It is very difficult to give a shit in this business. What I mean by this is, I have provided the Web with sites that I thought would make Google and Yahoo proud. I deliver up good content. I create a website that is pleasing to the eye. You know, do all those things that gurus and busy-bodies tell you to do to provide to the web good and honorable content.
You go to some blogs or forums and there are all these people whining because they keep stumbling upon mountains of spam or websites that are junk. I used to read that and think, “Ok, I will provide the web with relevant content and build sites that are honorable so people will have an interest in coming back to visit. If I build pretty sites and be a part of the web then people will love me and I will make money and have friends.” Bull-effing-sheot.
I use Blogger quite a lot. I do my fair share of XSP sites but sometimes I just get tired of dealing with my hosting account. Blogger is still relevant. Takes no time to set up a blog and get your first article on there. It’s free and I don’t have to deal with getting a domain name and setting up the account. I don’t have to worry about the DB going down or backing it up. Blogger is great to use if you are building a BS niche site on something like donkey cancer, that you know can get clicks but you just don’t have an interest in.
Anyway, there was a time I’d try to fancy that Blogger blog up. I’d use a template that created a WP-esque blog. All pretty and shit. I could add my image banner. Had a nice sidebar. Had nice little blocks for Adsense placement. Just a nice little Blogger blog work of art.
After about 6 months just about any Blogger blog will start rocking the visitor count if you kept adding periodic posts and getting some backlinks. Well I had quite a few of these pretty Blogger blogs that I’d been managing over the last 6 months or so. The content was PLRPro articles dripped in via RSS2B. Plus I added it to AMA and am getting fresh articles via that as well (remember I grandfathered in a shitload of Blogger blogs before they stopped allowing you to use them). AMA really saved me a bunch of time because I stopped having to find time to create my own original content. I put Google Analytics on all of them and watched the visitor count climb. I’d recycle a bunch of the keywords that were used to find the sites to keep those keywords relevant through search.
But funny thing was, I’d check my Adsense and there were like zero clicks coming from these sites. When I say zero, I mean zero. Oh the impression count was nice. Do you enjoy logging in to your Adsense account and seeing like 112 impressions and no CTR? Sucks right?
So at the beginning of the year, figuring I had nothing to lose as these sites were for all intents, losers, I decided to strip the pretty template away and use a Blogger template. A shitty looking piece of garbage blog template. I hated to do this because I had spent so much time trying to make it an important site. So, I manually added the Adsense code back in two places: Top left using the largest square available and a huge vertical banner at the top in the sidebar. I didn’t even bother changing the colors. I left that bright blue link color.
Funny thing happened. I started getting Adsense clicks. A lot of them. One of those Blogger blogs has been my highest money maker this week.
People sit there and preach about the necessity of creating good content for the web. To not pollute the web with spammy sites. To build properties that you can be proud of and show off to your grandma. To create honorable and necessary sites that will educate and inform and entertain people.
I listened to these people. I thought I could matter. I figured if I did right by the web it would do right by me. That if I created quality sites that I would make money.
You know what makes me money? Crap. Utter crap. Ebay/Blogger mash-up franken-sites. StoreStacker stores that I don’t try to modify. Blogs using a datafeed script. Simple and ugly WP templates work best for that. Ugly Blogger blogs. XSP sites that have a large rectangle of Adsense in the center and above the fold within the content.
Honestly the less I try or care the more money I make. I start failing when I try to build “authority sites”. When I try to pretty up a WP blog with a so-called Web 2.0 template my earnings circle the bowl. When I try to make a Blogger blog something more than the shitpie that it is.
There is one problem with this though. You may have a difficult time getting backlinks to these crap sites. I do. Most directories will not list a garbage site. Nobody will trade links with you. You’ll be very lucky if you get a natural backlink from someone referencing your site. About the only thing you can do is write articles and submit them using anchor links or bookmark them. I do with AMA and BMD.
That’s why I have sites for visitors on Wordpress.com, Squidoo and other authority sites that I can use to link back to my own sites. When I build a crap site I use one of my WP sites to link back every so often. I weave in a relevant narrative in a post and link back to the crap site. That way I’ll get a fast indexing and at least a PR1 on the next update.
