This experiment could ultimately fail, but I think it’ll be a good learning experience for both you and me.  Keep reading, and I’ll dig into the details.

Why Your Niche Sites May Have Been Hurt by “Penguin”

There’s a fair amount of speculation on what the Google “Penguin” update changed and no one seems to know with certainty exactly how websites were affected and how to go about fixing a site.  Based on my reading of various articles around the web, these seem to be the most significant causes of sites losing their rankings as a result of the update:

[Note: These ideas were taken specifically from this article, which I think is a great read.]

• Too many links to a single page (or pages), or similarly, too many links to just the root domain (and not to any deeper pages).  Both situations likely appear unnatural to Google.

• Disproportionate anchor text usage – We have the tendency of linking to our sites with our primary keyword as the anchor text more often than other types of anchor text.  Again, this is unnatural to Google, and thus is a likely target of Penguin.

• Links from unrelated sites/content AND/OR from spammy sites – I’m not sure how much the relevancy of the content matters…for example, I could quote Shakespeare in this post and link to a Shakespeare website, and obviously my site would be completely irrelevant to the site I’m linking to.  I think links from poorly spun content on spammy websites (that exist solely for the purpose of backlinking) are much more likely the culprit for a loss in ranking.

• Heavy keyword density on the site - This is probably one of the only on-site factors that may have been targeted by the Penguin update.  I think this has always been something Google has looked at negatively, but perhaps that view was strengthened with Penguin.

Again, this is all speculation.  There may be other causes not listed here, and one or more of the causes listed above may be false.  All we can do at this point is make an educated guess and test those guesses.

Let’s Experiment and Try to Fix the Problem

While it would be nice to try and bring all of my niche sites back to life, I’m going to focus on a select few.  Specifically, I’m going to focus on the following:

• (1) One Amazon niche site
• (2) One “AdSense” niche site (even though none of my sites are monetized by AdSense anymore)
• (3) My site that was previously earning $35/month from private advertising

This is going to give me a good mix of sites, since they were all created at different times and I used a somewhat different backlinking strategy on each.   If I can successfully regain my rankings on one more more of these sites, there’s hope that the process can be replicated on my other sites.

Here are my current rankings (as tracked by Long Tail Pro):

As you can see, the sites still rank OK on Yahoo and Bing, however I never really concern myself with those search engines.  Generally, if you focus on ranking well for Google, you will rank fine for Yahoo and Bing.  They focus on the same major ranking factors, but give each factor a different weight than Google does.

Here’s the Strategy

Obviously, there are going to be no guarantees with the strategy I’m going to propose here, and based on the results, they will be subject to change.  I just want to map out the plan ahead of time, so that I have something concrete to follow (initially).

Adding Fresh Content

While I don’t think the Penguin update had anything to do with the “freshness” of content, I’m still going to incorporate it in my comeback strategy.  Most of my niche sites had content added over the first month from the point that they were created, but since then, I haven’t really added much.

So, I’m going to add one piece of quality content to each of the sites.  This will be outsourced via TextBroker.

Evaluate and Correct On-Page Factors

This step doesn’t have any specific tasks – I’m basically going to skim through my content on each site and make sure my keywords aren’t too dense (I think 1-2% keyword density is probably okay).  I’ll also check on the site loading time, make sure there are no broken links, etc.   I think keyword density is probably going to be the most important factor to look at however, as far as what might have been impacted by Penguin.

This probably isn’t a super critical step, but if I’m going to try and get my sites back on track, on-page factors shouldn’t be overlooked.  

Adding Quality Backlinks with High Anchor Text Diversity

This step is going to be the bread and butter of my attempt to bring these niche sites “back from the dead.”  I have no doubt that the evaluation of backlinks was the most significant part of Google’s Penguin update.

I believe my anchor text is too heavily focused on my primary keyword, which is a big no no to Google.  Checking my sites on Open Site Explorer confirms this.  So, to try and dilute this problem, none of the backlinks I create for this case study will use my primary keyword as the anchor text.

This step is going to be the most time consuming, so stick with me while I map it out.  Here’s the plan for each niche site in this case study:

1) Add one quality article to each the following article directories:

• Ezine Articles (PR 6) – Based on some reading I’ve done lately, backlinks from this article directory are still surprisingly effective. I’ve neglected this one for awhile, so it’s time to get back to it.
• The Free Library (PR 7)
• Buzzle (PR 6)
• Amazines (PR 4)
• InfoBarrel (PR 4)

What I will probably do here, is outsource one article relevant to my niche, and have it added to Ezine Articles.  Once it’s approved and live, I will then manually spin it (i.e. I will be the one spinning it) with The Best Spinner, to ensure that the spun copies are unique and read as if they were not spun.  After spinning the article, I will submit it to the remaining 4 directories.

I think the misconception with spun content is that it’s always low quality.  If you manually spin something and actually proofread the output of each spin, you can very easily have high quality, unique content, perfectly suitable to use for backlinks on article directories.

On each article, I will have one link pointing to the root domain of my niche site, and one link pointing to a deeper page.  Assuming each article allows 2 links, I will end up with 5 links to my root domain, and 5 links to deeper pages.

2) Use Unique Article Wizard in a smart way.

I still believe UAW can be effective in this zoo of Google Pandas and Penguins, if used properly.

The people who run UAW have been staying on top of Google’s updates and are doing everything they can to make sure they aren’t rendered useless.  Recently, they sent out a newsletter to reassure their members of the steps they are taking to make sure that, if UAW is used properly, it will continue to be a viable tool.

I tend to believe them, as most of my micro-niche sites (which are sadly not well-monetized at the moment) were backlinked exclusively with UAW and didn’t really see a dip in traffic in the wake of Penguin.  Also, they’ve been around forever, while other backlink services (such as BMR) have come and gone.  The key for them is that they don’t have a “private” network – they have a constantly changing database of websites that are independent, and publish content submitted through UAW.  Basically, it’s not much different than a bunch of random, unrelated blogs, that like to publish guest posts.

So, here’s how I’m going to use it:

• Once the above articles are published, I’m going to backlink them with UAW with a relatively slow submission rate (20 submissions per day). Remember, of the 20 that are submitted, only a portion will be accepted.  From there, they may not be published immediately.  Then, it may take a while for Google to index each article.  At the end of the day, you have a relatively natural link velocity.

• With new, manually spun articles, I will set up a backlink submission schedule directly to my niche sites with extremely slow submission rates (5 submissions/day).  I believe this will be slow enough where it may only add 0-1 backlinks per day, which will not set off any red flags in Google’s eyes.

This whole process (up to this point) is very similar to Pat Flynn’s “backlink strategy that works” which my backlink tracker is modeled after.

3) Pin an image on Pinterest.

With the fresh content I create, I’m going to try and utilize some kind of attractive image that would work well on Pinterest.  If you’ve never used Pinterest, I kind of view it as Twitter for images.  Instead of retweeting someone’s tweet, you re-pin people’s images.  It’s a very addictive social network that I believe is now the 3rd most popular social network behind Facebook and Twitter.

When you pin an image from your site, the pinned image becomes a backlink to your site from Pinterest.  The cool part is, each time someone re-pins your image, the new pin becomes a new backlink.  I’m not sure if these links are dofollow, but frankly, I don’t care.  It’s a good way to add to your link diversity and send some “social signals,” which seems to be one of the newer buzz words in SEO.

If you want, you can follow me on Pinterest.

