a saturated niche, not because it is really but because there are a lot of crap. Unfortunately, they are still attracting newbies.
If one will check the top forums like DP and WF, a lot of new members are asking why they are not making money from Google Adsense. But if you will check their blogs, none or very few of their pages are being indexed. And if there are some who are saying that they are making some few bucks, they are satisfied and not even worried about getting banned. It’s just funny that they expect their readers to believe that their ads are 100 %legit.
Anyway, I think being anonymous does not really matter as long as your content is useful and for real.
January 19, 2009 6:12 AM
Grizzly said…
Yowza… time to catch up on the comments!
JD – I’m about 3000 miles from Newfoundland but we have some of the best Brook trout in the world – 3 line class world records so far. The largest caught – 29 inches (that is huge for you non-anglers lol)
Jerry, Medic, et al…
Don’t stop dropping in because of my dip in earnings. I’m not that concerned and prefer hearing from you all – I only mention it so you will know about it if and when it happens to your own sites.
Denise – Ad impressions are not the same as page impressions but close enough. I have never figured out exactly how G counts the impressions but they are roughly similar to page impressions though usually a bit lower. (sometimes a lot lower but not often)
As for the 3000 impressions – don’t get me wrong – you can and will make money with lower numbers (I do fine on several low traffic sites). I mention the 3000 barrier because it seems that once you cross it your earnings seem to stick to the highest CPC amount available. Below it you can still bounce around as far as CPC goes. In other words G seems to have a bonus feature for sites that can produce a consistently high level of quality traffic. Don’t get hung up on this though – just something that appears to happen if you can produce enough traffic.
January 19, 2009 6:48 AM
Grizzly said…
SEO Consultant – lol. I must have lost my mind arguing with the BC mob. Noobs en masse! I’m not concerned with the PR and don’t plan on doing anything – as I said, this gets the point across as to how important it is for SEO. It isn’t.
Zania – great to here from you. I noticed a slump in earnings for Nov and Dec. The bounce back in Jan was a welcome surprise. I was beginning to wonder if something was amiss. Now I suspect it was just a seasonal dip coupled with a poor economy. I am really curious as to how well the online world will fare in a recession.
As for themes – they can make a huge difference for SEO purposes. I don’t experiment much anymore as this layout has proven to work best time and again. Right hand sidebar, little to no html above the post except targeted keywords in the description. Sounds simple and it is… but it works every time. Hope all is well in sunny Spain. (envy!)
Trent – Thanks for stopping in and I concur – I don’t feel like jumping through the hoops just to get PR back. It can rest in peace. lol.
January 19, 2009 7:00 AM
DeMerchant said…
You guys getting hit with the storm we’re weathering here in NB? What fun.
Nice to see you back and around Griz. 3000 eh, looks like a good target to work towards as a base. I’m assuming that’s 3000 on all your sites on the same adsense account, or is it per site?
–DeMerchant
Oh and PS – Did you stop in to the place where the naughty kids hang out and see the little competition that there is going on?
January 19, 2009 7:09 AM
Grizzly said…
Buy a Phone – You aren’t the only one who has noticed. I’ve seen a few DP forum comments from noobs wondering how a PR0 blog can rank so high. They don’t understand serp ranking at all. (Don’t tell ‘em)
Artur – Newsletters would work ala Shoemoney except that would be work and did I mention that would be work? lol. Never forget – I live for not doing all that work. Aside from this blog my system works fine. Create blog, rank high, few posts, collect adsense, spend time fixing water pipes! lol.
Dwep – I was Golfing in Florida 2 years ago in December. It was 43 degrees out and no one on the course except me and my father. Loved it. The pro thought we were crazy. It felt like summer coming from here! lol.
Dennis,
All modesty aside – I have a great comment section on this blog – maybe the best. And all thanks to you folks. It’s what I like best about this whole business.
January 19, 2009 7:11 AM
Grizzly said…
Stephen Cronin – I have never seen a drop in earnings due to links coming from my readers – probably because the traffic is never that high but also because most of the traffic is still targeted. We all tend to have relevant posts between us.