I know many of you are working hard to build up your virtual real estate. You spend hours making your blog look nice. Purchase or designing Web 2.0 blog templates. You believe that people really care about your content on bar stools or cigar boxes. Maybe they do. But from my experience people just want to click around. Nobody really reads anything. I’ve always believed that PLR content was and is crap. Nobody reads that mess. And unless you want friends and not money, you don’t want them to.
I know the difficulty of trying to do your best in this business. We all read the same crap from guburus (goober+guru=guberu). Their salespage and blogs and forums tell us to create worthwhile content. Build authority sites. Build great sites and the money will come.
Yet these same dudes are sitting around collecting your money for membership. For software. For ebooks. I bet they aren’t walking the talk. They tell you what to do to make money yet their money is collected from you. They aren’t the ones in the trenches trying to make their dubious, at best, advice work. They don’t have time to build what they tell you to because they are too busy pimping IM products.
Marketers are not going to tell you to build crap sites. It’s not professional. I’ll tell you that crap is king.
I know that there are people who will write in and tell me I’m foolish. That they are making a killing on their authority site. They sell ads. Makes affiliate sells. Adsense is off the charts. No doubt. But you can’t have 100 authority sites. You can have a couple. If it is a true authority site it owns you. You have to blog it. You have to answer your visitors emails. Pimp your product. Sell ads. Etc. Authority sites take a lot of time. Crap sites don’t.
I’ve resisted being a crap site builder for years. I would love to have an authority site that mattered and made mad cash. But the more I try to legitimize my offerings the worse my earnings get. Throw up some junk and I start making money. Go figure.
I have a ton of crap sites. Sites that I don’t have to do a thing with. Sites that people come and browse and click the eff away. I prefer this. No, it is not really a business model. But it does me just fine.
65 responses so far ↓
Kim // Jan 29, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Hey Splork. I’ve been lurking around your blog for a while and thought I’d finally make a comment. I’ve been at this for about a year, and I’m starting to come to the same conclusions you are. I have a question about your PLR content. Do you rewrite it or just post it raw?
btw – wat happened to losing the negative attitude LOL?
Splork // Jan 29, 2009 at 3:17 pm
I rewrite it.
The first step in getting help is admitting you have a problem.
I doubt anyone would read this mess if I was sugar and roses. There are plenty of websites that will nicely tell you what you want to hear. I simply tell you how it is from a guy who sometimes fails and sometimes succeeds.
Thanks for reading.
Lorecee // Jan 29, 2009 at 6:03 pm
My first comment here too. Had to respond to this righteous rant, because I too drank the koolaid about “quality visitor experience” and all that BS. It sucked a year out of my life and I made no money at it. Now I’m picking up as much knowledge about SEO as I can. Among other things, I’ve been a graphic designer for years, so ugly sites are painful for me to build, but not making money is even more painful.
Splork, you actually sound very positive about your approach, so you’re sticking to your New Year’s resolution. I’m actually surprised that you don’t have that elusive five figure per month income, because you seem to work pretty hard and do a lot of things right. You’re also funny as hell. Keep writing.
Sunshine // Jan 29, 2009 at 6:17 pm
“earnings circle the bowl “+” the shitpie that it is”= funny as hell,
Splork, your true calling may not be creating guburglorious websites but has definitely got to be comedy.
I reread that line 3x’s and each time was freakin’ funnier than the first.
This here post is a winner.
Splork // Jan 29, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Hey Lorecee. It does suck to not build eye-pleasing sites. I know this well. I’ve spent time creating what I thought were well meaning sites full of good content and superior web design. Only problem is these sites hardly ever make money. I used to spend time building good-looking XSP sites. I’d use background images and get the color just right. Or I’d spend literally hours trying to find that perfect WP template. Long story short, I soon found that simply dumping my content on a simple XSP template with a big, fat Adsense rectangle three sentences from the top and above the fold enticed people to click. Now I’m discovering what Griz has said all along, ugly works best in Blogger with Adsense. I haven’t done much with Adsense and blogs because I suck at it. Not sure why it’s different with XSP. But I finally got off my ass and made some changes and it seems to be working pretty well.
Making 5 figures takes a lot of hard work. It’s not that easy. I work hard but I’m not motivated to consume myself with this. That may change if my job situation goes the way of the economy though, which we all know these days is a real possibility.
Thanks for reading
Splork // Jan 29, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Hey Sunshine. Thanks for reading. Glad you enjoyed the post.