4) Back to basics: Blog Commenting

Remember when blog commenting was constantly talked about as a great way to build backlinks and traffic? I feel like it’s not a hot topic anymore, but I still think it’s a great way to diversify your backlink profile and make it look natural.

The key here is to manually write thoughtful comments on blogs/websites that are relevant to your site’s niche.  I’m not going to be hung up on the anchor text of your comment…if anything, it’s probably best to use your name (or any normal-sounding name) so that the comment is more likely to be approved.  This will also help to further diversify your backlink anchor text.

For each niche site, I will find 5 relevant blogs and leave a comment on each.

That’s All!

So, that’s my plan to start.  Again, I may tweak this as I go, but this is what I’m going to follow for now.  If you have a site that has recently tanked in the rankings, feel free to follow along and try these steps with your site.  I think this strategy will help me dilute any bad links my sites might currently have, and add some good quality backlink “juice”.

What I may do is write a short weekly update in addition to my normal weekly content, so that you can see how my sites’ rankings have improved (if they’ve improved).

What do you think of this plan?  Do you have any suggestions?  I’m still willing to add to or change this strategy!

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Bringing Niche Sites Back from the Dead, Part 1 [Case Study]

Related posts:

1. AdSense Micro-Niche Site Public Case Study – SEO / Backlinking (Part 5)
2. AdSense Micro-Niche Site Public Case Study – Where Do We Go From Here? (Part 6)
3. Google’s Recent Algorithm Change: Game Changer for Niche Sites?

In some kind of sick and twisted way, I’m having fun with this.  While the ultimate goal is to make money (and I’ll warn you: April was a terrible month from an earnings standpoint), the whole thing sometimes feels like a game to me.

By getting knocked out of the comfort zone I was in for awhile (building micro niche sites), I was forced to try some new things, and I’m enjoying it.  Anyway, let’s get to the income report…

A Brief Overview of April

With tax season ending on April 17th, I was finally able to gain back my free time.  The best feeling in the world is after you work your ass off for an extended period of time, and are finally able to relax, breathe, and do nothing.

After a mini-break, I jumped back into my passive income projects.  The past couple weeks have been spent building up content on my authority site, and trying out some other interesting things (which I’ll touch on below).

Although April was extremely disappointing, I’ve learned that I can’t just sit around and blame everything on Google, and neither should you.  It’s time to take ownership of the process, and get back to where I was using a different strategy.

April Income Report

InfoBarrel

Last month, I decided to give away this income due to the fact that I couldn’t earn from the AdSense ads within my InfoBarrel articles.  The individual who won my little contest is still earning from the ads (even though it’s been more than a month) because I haven’t figured out yet what to do next.

Do you have any ideas?  I’d like to continue giving this income away so that someone benefits from it (because I can’t), and I’m open to suggestions (leave them in the comments).

Here is the small amount of income I was able to earn in April:

• Chitika: $1.26

Even though I can’t earn much from InfoBarrel right now, I still highly recommend checking out my original plan to make lots of money with article writing if you’re new to the “making money online” game.  Article writing is still one of my top recommendations for earning online passive income for those who are just starting out and don’t have much money to spend.

Lending Club

As you know, I write about Lending Club every month, so I don’t need to go into a ton of detail here, but if you are unfamiliar with Lending Club, you can read my original write-up here.  In short: it’s my only truly passive income source.

Over the past month, I’ve decided to ramp up my investments.  Typically, I’ve just been taking my interest payments, and each time they accumulate to $25, I invest in a new loan.  A few days ago (so this will be reflected in May’s income report), I deposited $300, and will continue to keep adding to the account.

It’s been a long time, and my return is still extremely high compared to other similar investments.  Therefore, I’ve decided this is an area I should focus more on, to see if I can get a nice stream of interest income on a regular basis.

As of the end of  April, I was invested in 117 loans (+4 from March) and my net annualized return was 5.96% (+0.11% from March).

If you’re interested in trying Lending Club, you can sign up with this link and get a free account.  If you’re unsure whether this type of investing is right for you, you can deposit a small amount (investments can be as small as $25) and become familiar with it. If you have any questions about it, I’d be more than happy to answer them in the comments (or feel free to contact me by e-mail).

Niche Sites

This is the area where Google’s recent algorithm change hurt the most, as you would expect. As I mentioned here though, it wasn’t my newer micro-niche sites that were hit badly – it was my older niche sites, particularly those monetized with Clickbank and Amazon.

Also, I’m still working to try out different AdSense alternatives.  You can read about what I think of Media.net, if it’s an alternative you’re considering.

Here’s a summary of April’s niche site earnings:

• Amazon: $17.12
• Media.net: $12.58
• Chitika: $0.16
• InfoLinks: $4.61
• Total: $34.47

Ugly, I know.  Stay tuned for a case study (starting in the near future) where I try to “resurrect” a few niche sites and get them ranking again – I’ll document everything on this blog, as usual.

Authority Site

This was probably the only bright spot in April, as I finally completed a major project – a free eBook/digital report to give away, in order to grow my site’s e-mail list.   It’s 20 pages of content that I feel really good about.  It took me several months to write (I wrote it little by little each week), but the final product is great.

The list already has 8 subscribers, which doesn’t seem like many, but the site doesn’t get a ton of traffic yet (and the digital report has only been available for less than a week).  I plan on doing a full write-up here soon on my entire process of creating the eBook and setting up the list.  I’m hoping this list will become a major asset to my business in the future.

Here’s a look at what the site earned in April:

• Media.net: $9.15
• Other: $8.80
• Total: $17.95

Other Affiliate Income

Here’s the breakdown for April.  [Note: This income comes from other sites not discussed/listed above, including affiliate sales generated through this blog.]

• Amazon: $0.00
• ClickBank: $0.00
• Commission Junction: $130.20
• PayDotCom: $0.00
• Private Advertising: $0.00
• Market Samurai: $48.50
• Other Misc.: $5.82

Total Misc. Affiliate Earnings for April: $184.52 

The most shocking thing to me was Clickbank – this is the first month in over a year where I earned nothing.  It’s really disappointing, as I was used to always making at least 1 or 2 Clickbank sales each month.  Also, I lost my private advertiser on one niche site (which used to pay $35/month) because the site lost its rankings with the recent Panda and Penguin updates.

It pains me to write all of these negative happenings, but I remain positive in my outlook – things absolutely will get better.

Income Summary

Here’s a summary of April’s earnings, organized by project/challenge:

• InfoBarrel Earnings Challenge: $1.26
• Amazon & “AdSense” Niche Sites: $34.47
• Authority Website: $17.95
• Misc. Affiliate Income: $184.52

Grand Total for April: $238.20 (-$320.30 from March)

Popular Posts

These were my top 5 most popular blog posts in April based on number of views:

1) AdSense Account Disabled: What the Hell?!

2) The Ultimate Backlink Tracker (Free Tool)

3) My Passive Income Report [March 2012]

4) How to Make $2,000 Per Month Writing for InfoBarrel

5) A Detailed Look at My Top Earning Niche Sites

How was your April?  Did anyone else see a significant drop in earnings?  Until next month, best of luck to you and your passive income projects!

If you enjoyed this income report, subscribe to the RSS feed (if you haven’t already) so that you don’t miss any future updates. Thanks so much!

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My Passive Income Report [April 2012]

Related posts:

1. My Passive Income Report [March 2012]
2. Online Passive Income & Blog Update [April '11]
3. Online Passive Income & Blog Update [March '11]

The initial update was rather shocking to many internet marketers, as most saw their sites disappear from the top search results on Google.  As usual, people cried out about the “end of SEO“, feeling the pain of their lost income sources.