Jo Ann – Thanks for the vote of confidence. I would charge for the info but then I would have to set up a sales page, ebook, autoresponder etc and that is way too much like work! lol. I’ll stick to Adsense…
January 19, 2009 7:20 AM
Grizzly said…
Someone I know…
Yes I recommend Linkvana but use it wisely. (build up farm blogs) Congrats on the Adsense earnings – once you hit 1k a month you get hooked and will spend all your time trying to increase that and duplicate it elsewhere. Passive income is very addictive once it starts providing the kind of income you can live on.
Macnabclan – lol. Now that is a clever system.
Don – Interesting niches you mentioned. I suspect there are quite a few niches that do well on weekends. My tropical fish sites do well but that is about it. I’m afraid most of my sites are geared to the working crowd who like to goof off at work. No one wants to make money online during the weekend – only when they are at a job they don’t want to be at. lol
January 19, 2009 7:29 AM
Grizzly said…
Stephen Cronin,
Thanks Stephen – I’ve thought about this before and Rhys (can’t find the link but if Rhys reads this please send it) created a script to do what you intend a while back. I have avoided doing it as I do make money off of the readers who click and haven’t seen a penalty.
The only traffic that really seems to kick the crap out of my CPC is traffic emanating right from the social sites like Stumbleupon, Digg etc and a few of the big forums like DP and WF. The only exception are days I post as the surge of readers knocks my ctr down substantially and this seems to trigger a lower CPC for a few days but it always bounces back.
If I have this figured out right it isn’t a case of low ctr but rather a case off sudden big changes that cause problems. When everything is consistently high or low things run smoothly – as soon as there is a big spike one way or the other the Adsense CPC takes a nose dive.
January 19, 2009 7:38 AM
Grizzly said…
Lissie (Passive Income) – as I have mentioned referral traffic isn’t a problem at all. Most of you have relevant sites and tend to use relevant anchors in your links. Two things the big G loves and I have never seen a drop in earnings because of links coming from readers.
Boo – congrats on the income – a good start. I’m afraid I know nothing about “second life”. Anyone else?
Yvette – thanks but not necessary. I won’t be stopping anytime soon.
January 19, 2009 7:43 AM
Grizzly said…
Terry – lol. I just knew all my warm friends in Spain would drop by and rub it in!
KateC – Welcome to our little corner of the web. All the best with Adsense and glad to have you with us.
Monika – I suppose Australia is just a tad warmer than here and frozen pipes are unheard of. lol. Great to see you drop in Monika. I’ve followed your detachment from the social scene. Have you got a steady supply of SE traffic to the flagship? If so you might give Adsense a go – I’m just not sure what kind of Advertising dollars are in the writing niche but worth experimenting with. I hope the niche sites turn out as you have been at this a long while and deserve some rewards for all your efforts.
January 19, 2009 7:52 AM
Grizzly said…
Rich – Thanks for the input. The forums are notorious for noobs teaching noobs and the source of most of the misinformation out there. The few who do know what they are doing are busy selling crap to the rest. I pretty much stay clear of them as I just get into arguments. lol.
DeMerchant – Nope no storms – too bloody cold for snow.
It’s 3000 impressions per site – not per Adsense account.
I have not checked on the “naughty kids”… perhaps I should as you have peeked my interest.
January 19, 2009 7:58 AM
Tamar said…
Thank you very much for the Adsense tips. I recently signed up for Adsense so I can use all the help I can get.
More about my blog can be found at http://www.eznetbusiness.com
January 19, 2009 7:59 AM
Virgo One said…
Hi Griz:
I have been a silent observer of your blog for some time now.