Dan // Jan 29, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Splork,
Loved this post, dude! So true. The frankensites work even though they can be painful to create, like birthing a mutant cow with six legs and three heads.
People don’t read anymore, you’re right.
I had to change most of my affiliate sites to “dumb them down” before I made any real money off them. Minimal content, lots of images (“Pictures….look at da pretty pictures…”) and huge, outrageous links that basically say “CLICK HERE TO BUY THIS THING THAT YOU SO DESPERATELY WANT AND NEED RIGHT NOW!”
Really it was like vandalism at first. But sales conversions immediatel went up some foolishly high amount on all my sites.
So I don’t do the authority thing anymore.
Maybe someday when I’m retired and have my six well fed grandchildren around me and we’re all living in megamansion or something.
Dan
Splork // Jan 29, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Hey Dan. It really is sick. I was talking to the marital unit about this when she was asking about the title. It occurred to me as I was ’splaining myself that many self-important bloggers and such get bent when they roll across so-called splogs or garbage sites. Yet when you provide these holes good content, they are the last to go clicking around your site or buying anything from your affiliate links. Screw ‘em. I’m building my sites for the cube dweller bored as hell at work clicking around to pass the time until another support call squeezes through.
Thanks for reading
Robert // Jan 29, 2009 at 9:52 pm
I agree up until the last. Having a crap-looking site that encourages people to click out IS a business model. There is at least conversion and payback involved, where a fancy, good looking informative site has little of that. Those sites still have their uses, but they’re gonna be more for the readers and not for the (financial, at least) benefit of the site owner, at least below a certain size and traffic level.
Splork // Jan 29, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Hey Robert. Well, I was heading off the naysayers. It’s my business model. I guess anything that makes money is a business no?
Thanks for reading
Frank Carr // Jan 29, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Hmmm….the ‘donkey cancer’ niche might be interesting. Unfortunately, I’d have to do a good site on that subject since that was my Grandfather’s profession (equine veterinarian).
As for links, it helps to have some sort of network to ‘promote’ your sites.
Grizzly // Jan 29, 2009 at 11:19 pm
“franken sites”!!
I’m still laughing. What a great description and considering how many of them I have, I wish I had thought of that name. Splork you kill me.
Btw… you are the first person that really truly “gets” what I do. Welcome to the ugly club.
Sunshine is right – you are funny as hell.
Roger // Jan 30, 2009 at 1:21 am
Hi Splork,
Class. Dan’s comments cracked me up too. The only thing I would add to what you said is that if you are going to follow Griz’s plan, just remember what he says about adsense – although you want ugly sites, you don’t want them to literally click away before they puke – ideally, you want them to click away and then find what they were looking for at the site of the person on the other end of the adsense click, and take action on that site – hence, your adsense clicks will pay nicely.
Cubicle surfers are not the ideal clicker, and may not actually be the people earning you the money.
I think it’s a great business plan for this blog to focus as much of your time as possible trying to come up with the funniest possible ways of describing how shit your ugly sites are, and how shit the IM world is!
The whole conundrum you described in this post tickled me the most – you have to build crap money sites because nice sites don’t pay. You can’t get links to them, so you have to create nice sites in order to link to the crap money sites. Overwhelming irony!
This post more than most resonated with me. We have an urge to actually create something useful and aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
But ‘the world’ tells us in no uncertain terms that our best offerings are not wanted. So we are forced to churn out junk.
Bizarrely, this may give you an isight into just why the guberoos are churning out dung.
They tried making useful, helpful, accurate manuals without hype that actually gave value for money to the noob.
Guess what happened? They bombed. The noobs went right past the gold and threw their money and loyalty at ‘get google ads free’, ‘day job killer’ and ‘earn $30k a day by pressing this button.’
And you can bet your life that some of them prayed that the decent people with a brain saw through the BS headlines and passed it by, leaving the idiots to buy their dung.
Unfortunately, some of us didn’t, bought the dung, then ripped them a new one on forums internet-wide.
It’s a very strange set up, but many of us are not blameless. We might not wear it too often, but some of us have a woolly coat stashed away in our closets, to be brought out and worn with pride when we have a bit too much money and not enough dung on our hard drives.