There were some interesting implications to this update in particular, which I’ll explain below.

The Initial Shock

I knew something was up when my traffic across most of my sites seems down significantly mid-day on April 24th, and my reading over at the Warrior Forum confirmed it.  This update was a little bit different, however, and seemed to have many unintended effects. Here are some examples of what people found soon after Penguin was rolled out:

• An essentially blank website was ranking at the top of page 1 on Google for the super-competitive search phrase “make money online“.

• A search for “Viagra” did not return Viagra’s official site anywhere on the 1st page…and oddly enough, one of the 1st page search results was a .edu site (Northern Kentucky University), obviously having nothing to do with Viagra.

• Lots of spammy looking websites occupying the top spots on Google for other competitive phrases (which seems to be the complete opposite of what Google intended).

• Well-aged authority sites losing their rankings for the first time (the types of sites that were never really affected by previous Panda updates)

• See more examples here.

As I read through all of these observations (warning: reading the Warrior Forum can easily waste hours of your time), I knew that all of this had to be an overreaction.  There’s no way Google would allow these changes to remain in this form, and it would most likely be at least a few days before Google made some tweaks and the dust settled.  That’s why I waited a few days to write this post.

Who Seems to Be Affected?

Nothing is absolutely certain right now, but these appear to be the types of sites that were hit hardest:

• Exact match keyword domains – It appears Google has reduced the positive impact that having an exact match keyword domain has on your site’s rankings.

• Sites with spammy backlink profiles – If you have a lot of backlinks that appear spammy (e.g. links are found within a poorly spun article that has no relevancy to your links) or come from private blog networks that Google has identified (such as BMR, which was shut down), there’s a good chance your site was affected.

Unfortunately, many sites that appear to have nothing wrong with them were also hit hard, so there’s nothing really solid to conclude here.

Say “Hello” to Negative SEO

It used to be that if you built “bad” backlinks, Google simply gave them little or no weight, and thus they did not help your rankings at all. Apparently, negative SEO has arrived – in other words, there are backlinks you can build that not only don’t help your site, but they hurt your rankings and potentially outweigh the good links.

Here’s a video from SEOmoz that explains it well:

Other Resources for Learning More About Google’s Penguin Update

Because I’m not an SEO guru, it’s not worth me going into the nitty gritty of this algorithm update, when so many others have written great articles about it.  Here’s a few I recommend reading:

• Google Penguin Update Recovery Tips and Advice from Search Engine Land
• Google Launches “Penguin Update” Targeting Webspam In Search Results from Search Engine Land
• Another Step to Reward High-Quality Sites from the Official Google Webmaster Blog – If you want to read about how many people seem to be “unfairly” affected by this update, definitely read through some of the comments on this article.

Has the Dust Settled?

I’m not sure, because I’m still noticing some things that don’t seem quite right. Take my blog for example (My 4-Hour Workweek):  I’ve never manually built links to this site, aside from leaving comments on other people’s websites.  This blog is a perfect example of how a site can obtain links naturally, as I have been linked to over a thousand times, both on my main page and to various individual posts. SEO really can’t get any more natural than this.  Also, my blog is a PR3 site as of right now.

Because of my site’s name and relevancy to The 4-Hour Workweek (the book), I had been ranking on page 1 for the search term “4 hour workweek” for a long time (well over a year), getting as high as #3 or #4 (I can’t quite remember).  I never really monitor this blog’s ranking, because search engine traffic isn’t as important to me.

With over 4,000 e-mail subscribers, 1,000 RSS subscribers, and being linked to in various places, I don’t rely on search engine traffic too much (in fact, search engine traffic only makes up 33% of my overall traffic).  As of right now, my blog is ranking on page 13 for the search term “4 hour workweek”, and I can assure you I’ve probably lost rankings for many other phrases I once ranked highly for.

This makes absolutely no sense to me - Of every website I own, I’m most proud of this blog.  My content is 100% original and written by me, it attracts “real” backlinks, and I’ve been around for over 2 years now (a long time in “internet years”).  While PR3 is nothing amazing, it’s still a sign that I’m even trusted by Google’s own quality measures.

Again, this isn’t something I’m stressing over, and it’s not going to impact my income at all, but it’s a sign that Google’s Penguin update may still have some unintended effects in play.

Impact on Other Bloggers

Here are some examples of how this Google update impacted a few other bloggers who I follow and enjoy:

Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income:

Spencer Haws from Niche Pursuits:

“Overall, I have definitely seen some movement down with the rankings of some of my sites.  Not all of my sites, but definitely a significant movement with some of them.  At this point its still too early to tell with some of my larger sites how the actual traffic to my sites will be effected.  My analytics appear to be pretty consistent with the number of visitors to my larger sites over the past few days.  So, I may need some more time to assess the full effect.”

Justin and Joe from AdSense Flippers:

The Impact on My Niche Sites

I’m still recovering from the last blow that Google dealt me, so this update really didn’t hurt me from an emotional standpoint.  A far as rankings though, the overall effect was negative. Oddly enough, my newer, thinner micro-niche sites weren’t affected too much.  My older niche sites, ones with more content and backlinks were hit harder.

Again, this is pretty counter-intuitive….I would expect thinner sites that have essentially only been backlinked with Unique Article Wizard to be hurt, but they weren’t.  Unfortunately, these sites aren’t earning me much money – as I mentioned in my article about Media.net, I haven’t been able to put ads on most of my niche sites yet, and they obviously no longer earn from AdSense.

The sites hit hardest were some of my original niche sites, including some Clickbank sites that used to bring me a bit of income each month, as well as my Amazon niche sites.  Also, I have one site that I have been consistently earning $35/month from a private advertiser on, that I won’t be able to bill this month (the site is nowhere to be found on Google and doesn’t receive any traffic now).

Theory on Why My Older Sites Were Hurt

My older sites were built – for lack of a better explanation – before I knew what I was doing. Although most of my recent backlinks have been built “properly” (good mix of anchor text, links built slowly, etc.), I had a lot of older links that maybe weren’t as good.  I’ve tried many different backlinking packages on Fiverr, and I’m sure some of these are viewed as negative backlinks by Google.

I may do a case study soon to try and “resurrect” these sites, but first I have to decide whether it’s worth putting more time into these older sites, or if my time is better spent working on new sites or current sites that are ranking fine.

Are Micro Niche Sites Dead?

This is the question that people seem to ask after every time Google makes an update like this.  And the answer remains the same: no.   That doesn’t mean your approach shouldn’t change, however.

The biggest tool you have in building a successful niche site is keyword research.  If you can successfully find a low competition keyword that has high enough traffic, you can build a profitable niche site.  Unfortunately, I think exact match keyword domains have lost some of their ranking power, which means you may need to put in more work with content creation and backlink building.

If micro niche sites now require more work to be profitable, you may have to think twice about whether it’s something you want to spend time on, or if perhaps your time is better spent working on a larger, authority-style website.

My Plan Going Forward

I’ll be honest when I say that I’m somewhat lost right now, after being hit again and again in a short period of time (losing AdSense, losing site rankings, etc.).  If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile though, you know that I’m optimistic and that I will continue to work hard through any type of adversity.

Over the past week, and going forward, I have been spending and plan to spend 80-90% of my time on one authority site that I started building several months ago.  I think there’s a lot of interesting things I can do with the site, and I’m excited about the things I’ve done lately (such as finally completing the eBook that I plan to use in building my e-mail list).