I know most of your readers are advanced bloggers (I am sure you inspired many of them
).. But I have a very basic question. I
started my blog after reading your lesson 1 and added adsense to it. At
that time, I didnt know that I should not add it so soon. But it was
already done and G has rejected my site citing site content as the
reason. What could be the reason? Could you (or any of the advanced
bloggers) have a look at my blog
http://stockintestmentbasics.blogspot.com/ and let me know please?January 19, 2009 9:04 AM
Virgo One said…
Sorry! the url of the blog is http://stockinvestmentbasics.blogspot.com/
January 19, 2009 9:10 AM
Veraz said…
Hi Grizz,
Yes, I noted the PR 0. It happened to me as well on one of my sites. I had gained a PR 2 after 2.5 months of work on a new site with 2 subpages rated as PR 1. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it was a quick start. I was awful darn proud thinking, gee, I’ve done everything right! I did everything legally. I certainly did not buy or sell links. I have no idea why it happened. Another site of mine, went from a PR of Nothing to a PR of one and I haven’t even got around to getting any backlinks and I have not been updating regularly at all. I just can’t understand it and have decided to forget it and just work away and place my hope in SEO, SERP and traffic.
If there is a system we can’t fathom, eg., the ranking system and being punished for god-knows-what-we-don’t-know… we can either have a nervous breakdown or keep on doing what we are doing. I wish google would create a page where you could enter your site name and one’s crimes would be listed and then you could, like a good child, correct the situation.
January 19, 2009 9:49 AM
Steward said…
Hi Griz,
If you don’t like the large influx of social and subscribing readers maybe by turning your full feeds on you will be able to avoid all that. Or perhaps you want to avoid scrappers to you only have a partial feed?
Anyway, it might be worthwhile to test it out so you don’t loose money everyday that you post.
January 19, 2009 12:02 PM
Frank Carr said…
@Veraz – Your suggestion about confessing your crime to Google reminds me of ‘The Prisoner’ episode ‘A Change of Mind’. Maybe Griz can confess to being ‘unmutual’.
Griz – Since I started doing mostly product reviews on OpTempo the traffic level has stayed steady through the weekends. The only variations I see is when I happen to catch a hot trend. For some tech niche blogs and some other sites, it’s all about the work time traffic. Some see about 4 times as much traffic on weekdays than they do on weekends.
On the PR loss, I noticed you had a banner ad briefly touting a particular company that’s been in hot water with Google before. I wonder if that might have been the cause?
January 19, 2009 12:20 PM
julye said…
Hi Grizz,
That’s what I like the most about reading your posts, honest and informative.
I’ve learned a lot from your posts Grizz. Other may claimed themselve MMO Guru but won’t share much of the valuable tips.
You’re among the few good guys in the MMO game, that are willing to guide others, especially the newcomers.
Shame on those who have in mind to “dethrone” you. Good day nice guy!
January 19, 2009 12:57 PM
Buddy said…
Hi Griz,
Now I feel guilty about mentioning you on the WF. I just started Court’s new online training foregoing all the launch and social nonsense. And article marketing was too much work (although it got me started making money online
Cheers,
Buddy
January 19, 2009 1:34 PM
Anonymous said…
What happened to your feedburner readers?
January 19, 2009 3:12 PM
Stephen said…
You never fail to entertain, Grizz, but now I will be feeling bad for you when you do because of what a new post implies about your CPC! lol
Here in Vancouver it has been a most unusual winter (as it has been for much of Canada); I just moved across town a week ago and luckily the snow had already all passed into frigid memory. *Whew*.
My condolences on your winter…
BTW, did you get my email, Grizz?
Just kidding…
January 19, 2009 6:55 PM
Diane said…
Do tell, who are the bad boys and girls at blogcatalog? I do love an online argument! Makes great reading and entertainment. Do tell!
January 20, 2009 1:21 AM
Norm said…
Honestly just keep doing what you do well. I think you have proven with or without PR you can make money, I also can vouch for this with my website.
Your posts are inspiring and I am sure others here agree.
Norm
January 20, 2009 5:57 AM
Grizzly said…
Virgo One,
Google has made things difficult these days for new bloggers to get Adsense. I plan on posting about this but for now you will need to post a lot more content in a consistent manner for the next month or two and then re-apply for adsense. Make sure all the content is original. You have picked a competitive niche and a favorite target of splogs (made for adsense blogs) so make sure the site looks as legitimate as possible. ie. Make sure it doesn’t just look like you want the site for Adsense purposes.