There is a silver lining – once you know what type of dung pays, (as you so eloquently described above) – it’s a lot quicker to produce than the fancy crap.
Regards,
Mr. IFlungDung
Tom // Jan 30, 2009 at 3:47 am
My donkey had cancer, so I find this post highly offensive.
Having cleared the air, I say do whatever the hell works. Nobody’s doing this crap for their health.
I’m glad to hear you’re having some success. I’ve been reading lost ball for a long time, although I’ve taken long breaks when I’ve lost all interest in IM. I even started a similar blog when I first found it, but I quickly killed it. Is there a hall of fame for IM losers? Cause I think I have a good shot at being inducted one day.
If I still had the drive, I’d do what exactly what you are talking about. Through up some crappy blogs and work like hell to get links. Maybe it’s time to invest in some PLR content.
Sorry for mistaking your blog comments for my psychatrist.
zania // Jan 30, 2009 at 7:41 am
Another great post Splork, and I am so glad you haven’t lost the attitude, because it really makes so much sense in IM.
And I love the play on words with ‘Crap is still king’. Nice one
And @Dan, in my line of marketing, the brightly coloured, very large ‘CLICK HERE … etc…’, is the one thing you never forget to put at the end of a blog post.
Sad, but true.
Bruce // Jan 30, 2009 at 10:03 am
Use RT’s ConnectContent to get links to those blogger blogs. It’s the best $12.00 a month you will ever spend. I’ve gotten tons of links that way.
Jason // Jan 30, 2009 at 10:24 am
Hey Splork,
How many of these Blogger blogs do you have? Is there a number that is too many and could get you in trouble? Do you use differnt emails or IP’s or what? I love Blogger too but am scared to make too many of them.
Splork // Jan 30, 2009 at 11:13 am
Hey Frank. That’s why I use Wordpress.com. I’ve got some decent blogs on there that get tons of readers now and each has a PR3. Manipulate the tags and write good content that won’t get flagged and you’re on your way. Wordpress doesn’t play. If they even sniff spam they will suspend the blog.
When I was building those blogs for AMA I used a ton of free hosted sites and free hosted blogs. I have a ton of blogs I can throw links on now. All on different IPs too. I need to use them more than I do.
Splork // Jan 30, 2009 at 11:15 am
Hey Grizzly. If I paid more attention to what you were doing and quit trying to fight this… Like building relevant sites and stuff and just fling the content and get backlinks, I’d be less stressed and make more money. You always come up with the most sensible posts I’ve ever read.
Thanks for reading Griz.
Splork // Jan 30, 2009 at 11:22 am
Hey Roger. Yea, no use fighting the junk. For instance, every time I go looking to buy a new domain I go bumping into a Google domain parked page or some other piece of crap. They must be making money on this. Stop fighting it. Create a website that is just good enough to pass manual inspection yet crappy enough to make people click away.
Splork // Jan 30, 2009 at 11:23 am
Hey Tom. I use a lot of PLR but I tend to take the time to rewrite it. That is my only concession anymore at legitimizing what I do. Get back in the game.
Thanks for reading
Splork // Jan 30, 2009 at 11:24 am
Thanks for reading Zania
Bruce, I’ll check it out again. I’d almost forgot about it. Thanks for the reminder
Splork // Jan 30, 2009 at 11:31 am
Jason, you can create as many as you want. What I do is create no more than 5 per account. If you create enough you will find that some will get flagged. I get 1 in about 30 or so flagged. I definitely use different emails and I only create about one account a week or so per email. And I’ll use different IPs to set them up sometimes but I don’t know if it matters becasue I end up co-mingling the IPs when I’m maintaining them. I use my home IP, work, the bookstore, the Y and which ever neighbor I can steal from. But honestly I built something like 200 or more for that contest in a week and as long as I only created 5 per account I was fine. I created one account with 20 and was flagged. I requested a review and many were released but I got greedy and didn’t do that anymore. Bottom line is 5 per account does me fine.
Robert C - The Wholesale Products Guy // Jan 30, 2009 at 12:56 pm
“Marketers are not going to tell you to build crap sites. It’s not professional. I’ll tell you that crap is king.”
Ab – so – freakin lootly.
Craptastic sites bring in the bacon.
Beauty, in IM, and as with women, will only cost you money – and leave you broke (LOL)..