Here are some of the topics I plan to write about on the blog in the upcoming weeks and months:

• Building and optimizing an e-mail list for an authority site (including experiments with paid traffic)
• Content strategy, and how I’m easily finding people to write posts for free
• An SEO strategy that works for authority sites (and no, I haven’t quite figured this out yet!)

As for my niche sites, I’m going to continue testing out (and writing about) different AdSense alternatives, to see if I can make the most of the traffic that I still receive on many of my micro niche sites that were previously 100% monetized through Google AdSense.

I’d Like to Hear from You

How have your sites been doing ever since Penguin was rolled out by Google?  What do you think of my plan, and what’s your plan now?  Please share them in the comments!

As usual, if you enjoyed this post, I’d greatly appreciate a share on Facebook or retweet on Twitter! Thanks!

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Google’s Recent Disaster & My Plans for the Future

Related posts:

1. Beaten Down by Google’s Recent Algorithm Change?
2. Google’s Recent Algorithm Change: Game Changer for Niche Sites?
3. Ranking on Page 1 of Google…Without Doing Anything

Media.net is one of the first places I applied after losing my AdSense account, and so far, it’s been an interesting experience.  It’s going to be very difficult to fully replace AdSense, however I already believe Media.net will be one of my top alternatives.  Here’s my in-depth review.

What Is Media.net?

Like AdSense, Media.net is a contextual advertising company – what this means is that the ads displayed on your website are influenced by the actual content on the page, so that visitors will see relevant advertisements.

Also, like AdSense, Media.net pays you for each click, and the amount is based on the bidding of the advertisers (so as you would expect, more competitive niches will yield higher earnings per click).

Different Types of Ads

Just as AdSense has its regular ad units and its link units, Media.net offers a few different types of ad styles.  Note:  Media.net only allows you one of each ad type per page.

• Content Ads – These are your standard contextual block ads, and you can choose from a variety of sizes.  They don’t have as many size choices as AdSense, but all of the more popular sizes are there.  This is the type of ad that I have implemented on all of my niche sites that currently utilize Media.net, and from what I’ve heard, this type pays better than the others.

• Search Targeting Ads – These ads actually look the same as the content ads, with one big exception: they are shown to search engine traffic only, and the content of the ad is tied directly to the visitor’s search query.  As you can see, this allows very relevant ads to be displayed to organic traffic, although I’ve heard these ads don’t pay as well as the content ads.  I don’t have enough data personally yet to confirm or deny this.

• Web Bar – This is an ad unit similar to AdSense’s horizontal link units, except that it’s placed at the bottom of the screen and is “sticky” to remain above the fold as the user scrolls down the page.  I’ve never been a fan of these types of ads since I think they look too spammy, so I have yet to try this one.

• Mobile Ads  - These ads are simply optimized for mobile viewing.  To be honest, I have yet to jump on the “mobile” bandwagon (no pun intended) when it comes to internet marketing.  I know it’s where the future is trending, but for right now, it’s not a focus of mine.

What I Like About Media.net

In some ways, I actually like Media.net more than AdSense, although that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t gladly give up my Media.net account if it meant getting back AdSense.   Here’s what I like, specifically:

1) Decent earnings per click

This is obviously going to vary by niche, but in my past month of testing Media.net on a small handful of sites, Media.net’s CPC seems to be very similar to AdSense’s.  This is probably the biggest reason why Media.net stands out among many other contextual advertising alternatives.  Obviously, there are many I haven’t tried yet, but this is my early impression.

2) Ads appear to be very “clickable”  

Media.net’s algorithm for determining relevant ads with your content seems to be very strong, and the design of the ads are such that they look like part of your site’s navigation.

I think the average internet user is so used to seeing AdSense-style ads that many have become blind to them.  Media.net’s ad style, while nothing spectacular, is somewhat refreshing after seeing a million different AdSense ads.  Here’s an example from the sidebar of one of my sites in the pet niche (I’ve blocked out any identifying information from the site):

As you can see, the ads aren’t “in your face” advertisements.  There is a small snippet of text (which isn’t visible in this screen shot) at the bottom which indicates that this is an ad block, however it’s not very intrusive.

3) Friendly support

This is absolutely unheard of with Google, so I found this to be a huge positive with Media.net.  When you create an account, you’re assigned an account manager.

I had one instance where one of my niche sites was denied for Media.net ads (more on this below).  I contacted the account manager to find out why, and what I can do to get the site approved, and he replied fairly quickly with some helpful information.  He told me once I make the necessary changes, I can re-submit the site for approval.

Do you think anyone at Google would ever take the time to help with something like this? I highly doubt it.

What I Don’t Like About Media.net

This is a very honest and unbiased review, so I’m of course going to be very open about what I don’t like about Media.net.

1) Each individual site requires manual approval. 

Unlike Google AdSense (which you can place on any website once your account is initially approved), you must add each site individually to Media.net and it must be approved.  This usually doesn’t take long (within 24 hours), but it’s an extra step, and it means that you have to essentially fully build a site without knowing if you’ll be able to put Media.net ads on it.

2) Media.net is somewhat strict about the sites they approve.

I’m actually fine with this because it  improves the integrity of Media.net for its advertisers (which means, over time, advertisers will pay more on Media.net than they might on other ad platforms).  However, I have had several sites declined already.

Certain thinner micro-niche sites that might have been fine for AdSense may not work for Media.net.  Specifically, sites that have only 3-5 pages of content, like many of mine do.  I do, however, believe that this is subjective on Media.net’s side of things.  I had one site with 5 pages of content declined, but a site with 3 pages of content accepted.

It may have to do with the individual person who is manually approving the site, or maybe they like certain niches more than others.   It may also depend on word count (and not just # of pages) – I’m not sure.

Either way, this is a significant hurdle. For my sites that are currently too thin for Media.net (which unfortunately may be the vast majority of my micro-niche sites), it may be awhile before I take the time to beef up the content on all sites.

3) Media.net may not work for every niche.  

When you submit one of your sites for approval, you have to select a category for the site.  I think this step is in place so that your site can be matched up with the pool of advertisers for that particular category.  Although they have a lot of categories, I’ve had a couple instances where a site didn’t really fit perfectly in any of the available categories.

That’s All!

Hopefully if you’re in the same boat as me (i.e. no AdSense account), this review will help you determine if Media.net is a good option.  In most cases, I think it’s a great alternative.  I’m very far from replacing my AdSense income, but this is more due to the fact that right now I only have Media.net on 6 of my 80 sites.

What do you like/dislike about Media.net, if you’ve used it before?  Share it in the comments!  

Stay tuned for future articles where I’ll review other AdSense alternatives (and be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed so you don’t miss them).

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Top Google AdSense Alternatives: Media.net Review

Related posts:

1. AdSense Account Disabled: What the Hell?!
2. Making Money with Twitter – Review of Sponsored Tweets
3. Do You Think Social Media is Just a Fad? [The Social Networking Experiment]

From what I’ve been reading lately, Amazon has also been doing a fair amount of banning, so I wanted to be a little bit proactive and make sure that I’m not in a position to have my account banned.  Also, I wanted share with you a fairly quick and easy way to keep your account from getting banned.

Although I haven’t been banned, I’ve seen some other bloggers talk about this lately.  Here’s an example of an e-mail that Amazon has been sending to certain affiliates:

“Dear Associate,

While reviewing your account, we have noticed that your website contains links to Amazon that are not properly labeled, which makes it unclear that you are sending customers to the Amazon website.