January 20, 2009 6:33 AM
Grizzly said…
Veraz,
A crime’s page would be great but in most cases I don’t think G really has a list – they simply react based on assumptions and let you prove them wrong. You are of course supposed to know what it is they assume you did wrong…
January 20, 2009 6:39 AM
Grizzly said…
Steward,
There is a glitch with feedburner and Blogger as I do have full feeds set to display. Why only partial feeds are sent out is a mystery to me. It’s one of those things I have never bothered to investigate further.
January 20, 2009 6:41 AM
Grizzly said…
Frank,
I had wondered about the inlinks banner ad myself. The slap happened the day after the banner went up – a coincidence?
January 20, 2009 6:43 AM
Grizzly said…
Juyle – Thanks for the kind words and the link on your blog. Btw – you win the contest for the “cutest” kid picture in your avatar!
January 20, 2009 6:46 AM
Grizzly said…
Buddy,
No problem re: WF although I noticed the thread has mysteriously vanished?
January 20, 2009 6:47 AM
Grizzly said…
Anonymous,
It appears feedburner has lost some of the feeds… again!
January 20, 2009 6:48 AM
Grizzly said…
Stephen,
Does my heart good to hear that you folks out in Lotus land are getting some of this weather too! lol.
January 20, 2009 6:50 AM
Grizzly said…
Diane – the referrence wasn’t to BC but you can read “THAT” particular engagement following the link on my WP blog post.
See link at bottom of post
January 20, 2009 6:54 AM
Grizzly said…
Norm – Thanks for the props Norm. Always appreciated!
January 20, 2009 6:55 AM
GuruMonetizer said…
Grizz,my blogspot went from PR 4 to 0..i know that PR is irrelevant but there are still users and visitors who “like” to see that your blog has PR(many of them think that google is awarding you for your blog,and they stay on it).So i think PR is only good for that kind of visitors.IMHO
January 20, 2009 11:39 AM
Orange said…
From what i understand, Google “rewards” any site who meets certain requirements with the appropriate Page Rank. The page rank does not directly tell which site should be ranked higher, but in most cases it is a good indication. However, in your case you have too many outbound links that make Google think that you are running some sort of link selling site. Still your site is ranking as high (if not higher) as ever.
This tells me that the Page Rank has only one direct advantage, it makes it easier to exchange links with other people. Am i right?
I have an unrelated question: How do you get the links under your post where people can bookmark your site on sites like digg and delicious? I have tried a few of them, but I haven’t found any that are in the same format as the ones you have. Is there any special advantage to these or does just any buttons do the job?
January 20, 2009 3:08 PM
Jane H. said…
Hi Griz, do you have any tips for recipe sites? I have literally thousands of recipes in a couple of notebooks that I want to put online.
Are recipe sites bad for adsense? Since I don’t think I can “write a lot of fluff but don’t give them what they want”(or however you said it on the lessons page) since there won’t be any recipes if I do that haha
Good day =)
January 20, 2009 5:14 PM
Rhys said…
Hey Griz!
You said; “Whenever I post I get a surge of traffic – the surge is un-targeted (my readers) and my CPC drops for several days until readers tail off”.
Isn’t this what we talked about a couple of months ago – putting a script into Blogger that only displays Gooads to search engine traffic?
I know you are stretched, so will remind you where to find it – How to Hide Adsense from Social Traffic
Cheers – Rhys
January 20, 2009 7:08 PM
John | Make Nothing Online said…
Hi Griz,
Sorry to see Google zero’d you
I guess nows your chance to prove that PR
really doesn’t matter.John
PS – interesting to see someone else using my blog name in your comments! :-/
January 21, 2009 5:07 AM
Anonymous said…
Hey Griz, found one of your “secret-admirers” here…http://moremoney2008.blogspot.com/2009/01/making-money-online-anonymously.html. He posted the link at http://www.mixx.com/stories/3533355/make_money_online_making_money_online_anonymously. I wonder when would they stop plagiarising others.
-joe-
January 21, 2009 5:34 AM
Grizzly said…
Orange – The bookmark links beneath the posts are setup in Feedburner. No special advantage as any button will work.