Robert C – The Wholesale Products Guy
Rotting_Corpse // Jan 30, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Man that was one hell of a post, it was funny, entertaining and informative at the same time! But unfortunately like Splork has stated, crap is king. So instead of doing the legit ways, sprinkle in a little blackhat and watch your crap shine!
Brian // Jan 31, 2009 at 11:12 am
You hit the nail on the head.. Gurus pimp membership sites and make money off the fees and teach you how to make money off of well-thought-out-beautiful-good content- sites when in all honesty thats crapbola. Thats why most say… “I cant reveal my sites” yeah we know because 9 times out of 10 you dont have any. Wake up and smell the monthly fees people. I cancelled a bunch of subscriptions last year..
“Brians Marketing line for today”
17 year old breaks the code at Google and he’s gonna spill the beans….
“Hmmmmm if I was 17 and was making ALL the money why in the hell would I spill the beans”
Lorecee // Jan 31, 2009 at 5:32 pm
I was doing some backlink research on competing sites and found one that had over a hundred backlinks (keyword anchored for a high-CPC AdSense phrase, I should add) from something called the 7th fire. It’s a conspiracy site with a page rank of 4, so apparently Google thinks it’s the type of quality visitor experience that we crass commercialists should be striving for. Tons of content, no visible ads, and the Zionist conspiracy page is a don’t-miss experience.
Cynical? Me??
Jason // Feb 1, 2009 at 8:50 am
Splork,
Thanks to your reply to my Blogger question. Do you know of any other free (or almost free) blogging patform like Blogger that allows you to use your own affiliate ads and Adsense ads? I love Blogger but don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket.
Also what other blogging platforms will AMA take as I have not been able to figure it out? Thanks.
Splork // Feb 1, 2009 at 9:09 am
Jason, Blogger is the most reliable. I’ve had blogs on other blog services like Blogvis, Blogetry, etc. and most ended up getting suspended or I had to share in the revenue. Just search for “free Wordpress blog hosting”. There are plenty places you can set up an account. Also I have used free webhosting sites. As long as they have DB you can use, you can build a Wordpress on those. Search for “fre web hosting and you’ll find plenty more. If you are worried about your eggs then you probably want to self-host.
AMA takes self hosted Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal. If you can find other platforms that takes the XML-RPC or Atom API then you can use them. I haven’t looked for any.
Dan // Feb 1, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Hey, Splork, I was thinking about your post again today and as I reread it this part stood out:
“…..many self-important bloggers and such get bent when they roll across so-called splogs or garbage sites. Yet when you provide these holes good content, they are the last to go clicking around your site or buying anything from your affiliate links.”
That is the crux of the matter! When I used to create quality authority type blogs, the moment I put up an Adsense link or recommended one tiny affiliate product, my hardcore “fans” (other experts in my niche) were all over me like maggots on a corpse. Telling me I was “evil” because I was trying to make money off people. This after I’d given away hundreds of pages of REAL expert level content teaching them about stuff. Stuff that in the past I’ve charged upwards of $300 per weekend to teach flesh and blood students.
And it’s the same with the IM guburus. They tell you content is king but it’s not, and anybody who is making serious money in this business knows that a) content should be as craptastic as possible so people will click out on your links and buy stuff and b) most people outsource content creation anyway if they’re building out tons of sites becuase it ends up being the least important part of the equation – backlinking is what the real experts focus on.
I have an utterly craptastic site with about a dozen pages of content on it but about 300 backlinks and the damned thing outranks all the “authority” sites in the same niche. Even I was surprised at how well it’s performing. I did seek some edu links and got links from some high ranking webmaster/geek forums to pass some link juice to my site, but other than that, everything is totally white hat. I created the thing and didn’t update it or build any backlinks for several months.
And the site makes over a $1000 a month for me now and it’s total crap!
Breaks my heart sometimes to realize that I have to do things the complete OPPOSITE way from what the guburus teach to make real money.
And then the conspiracy theorist in me wakes up, smells the coffee, and realizes “HA! The guburus are purposefully teaching us nonsense so that there will be less competition for them. Keep us ignorant and keep lying to us and we’ll never bother to figure things out for ourselves.”
Is that too conspiratorial?
Have I gone over the edge, do you think?