The Associates Program Operating Agreement that governs your participation in the Associates Program requires that links to an Amazon Site must not be confusing or misleading, and must be clear that they link to an Amazon Site. For more information, please review the Participation Requirements and Linking Requirements found here:

http://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/operating/participation

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/operating/linking

We insist that you cease this activity and remove all Amazon content from your site(s) immediately. Moreover, because you are using the Associates Program in violation of the Associates Program Operating Agreement, your account has been closed and you will not receive further payment. Any other accounts you may have or may open in the future which are found in violation of the Operating Agreement may be closed and advertising fees withheld without notification.

Best regards,
[                  ]
http://www.amazon.com”

Pretty scary, right?

While I know I’ve done my best to disclose affiliate links for Amazon, most of my sites don’t have any sort of “blanket disclosure” on all pages, so it’s possible that there are pages that don’t have any sort of disclosure.   Fortunately, it’s very simple to make the appropriate disclosure.  Here’s how it needs to read:

The owner of this website, [your name here], is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking [your site address here] to Amazon properties including, but not limited to, amazon.com, endless.com, myhabit.com, smallparts.com, or amazonwireless.com.

You can add this to the footer of your site so that it appears on all pages.  Very simple, and keeps you from getting banned.  

If You’re Lazy Like Me…

I have a handful of Amazon sites and wanted a more automated way of putting this text in, even though it’s very easy to do.  I couldn’t find a free plugin (please let me know in the comments if you do know of a free one),  I did find this WordPress plugin that makes it pretty easy to add (yes, this an affiliate link).  The plugin is only $7 for one site (or $17 for unlimited sites), so I was okay with buying it.

Here’s what it looks like when you have the plugin installed:

Although I don’t really use Amazon affiliate links on this blog too often, I decided to add the disclosure just to be safe (you can scroll to the bottom to see what it looks like live).

Anyway, if you’re lazy like me, you can use this plugin, otherwise, just add the text to the footer of your site.  And if anyone out there knows of a free plugin for this, please let me know, and I will gladly replace my affiliate links with a link to the free plugin.

Thanks!

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Don’t Get Banned from Amazon Associates!

Related posts:

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2. Amazon Niche Site Challenge 01: A First Look Into the Details
3. How I Put My Amazon Niche Site Content Creation on Autopilot

Even when I’m at my busiest points in life, I absolutely cannot get away from reading my RSS reader (Google Reader), so I always find myself with plenty of good content to absorb.  And with all of Google’s recent changes, SEO is as hot a topic as ever, so you should find these posts to be pretty interesting.  I know I did!

Here Are The Top 5….

…in no particular order.

1) Outreach Letters for Link Building [Real Examples] from SEOmoz – When it comes to link building, there are a lot of methods out there that help us somewhat automate backlinks. These basic methods are usually effective enough to rank a micro-niche site on page 1 of Google, for a long tail keyword that has fairly low competition.

But what about for your authority site?  Most likely, you’re up against more competition, so you need to think a bit outside the box when it comes to link building.  This article shows some excellent examples of how you can build links in places that the average person won’t be able to, with just a little bit more effort.

2) 7 Link Building Mistakes You Ought to Avoid from QuickSprout – You’ll recognize some of these tips as fairly common link building advice (such as “don’t buy links”), however there are some tips here that I had never heard of (such as how you should use symantic keyword anchor text links).

3) A Step Toward Ethical Link Building – What Happened and What Now? from Smart Passive Income – In this post, Pat gives a pretty good recap of the recent Google changes with respect to blog networks, and offers up his view of SEO and link building going forward.

Although Google has penalized one method of link building, there are still a lot of ways to build backlinks (and most are relatively easy), which Pat looks at in some detail.

4) Google’s Hypocrisy Exposed from AffHelper – This article isn’t so much about SEO/link building tips, but it’s very interesting nonetheless.   Although this article almost reads like a rant, it’s actually a pretty in-depth case study about how Google’s words and actions are very hypocritical.  It appears that Google’s breaks its own rules more than anyone else.  

You won’t find anything actionable or instructional in this article, but you will find it to be thought-provoking at the very least.

5) How Garbage Ranks in the SERPS: A Case Study from SEOmoz – This is an awesome case study about how the author found an auto insurance niche site ranking 2nd for the search term “car insurance” above a big car insurance brand like GEICO.  

This article takes a deep look at the site’s backlink profile, on-page factors, and other data to understand how a seemingly low-value site can rank so highly for such a competitive keyword.  I love reading others’ analyses of data, especially when it comes to SEO.  This is definitely one of the best case studies I’ve read in the past month.

That’s All!

Let’s face it, SEO is always going to be a hot topic. It’s subject to wild fluctuations that can take you from feeling like your website is on top of the world, all the way to being buried six feet underground.   The winners will always be the ones who adapt to changes and diversify their portfolio (in terms of both their websites and their link building strategies).

Starting next week, I’ll be back to my normal swing of things (goodbye, tax season!), so stay tuned for future posts about everything I’m doing now that my AdSense account is gone.

What are some of the best SEO posts you’ve read lately?  Share them in the comments!

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Top 5 SEO Posts I’ve Read in the Past Month

Related posts:

1. Top 7 Blog Posts I’ve Read in the Past Month
2. Powerful SEO Advice Straight From The Horse’s Mouth
3. AdSense Micro-Niche Site Public Case Study – SEO / Backlinking (Part 5)

In light of this pivotal change in my internet marketing progress, I decided to mix up my monthly income report with a little bit of different format. And because I’m short on time right now, this one is going to be short and sweet!

A Brief Overview of March

Surprisingly, the loss of my AdSense account was not the most significant thing to happen to me during March.  The more significant hurdle for me has been tax season.  As most of you know, I’m a CPA, so this time of year is always extremely busy.

With that being said, I really didn’t do much in March from an internet marketing standpoint.  I still feel it’s necessary to update this blog on a weekly basis, but beyond that, I’ve toyed around with a few new AdSense alternatives.  There hasn’t been anything to write about yet, but once I have the time to dig into a few different AdSense alternatives, you can be sure I’ll write about them here.

Tax season is going to be busy right up until the deadline (April 17th), so I likely won’t resume my usual internet marketing activities until late April.   Those of you with a full time job know that, sometimes, you just need to make the job a top priority.

March Income Report

Let’s jump right into where the money was in March…

InfoBarrel

How ironic – I’m starting my income report with something that generated me virtually no income in March!  With AdSense out of the picture, it became nearly impossible to earn money with InfoBarrel since you really can’t control the ads.

Because I didn’t want to “waste” all of my InfoBarrel traffic, I decided to give away this income. The winner of the contest is currently earning from my InfoBarrel articles, and I’m happy that I was at least able to share it with someone.

Here is the small amount of income I was able to earn in March:

• Chitika: $2.67

Even though I can’t earn much from InfoBarrel right now, I still highly recommend checking out my original plan to make lots of money with article writing if you’re new to the “making money online” game.

Lending Club

This is one income source that Google will never be able to impact.  I write about Lending Club every month, so I don’t need to go into a ton of detail here, but if you are unfamiliar with Lending Club, you can read my original write-up here.  In short: it’s my only truly passive income source.

As of the end of  March, I was invested in 113 loans (+3 from February) and my net annualized return was 5.85% (+0.13% from February).

There are definitely times where I wish I would just put more of my savings into Lending Club, because of the higher-than-average return that I’ve been getting for more than 2 years now.  But, I try to stay true to one of my top objectives: diversification.

If you’re interested in trying Lending Club, you can sign up with this link and get a free account.  If you’re unsure whether this type of investing is right for you, you can deposit a small amount (investments can be as small as $25) and become familiar with it. If you have any questions about it, I’d be more than happy to answer them in the comments (or feel free to contact me by e-mail).