January 21, 2009 5:49 AM
Grizzly said…
Jane H – My best advice is to Google the top sites for whatever recipes you are interested in and then style your site the same way the top sites in each category do. If the top sites have a lot of fluff – you’ll need fluff. If they are straight recipe sites then make yours the same. Once you have done this you will then have to start building anchored backlinks for your site – keep getting backlinks until you are number 1. Sounds simple because it is except that it will be a lot of work getting those backlinks.
January 21, 2009 5:53 AM
Grizzly said…
Rhys – Thanks for posting the link. I had mentioned your post earlier in the comments and hoped you would drop in and save me having to find it myself! lol.
January 21, 2009 5:54 AM
Grizzly said…
John – That’s the problem with using keywords in the name on comments – too much competition. lol
January 21, 2009 5:57 AM
Grizzly said…
Joe – Thanks for the heads up. I have so many scrappers these days I’ve quit keeping up with them. I wonder how long it takes before they realize that they aren’t getting to the top of the serp’s stealing material?
January 21, 2009 5:59 AM
Justin Briggs said…
It might just be a temporary thing Griz. Matt Cutts commented that they’re adjusting PR values for canonicalization issues. He also pointed out a large retail site (not sure which), went from PR 7 to PR 0 simple due to this update, but that things will return soon. He said the PR value goes down, but no changes will be seen in rankings.
You can find the comment at the link below.
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/019231.html#comment-1393855
January 21, 2009 11:49 AM
Ben Willis said…
Jane H., I put a link to your site on my recipe site. Don’t know if it will help much because I am also waiting to be indexed. I have a few back links and am waiting for Google to get around to counting them.
January 21, 2009 12:18 PM
Jumbo CD Rates said…
Griz, great post. Glad to hear that PR doesn’t affect your earnings. Of course being de-indexed would. I would still want to contact Google just for integrity sake. If I knew I did nothing wrong, I would want to prove it to them.
If they continue to believe you are selling links, couldn’t they de-index you?
January 21, 2009 6:36 PM
Jane H. said…
Thanks Griz, I was thinking the same thing.
And Thanks Ben, if you could change the anchored text to “Free recipes online” that would be better
Added you back, let me know if you want a
different anchor. “southern cooking easy recipes”I haven’t started buildings links though, I wanna finish adding all my quick and easy recipes first (which is in the hundreds) then I’ll build links for about a month haha.
Please just call me Jane, feels like I’m in school or something. Grizzly’s School of no BS approach to making money online =)
-Jane
January 22, 2009 8:34 AM
Destress Yourself said…
Hi Grizzzzz,
This may be a dumb question but I am a human behaviorist, not a computer technologist.
What is selling links?
Thanks,
Elizabeth
January 22, 2009 11:59 AM
Ben Willis said…
Thanks Jane, I changed it. Could you change mine to just plain “southern cooking”?
January 22, 2009 1:45 PM
Jane said…
lol ben we’re hijacking griz’s post. And changed it now
Sorry griiiiiz.
January 22, 2009 6:03 PM
Free Online Recipes said…
“What is selling links?”
Giving someone anchored backlinks in exchange for money?
Jane
January 26, 2009 3:17 AM
Grizzly said…
Jane – if you are selling links then you are selling “Do-follow” anchored backlinks. In other words you are passing PR from your site to another site for money and G doesn’t like that as you will be gaming their algorithm.
January 26, 2009 7:01 AM
Free online recipes said…
I was answering elizabeth since no one answered her.
I know it’s not as good as your explanation but.. I try.
Jane
January 26, 2009 9:24 AM
Grizzly said…
Jane – I kinda figured that but wanted to stress the “do-follow” requirement. Thanks btw for helping out – much appreciated.
January 26, 2009 9:27 AM
Destress Yourself said…
OMG! I am so retarded when it comes to this shizzzz. I have only been blogging for barely 5 months but really 3 months if you only count consistency.
So, what you are saying is, don’t take money from someone who puts a link on your blog?
Please forgive my ignorance but I am not savvy on vocab just yet.