Seriously, though, in the world of guburus it seems like most of them fall into two categories: People who know a few things and package them up in an overly hyped way, but who are only making money teaching noobs how to make money and who aren’t really make money in other niches….
And those who purposefully try to obfuscate and get us chasing down rabbit holes that don’t work…..to keep us busy and prevent us from being serious competitors.
What do you think?
Dan
Terry Didcott // Feb 1, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Hey Splork, nice ramble and its all pretty true.
I’m building a network of sites like they’re going out of fashion and a lot of them are beautifully pug ugly Bloggers LMAO! Easy to build, easy to fill with BCW crap (sorry Frank, erm… BCW masterpieces LMAO) and easy to forget about for many months until you need ‘em for a link to whatever.
Where else can you get a deal like that for zero bucks?
My new motto: Get a ton of Blogger blogs and laugh your arse off all the way to the bank!
Splork // Feb 1, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Hey Dan. I don’t think that too many of the guberus are all that clever. What I do think is that some are some excellent salesmen. That these guys all talk a lot but really don’t do much of the walk. Take Griz as an example. He has more information and intelligence than just about any marketer on the web. He could probably make tens of thousands selling what he knows. But what he knows is what he actually uses to make money. Not selling bullshit ebooks, memberships and products. It’s really a catch-22 for smart guys like him. He’s a trench worker. He gets in the ditch with the rest of us and does really well for himself, ya know? Instead of just telling us what to do and making money off his information, Griz uses what he knows to make a great income and build websites just like you and me. There aren’t many guys like that. If they think they are smart they are trying to make money with information, not on what they are preaching. When I see these ebooks released from these folks I don’t immediately think anymore that they actually do what they write. I think it’s more theory than fact. Hope that makes sense.
Splork // Feb 1, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Hey Terry. If I’m going for Adsense I do not use BCW. I use it for my Google/Ebay franken sites though.
There are a few other sites to build up your network, if not monetize. The obvious like MSN, Yahoo, Geocities… but there are plenty of free web hosting sites that offer a DB where you can add WP or an XSP site if nothing else. Then you can look for free blog sites like Blogetery. Have to be careful not to spam as some of these sites get manually reviewed but using all these wisely will get you an incredible network on different IPs.
Phil // Feb 1, 2009 at 9:12 pm
I have a donkey with cancer. can someone point me on the right direction?
Paul // Feb 1, 2009 at 9:45 pm
I spend way too much time on my “authority” site and not enough time on the crap sites. The crap sites are where the money is.
Planet Half Price // Feb 1, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Too right, Splork. My 1 page MFA sites are getting clicks top,left,right and center literally. There are as crappy as can be that only offers the visitors a way out.
There are days when my sites are being google-priced and getting $0.01 clicks but they are so ugly I don’t even bothered to care why.
The odd affiliate sales now and then kinda make up for it.
At least I can spend the extra dough on some xbox games for ‘quality’ time with my son. Hehehe…
Cheerio,
Mohd Nizam
“Do or do not. There is no try.” -yoda
VicW // Feb 2, 2009 at 5:41 am
Hi Splork,
A really useful post, lots of stuff I never even heard of ! It’s nice to see I’m not the only one who went down the wrong road, although not too far as I am useless at this website creation lark so I quickly realized I was outclassed. Now I am on the Grizzly trail ! I have seen the light! I hope to actually start making some money at some point. VicW
Denise // Feb 2, 2009 at 10:29 am
Splork,
I too have been hiiting it harder with the ugly sites. The more I read Grizz the more I understand the method to his madness. Especially after seeing his income for January. Man I am going to do what ever he tells me too.
Even if that means downloading Brad Callen”s new free tool!
Mike // Feb 2, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Splork,
First time poster, long time reader/PLRPro member, I’m curious have you tried doing any pre-sells pages with the products you market? If yes, any luck with that method?
Elliott // Feb 2, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Splork,
Great article! I can absolutely relate to the rant and frustration you felt. I am there right now too!
i am looking at 3 or 4 months off work with my shoulder and was wondering what butt-ugly template you are using for WP sites? I have quite a few that are getting a ton of traffic but very few clicks.
Any suggestions? i have a wealth of templates but just can’t seem to make them dumber…or maybe I should be dumber? heck, the pain killers might help me there! lmao
Elliott @ blogexplosion.net
Splork // Feb 2, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Hey Mike. I do some review type pages, if that’s what you mean. They’ve never been all that successful for me. I do better linking a product in a post and have the surfer follow it down the rabbit hole. Just a quick mention and let the reader get curious.