Niche Sites

As you know, this was the area that took the biggest hit in March.  It wasn’t so much that February was anything special with my niche sites, but I was seeing some great earnings in the first half of March and was probably on pace to earn $300+ from my niche sites, primarily from AdSense.

But, part of what makes a good internet marketer is being able to roll with the punches and work through unexpected challenges.  I haven’t fully explored the top AdSense alternatives yet, but have started earning a little bit of money from a few new sources.

I’m not going to post the earnings by each site individually, as I typically do, because it wouldn’t be too informative with AdSense out of the picture.  Fortunately, my Amazon sites were doing okay.

Here’s a summary of March’s niche site earnings:

• Amazon: $75.18
• Media.net: $2.32
• Chitika: $1.03
• InfoLinks: $1.44
• Total: $79.97

My ultimate goal will be to prove that there is life after AdSense with respect to niche sites. My business may eventually get its own AdSense account, however it will never be able to be used on these 80+ niches sites already created.

Authority Site

As I’ve mentioned in a few places recently, once I get my free time back after tax season, my authority site will be a huge focus of mine.  I’m currently in talks with a writer to help me build out lots of content, and I’m almost done with everything I need to get the e-mail list going.

That’s all I’ll say for now, but there will be more to come.  Here’s a look at what the site earned in March:

• Media.net: $1.59
• Other: $9.35
• Total: $10.94

Other Affiliate Income

Here’s the breakdown for March.  [Note: This income comes from other sites not discussed/listed above, including affiliate sales generated through this blog.]

• Amazon: $0.00
• ClickBank: $88.72
• Commission Junction: $217.80
• PayDotCom: $0.00
• Private Advertising: $35.00
• Market Samurai: $112.00
• Other Misc.: $11.40

Total Misc. Affiliate Earnings for March: $464.92 

Income Summary

Here’s a summary of March’s earnings, organized by project/challenge:

• InfoBarrel Earnings Challenge: $2.67
• Amazon & AdSense Niche Sites: $79.97
• Authority Website: $10.94
• Misc. Affiliate Income: $464.92

Grand Total for March: $558.50 (-$389.64 from February)

Not a great month, of course, but I’m confident I’ll get back on track soon.  Stay tuned, as usual.

Popular Posts

These were my top 5 most popular blog posts in March based on number of views:

1) AdSense Account Disabled: What the Hell?!

2) Online Passive Income and Blog Update [February '12]

3) The Ultimate Backlink Tracker (Free Tool)

4) A Detailed Look at My Top Earning Niche Sites

5) How to Make $2,000 Per Month Writing for InfoBarrel

Tell me in the comments: How did you do in March?  Until next month, best of luck to you and your passive income projects!

If you enjoyed this income report, subscribe to the RSS feed (if you haven’t already) so that you don’t miss any future updates. Thanks so much!

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My Passive Income Report [March 2012]

Related posts:

1. My Passive Income Report [April 2012]
2. Online Passive Income & Blog Update [March '11]
3. Online Passive Income & Blog Update [February '11]

Furthermore, one of the most popular blog networks (BMR, used for backlinkng) was deindexed by Google, throwing many people into a state of uncertainty about the future of backlinking.  Fortunately, I hadn’t been using this network, but I’ll write a blog post later about the status of my niche sites from a ranking perspective.

Anyway, let’s get to the good stuff, because I’m going to be giving away some money here.

A Quick Update

Before I get into the details about what I’m giving away, I just wanted to write a quick update to follow up my previous post about my AdSense account becoming disabled.  My appeal was denied, so it looks like I’m going to give up on trying to get that account back.

My focus now turns to finding a way to build profitable ad-supported niche sites without Google AdSense, which I of course believe can be done.  While I still plan to get a new AdSense account for my business (once the LLC is set up), I’m hesitant to rely on Google to monetize the new sites.  I want to be in a position where I’m earning good money with or without AdSense.

With that said, I really don’t plan on doing much work until after the tax deadline (April 17th), so my passive income and productivity in general will probably be minimal until May.

I’m Giving Away One of My Passive Income Sources

As you may recall from my income reports, InfoBarrel was one of my more reliable income sources, usually generating $40-60 of passive income each month (having been over a year since I last put a lot of effort into writing articles there).

Ever since my AdSense account was disabled, that money has been….going nowhere (although I suspect InfoBarrel defaults the AdSense publisher ID to their own).  I think it’s a waste, and until my business opens an AdSense account, I want someone to be getting that money.

My plan right now is to hold some kind of very simple contest on a monthly basis, where I will put the winner’s AdSense ID in my InfoBarrel account, and they will earn whatever money my articles generate, for a month or so.

Here’s How to Win

It’s very simple:

1) Follow me on Twitter.

2) Retweet any of my blog posts.

3) Use the Twitter hashtag #my4hww so that I can properly track the entries in the contest.

You can retweet as many blog posts as you want – each retweet counts as one entry.

4) The winner will be randomly chosen Saturday, March 31st.  The winner will receive a tweet from me announcing that they have won, and will need to tweet me their e-mail address so that I can contact them with further details.

The Rules

• In order for your retweet(s) to be valid, it must occur between now and Friday, March 30th at 11:59 PM EST.

• The retweet must include the hashtag #my4hww, otherwise I will be unable to track the entry.

• You must be comfortable providing me with your Google AdSense publisher ID (I will of course keep this 100% private, and there really isn’t much I can do with it besides make you money).

• By entering, you agree that I am not responsible for the earnings generated via InfoBarrel, good or bad. Once I put in your publisher ID, it is as if this is your account.

• Entries from “empty” Twitter accounts (i.e. accounts with no followers) will not be considered valid.  I don’t want people creating new Twitter accounts just to retweet 100 of my blog posts to no one.

• You have 24 hours  from the time I tweet you (if you win), to respond with your e-mail address and provide me your AdSense publisher ID via e-mail.  If this time limit expires, I will simply choose another random entry.

• For the winner: To track your Google AdSense earnings from InfoBarrel, you will want to follow these instructions and set up a URL channel for infobarrel.com.

Personally, I don’t think there is any issue with using a different AdSense ID on my InfoBarrel account.  Although Google AdSense did disable my account, it was certainly related to my niche sites, not InfoBarrel.

InfoBarrel is a huge platform, so putting your AdSense ID on my InfoBarrel articles is no different than creating your own articles on InfoBarrel (i.e. it’s all housed on the infobarrel.com domain).  Obviously, if you are uncomfortable with this, don’t enter!

Best of luck to anyone who enters!

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I’m Giving You Some of My Passive Income

Related posts:

1. Am I A Failure When It Comes to Earning Passive Income?
2. A High Level Analysis of My Passive Income History
3. Passive Income Experiments Update [June '10]

But not this past Friday morning.  Nope. I sprung out of bed as you might do when a fire alarm goes off in the middle of the night, or maybe on Christmas morning when you’re 8 years old.  I woke up to this little gem in my e-mail box:

Keep reading, and I’ll give you the full story.

The Initial Panic

Panic was probably the best word to describe my initial reaction when I read this e-mail:

This was no joke – I tried to open my AdSense account only to find a similar message, and nowhere to navigate.  This was one of the things we all fear – having one of our primary online income sources cut off completely.  I was having a great month too – it probably would have been my best AdSense month so far.  Of course, they will be taking away from me what I earned so far this month ($100+) and I’m not sure if my amounts accrued through last month (~$200) will be paid out.