Elizabeth
January 26, 2009 12:36 PM
Grizzly said…
Elizabeth,
You can sell all the links you want – usually in the form of ads – but make sure they are no-followed. This means you are selling traffic which G has no problem with. If the links are do-follow however, G assumes you are just selling Page Rank and gaming the search results.
If you need more info regarding no-follow tags read the post below,
How to add no-follow tags
January 26, 2009 2:29 PM
Destress Yourself said…
Thank you Grizzzizzizz.
Wow, you are very patient with me. I think I love you, te he he.
Love your info too, I learned a lot from your blog.
Elizbeth
January 26, 2009 2:58 PM
how to make jewelry said…
Hi Griz!
Came across your blog couple months ago and have read every single post. I have a question pertaining to adsense and blogger blogs. You have stated that you should never have more than 4-5 blogger blogs per signin. Do you however still have all the adsense revenue from all of the various blogs go to one adsense account?
Paul
January 31, 2009 12:08 PM
Grizzly said…
Paul,
ummmmm… It’s against Google’s policy for you to have more than 1 Adsense account.
However… without admitting anything publicly I happen to know people who have several accounts (ahem… sorry just clearing my throat) and they most certainly spread their sites around all the accounts.
I think people should keep something in mind. You don’t want Adsense on every site – this will get you smart priced unless you are able to produce top quality, highly targeted sites that all rank on top of the serp’s for their keywords. No one I know can do this with more than a handful of sites – certainly not with hundreds.
Only use Adsense on your top sites. The days of creating 100′s of blogs and slapping adsense on them are over – unless you are happy making $1 a day on each site. (some are and many still do this – Joel Comm comes to mind)
I prefer to have fewer sites producing $100/day or more on each site. This means taking longer to rank well and involves optimizing the sites for the best CPC available in each niche.
Yes – the dollar a day sites still work but it’s just a matter of time until G catches up with you and gives you PSA’s (public service ads) or worse bans you from Adsense because of the spam. If you do go that route then make sure your posts are both relevant and useful to the reader. Google has tightened up it’s Adsense quality a lot over the past couple of years so always create content as if a Google employee is looking over your shoulder. If your content can’t pass a visual then you best not ad Adsense to it.
January 31, 2009 3:12 PM
Neale said…
This has to be one of the most interesting things i have learnt in a while <> 3000 gonna watch this thanks
February 05, 2009 7:46 AM
Anonymous said…
Hello Griz!
I am glad I arrived at your blog. Good timing I should say. I had created five blogs from one account on five different topics and was about to make a few more, when I read your advise that five is the maximum for one e-mail account, then I stopped!
I have another 12 blogs in mind, different topics, so I guess I should use different e-mail addresses, right?
Well I also had links from one blog to another like a merry go around, and I deleted them all (the links) after reading your advise. Thanks!
Well, now I would appreciate if you could let me know how I could enable ad-sense on my blogs to be viewed only by search engine traffic.
Hope I am not asking too much!
thanks a lot,
Medhan
February 21, 2009 7:18 AM
Anonymous said…
Thanks a lot for the link, Grizz
MedHan
February 25, 2009 3:08 AM
Felix Makmur said…
This is a really great and informative post, Grizz. It’s really inspiring to see that you can generate passive income via Adsense. Thanks a lot for sharing.
March 27, 2009 9:35 AM
TriNi said…
You just made a heck of a lot of sense to me. And I just moved up to a PR1 on my blog and I started jumping around in circles, but the fact that you explained that PR has nothing to do with SERP rankings, well, just the fact that I found this blog on first page of Google.. I believe you.
I’m really going to look on SERP rankings now, and how I can improve on mine.
Yeah I’m a noob, can ya tell
Keep up the great work griz!
April 14, 2009 9:27 PM
Kris Beus said…
You know it really baffles me how you always say the exact oppisite of the majority, but I love the fact that you explain why you do what you do. Anyway good post an I will take it into consideration with my blog.
April 24, 2009 10:03 PM
Rachael Towne said…
Hi Grizzly,
Thanks so much for this post and blog. I’m desperately trying to make money online so I can keep staying home with my baby. You added more pieces to the puzzle. I’ll be back for sure!
0 commentaires:
Enregistrer un commentaire