Over a year of hard work, countless hours, thousands of dollars spent – diminished with a simple flip of the switch.  Yes, my sites are still ranking as they were and still receiving traffic as usual, but the primary means of monetization – the one source of income that was destined to keep growing each month – gone.

Sure, there are a lot of ways to monetize a site in general, but micro-niche sites by their very nature have a narrow focus, and therefore, limited means of monetization.  No other ad network has so many advertisers competing for all of the long-tail keywords that we target with these sites.  Sure, that doesn’t stop you from using one of them, but ads that are less relevant are sure to experience a lower click through rate and lower cost per click.

This was my initial panic.  Everything was over – my sites were worthless.  Even worse, I didn’t understand how or why this happened to me.  I’ve followed all of Google’s rules.  My traffic was all organic.  And my ad placements, although on the aggressive side, were well within what’s “allowed” and in no way were set up to wrongfully entice clicks (“invalid” clicks).

So What the Hell Happened?

As I mentioned above, Google is accusing me of having invalid clicks.  What this basically means is that they believe people were clicking my ads for reasons other than general interest in the ad’s content.

For example, if you click your own ad or tell a friend to click your ad, these are invalid clicks.  If you put an image or text next to the ad block that says “CLICK HERE >>>> “, any clicks generated would be considered invalid clicks.  You get the idea.

This of course leaves me baffled because I absolutely did not do any of that.  I know the rules and I know Google is very strict about enforcing them.  I’m not about to risk the status of my account for a $0.68 click.  I’m not an idiot.

Here’s what I think could have happened:  Someone who reads this blog decided to visit one of the niche sites that I’ve made public here in the past, and decided to click an ad – maybe they did it several times in one visit (also known as “click bombing”), or maybe it was spread over a longer period of time…or it was multiple people who did it one time.  Whether it was to screw me over or “help” me,  I have no idea.  I never noticed any irregular activity, so it never crossed my mind.

I can’t say with any certainty that this was the cause, but it’s very possible.  Something similar to this happened to Chris Ducker awhile back, and he suspected the same thing.

I guess the bottom line is, sometimes, transparency comes at cost.  If you read Pat Flynn’s site, you know that after he reported all of his success with his site from the “Niche Site Duel,” copycats started popping up, and probably affected his earnings somewhat (although they are still amazing).

Apparently, I’m Not the Only One

Naturally, when I found out my account was disabled, I wanted to take a look around and see if there was some kind big wave of account disabling by Google – although I suspect they disable lots of accounts on a daily basis.

I came across this thread on the Warrior Forum, and it sounds like there were a lot of people disabled around the same time I was.  Here’s an interesting quote from someone in that thread:

Based on this quote and what others in the thread wrote, it does sound like Google recently disabled a lot of accounts for invalid click activity.  I guess I’m not alone, though that doesn’t make me feel any better.

What’s the Plan Going Forward?

First of all, I appealed Google’s decision to disable my account. This probably won’t do anything for me, but I’ve read some success stories, so it’s worth a try.  I don’t want to try anything drastic until I know for sure that I can’t get my account back.

New Monetization for High Traffic Sites

Although none of my micro-niche sites were clear winners (yet), I am going to take my top sites and find a way to monetize them (how ironic is it that I blogged about my top AdSense sites just days before getting my account disabled?).

I have a few ideas in mind for alternatives to AdSense, and perhaps if people here are interested, I’ll do a whole blog post about AdSense alternatives.  For my top sites, I want to look at each site on a case-by-case basis – some sites may only benefit from another display advertising network, while certain ones may be better off promoting affiliate products or CPA  (cost-per-action) offers.

Overall, Take an 80/20 Approach for My Current Niche Sites

Because AdSense is no longer a viable monetization method for my existing niche sites, some of the sites simply won’t be worth putting any more effort into.  The 20% of my sites that account for 80% of my income will receive most of my focus.  The other 80% won’t be worth the time.   Sites that were only earning $1-5/month with AdSense (which I consider to be profitable) may only earn less than $1/month with another ad network (no longer profitable).

Now, I still have 8+ months left before I have to renew a lot of these domains, so I don’t want to “waste” any traffic that they are currently receiving.  What I will probably do is pick one ad network to apply to all of these sites (such as Chitika, which I already have some experience using).

More Focus on Amazon Sites

For me, Amazon is still a perfectly viable way to monetize my sites, and I still have a handful of sites that had regularly been earning more from Amazon than AdSense each month.  I’ll put more focus on converting traffic for my current Amazon sites, and for any new sites I build, I’ll probably look toward niches where I can easily integrate Amazon affiliate links.

Create an LLC

This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and it seems like now is the perfect time to do it.  Because an LLC would be a separate legal entity, I’ll be able to apply for a new AdSense account under the business name (this is perfectly legal/in line with Google’s terms of service).  Unfortunately, I will only be able to use this account for new sites.  I don’t want to risk associating the new account with older sites, in case they are somehow “flagged” now.

My micro-niche site plan is not over yet, but I will need to invest the time to create new sites and build them up all over again, for the new AdSense account.  Once I go through the process of setting up the LLC, I’ll probably do a post on it here in case any of you are interested in doing something similar.

Lessons Learned

Diversification is Key

You can follow all the rules, have the most amazing content, and have a 2+ year solid track record (as I did)…but if your income all comes from one source (or mostly one source), you are at risk of having it vanish overnight.  People will always make the argument that as long as your sites are getting traffic, losing AdSense isn’t a big deal because there other ways to monetize.  It’s true that there are other ways to monetize, but I don’t think you can say that it’s easy to replace the income, especially with sites that were designed to make money with AdSense.

Google will always act in the best interest of their advertisers, NOT their publishers – this is Google’s key income source.  What this means is, if they have any doubt that you’re not good for their advertisers, they won’t hesitate to get rid of you – even if it doesn’t make sense.  You can’t blame them for trying to protect their business.

If you can diversify your income streams, both by having multiple projects (e.g. different websites) and within those projects, multiple methods of monetizing, you are in a much better position to survive the elimination of one of your projects or income sources.

Authority Sites are Better? Not Necessarily.

I bring this up because I don’t think you or I can conclude that micro-niche sites are specifically targeted by Google, in terms of deciding whether or not to disable an account.   Remember, the Google AdSense team is only concerned with their advertisers receiving quality, targeted traffic.  If your micro-niche site is very focused, and receives very targeted organic traffic, Google AdSense likes this.

Keep in mind, Google AdSense is a separate “team” than the team that handles Google’s search results and ranking algorithm.  Pleasing one doesn’t always mean you please the other.

With all of this said, I think authority sites will always be “safer” in that they have a stronger foundation and are easier to diversify with various monetization methods (ads, affiliate links, e-mail marketing, etc.) compared to micro-niche sites.   So if your site gets “click bombed” and you lose your AdSense account, the site itself will still continue making money from other sources.

Conclusion

While I know this post began in a state of panic, hopefully you’ve seen that I’m actually optimistic overall.  While all of this means I’ll need to do a lot more work, and it may be a little while until I can get my niche site earnings back to where they were (it’ll have to be after tax season), I honestly believe I will look back one day and conclude that losing my AdSense account was one of the best things to happen to my online business.

I feel refreshed, in some kind of sick and twisted way – I feel more inspired to think “outside the box” and  work smarter with my internet marketing projects.

What do you think?  Has this happened to any of you, and how have you handled it?  Also, if you have any good suggestions for alternatives to AdSense, I’d love to hear about them.

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AdSense Account Disabled: What the Hell?!

Related posts:

1. AdSense Micro-Niche Site Public Case Study – An Introduction (Part 1)
2. AdSense Micro-Niche Site Public Case Study – Research & Initial Setup (Part 2)
3. AdSense Micro-Niche Site Public Case Study – Where Do We Go From Here? (Part 6)

Sometimes success is random and can’t be pinpointed on any one factor, but if you can figure out a few reasons why a site is earning well, you’re in a better position to replicate that success.

Top 10 Earning Sites from Last Month

We’ll start off with a chart of last month’s top 10 sites, sorted by earnings.  You’ll notice I’ve included some extra columns…

[Click image to enlarge]

Because “page 1 of Google” is the most relevant ranking information, I’ve listed the rank if the site is on page 1, otherwise I wrote “pg 2″ to indicate the site is on page 2…or I wrote “N/A” if the site isn’t ranked on page 1 or 2 for that particular keyword.  Keep in mind that this ranking data is for the primary keyword - this doesn’t reflect longer-tail, lower traffic keywords that the site receives visits from.

Instead of making overall generalizations about each site above, I’ve decided to tackle each site in some detail.  And yes, I will even tell you what the general niche of each site is!

1) Site #6

Primary Keyword CPC: $0.67

Primary Keyword Exact Local Search Volume: 720

Broad Niche: Technology

I was surprised to see this as my top earning site – after all, it’s not on the first 2 pages of Google and the estimated search volume is only 720 searches per month.  How the heck did this happen?

I think this site is a perfect example of why you shouldn’t overlook Bing/Yahoo.  One of the reasons why I think this site is successful is because it’s a review site that’s primarily monetized through Amazon, and I think a lot of people turn to Bing when they are shopping online.  Being #1 on Bing allows me to capture that traffic and probably convert it a lot better than traffic from Google (which is actually almost nonexistent right now, so I can’t really compare the two).

Also, I will point out that this is one of my older niche sites (created about a year and a half ago as one of my original Amazon sites).  Because the search volume is low, it may not ever earn any more than this, but $35-40/month is great (that’s $420-480/year) and it only costs me $10 to renew each year.

2) Site #67

Primary Keyword CPC: $0.65

Primary Keyword Exact Local Search Volume: 2,400

Broad Niche: Shopping – Household Products

The reason this site seems to work well is that it has a high click through rate.  Each individual click doesn’t pay well, but when you’re getting lots of clicks, it almost doesn’t matter.  One of the reasons the click through rate is so is high is because the ads are extremely relevant to the search, to the point where, when you land on the site, it’s difficult to not click on the ads.

This is definitely a site I want to put more of a focus on and add more content/backlinks.  Currently, the site only has 2 “real” pages of content (the other pages are the usual ones – contact us, privacy policy, about us pages).

3) Site #25

Primary Keyword CPC: $1.35

Primary Keyword Exact Local Search Volume: 1,900

Broad Niche: Society/Relationship Issues

When I created this site, I never expected it to be one of my better earning sites.  The niche isn’t something that I think lends itself to ad clicks.  My gut reaction to the expected click through rate was right – this site’s click through rate is only 1/5 of site #67′s above.

So why is it doing well?  Even if you have a low keyword search volume, low click through site, you can overcome that by having a good ranking site.  This site is ranking #3 for its target keyword, and last month, it had the 6th highest # of page views of all my niche sites.

The lesson here is that you can actually target keywords and niches you don’t think are great if you believe you can rank highly (top 3) for your primary keyword.

4) Site #51

Primary Keyword CPC: $2.92

Primary Keyword Exact Local Search Volume: 1,600

Broad Niche: Technology

This is actually the micro-niche site I’m currently most excited about because it’s for a product I’m very interested in, and I think I can get it to earn $50/month or more, despite the relatively low search volume.

Although I’m ranking #4 right now on Google, this is one site where I’m going to push hard to get to #1.  This is a great example of how it helps to actually be interested in the niche that you choose.  You’re more excited/motivated to work on it.

5) Site #5

Primary Keyword CPC: $0.76

Primary Keyword Exact Local Search Volume: 1,300

Broad Niche: Men’s Accessories

This is another one of my original Amazon sites created over a year ago.  What I love about these sites is that I literally haven’t touched them for the past 9-12 months, and they continue to earn money regularly.

One thing I need to start doing is going back to these older sites to add content and make sure I’ve applied all the on-site SEO tactics I’ve learned ever since I originally built the sites.  It’s a lot easier to make more money from a site that’s already earning compared to starting a new site from scratch.

6) Site #69

Primary Keyword CPC: $0.57

Primary Keyword Exact Local Search Volume: 8,100

Broad Niche: Food Products

Out of my top 10 earning sites, this one targets the keyword with the highest search volume.  As you can see, it’s been more difficult to rank (currently not on page 1 on any search engine).   Keep in mind, this is one of my newer sites, completed less than 3 months ago.

7) Site #9

Primary Keyword CPC: $0.38

Primary Keyword Exact Local Search Volume: 2,400

Broad Niche: Pets

This was one of the first Adsense-focused niche sites I built, about 8 months ago.  This was definitely an “experimental” site in that I built it before really learning much about how to properly research and build these types of sites.

As you can see, I picked a very low CPC keyword in a competitive niche.  Despite the fact that I don’t think this site represents “good niche site work,” I’ve already just about earned enough to cover the cost of building it – everything I earn from this point forward will be gravy.

This takes me back to something I’ve always said – if you do it right, it’s not difficult to build a profitable site (even when you feel like you’ve targeted a poor keyword).  Granted, it might not earn a lot of money, but if you can at least recoup the cost of building the site, you’re in an excellent position.

8 ) Site #43

Primary Keyword CPC: $2.42

Primary Keyword Exact Local Search Volume: 1,600

Broad Niche: Auto

This site hasn’t received much traffic (that’s why overall earnings are low), but it’s in a fairly high paying niche and the click through rate has been solid.  This is one niche where I believe the ads are very well targeted (which helps you).  The auto niche is notorious for spending lots of money on advertisement, so you can be sure that they are designed for great conversion.

9) Site #21

Primary Keyword CPC: $3.94

Primary Keyword Exact Local Search Volume: 1,300

Broad Niche: Relationships

I don’t need to say much for this site, because it was the focus for my AdSense micro-niche site case study.  You can read all the details here.

10) Site #18

Primary Keyword CPC: $6.94

Primary Keyword Exact Local Search Volume: 1,600

Broad Niche: Health

This was another one of the first AdSense sites I built before I came up with my current “process.”  This site actually wasn’t ranking until the past couple of weeks, so I’m interested to see where the earnings go.

The biggest flaw in this site is that I don’t think it’s going to have a very good click through rate – therefore, the only way it’s going to earn decent money is if I can get it to rank in the top 3 on Google.

Conclusion

I’m sure you still have questions, but hopefully this article gave you a deeper look into some of my better niche sites.  I will definitely acknowledge that none of these sites are great successes.  I still consider them all to be works in progress.  Hopefully though, this gives you an idea of how sites like these can expect to earn after a few months.

Because I’m sure I left out information that you’d like to know, I’ll be happy to answer any questions about these sites, in the comments (except for giving away the URLs!).

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Also, follow me on Twitter!

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A Detailed Look at My Top Earning Niche Sites

Related posts:

1. Unexpected Income from Niche Sites
2. AdSense Micro-Niche Site Public Case Study – Research & Initial Setup (Part 2)
3. The One Question No One Seems to be Asking About Niche Sites