Thanks for reading
Splork // Feb 2, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Hey Elliot. I’ve been using Frank’s Dateless Mini-site Wordpress Themes for WP sites.
Hope your shoulder gets better.
Grizzly // Feb 2, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Hmmmm…
42 comments – I’m thinking you have a few more than 11 readers these days.
Watch out – you’ll spend all your time answering comments and not getting anything done. No need for a response – just checking in on you.
Splork // Feb 2, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Hey Denise. Careful with Callen’s new tool. It’s a pretty much a piece of crap. Griz likes SEO Elite from Callen though.
Terry Didcott // Feb 3, 2009 at 11:15 am
Ha, already got sites on the blogetery’s etc – watch out for blogdrive as they went nofollow I had to pull some sites I had there.
I don’t put adsense on BCW sites except where I’ve edited the crap out of the articles first and they look like a reasonably coherent read. I use the re-written BCW articles for the early posts to get the blog indexed and ranked for several KWs. Then I add some legit articles I wrote myself once the sites are ranking and getting traffic, and then on goes adsense.
Elliott, I use the standard Minima theme in blogger and edit the colours so all the titles and links are in blue to match the standard adsense links. Looks a little too much like Griz’s MMO blog but that’s a format that works.
With WP I took a very boring two column grey theme and stripped it down even more so it’s even more boring, then that goes on my own hosted WP blogs.
Geocities is pretty crap for anything but links, so I don’t have many of those.
Blinkweb is pretty good for links as you can set up static pages – set and forget like squidoo / hub pages.
There are others, but as you say, you have to be careful about links as they can your ass for spam as soon as look at you!
Chris // Feb 3, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Splork, you’re absolutely, totally right but it depends what you’re doing.
For Adsense and other clickaway stuff then ugly=bucks, but if you’re trying to sell something then it needs to look like someone with at least half a brain laid it out. That’s what I’ve found anyway. Good layout is really just nice looking typography – headers etc. just get in the way.
It’s like you’re looking at a book page. If you can actually read the words and they’re telling you what you want to know then you read them. That’s a sales page. If it looks like a monkey used the typewriter then you turn the page – that’s an MFA site.
And two other things – Blogger templates always seem to produce the most Adsense clickthroughs, regardless of what else is on the page, and Unique Article Wizard articles are W-A-Y better than AMA.
Splork // Feb 3, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Yea if you are trying to sell a product, those bullshit review sites (which are hardly ever really reviews of anything) perform best with a pretty site. I use XSP for that type of spam.
I wasn’t aware that UAW provided articles. I thought it was just a spinner and article blaster. AMA requires you to manually alter the article if you want different versions to be published. I don’t see how a machine can write an article better than I can.
Sue // Feb 5, 2009 at 2:10 am
Hi
I loved reading this. It’s as if you’ve been watching over my shoulder and listening to me for the past few months because what you say is what I’ve been trying to do.
I’ve been always trying to improve my site, have just started adding ‘pretty’ pictures, writing my own content etc. etc. and gettng nowhere fast.
Due to family circumstances my time on my blog is severly limited and I was recently thinking about doing just what you’ve said. Being told about your site couldn’t have come at a better time for me.
Keep up the good work!!
Tim // Feb 8, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Splork.. these are the most words i’ve read in a row since hop on pop, and i skipped to the end on that one. Thanks for making me realize that i too have wasted the last year of life, are you by chance my mom on the upstairs computer?
Razvan // Feb 8, 2009 at 6:09 pm
I came to the same conclusion after a few years of trying to do good and seeing scrapers being always on top.
what is AMA, by the way ?
best of luck
Splork // Feb 8, 2009 at 7:13 pm
AMA = Article Marketing Automation from the fine folks at PLRPro.
Razvan // Feb 9, 2009 at 7:55 am
@splork saw it a little later while browsing your blog.. thanks for the clear…seems interesting..
Max // Feb 10, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Hi,
If I created hundreds of sites on Blogger, Blinkweb etc… how would I get them indexed best? I wouldn’t be able to do thorough link building on all of them.
Splork // Feb 10, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Max, for me it has taken a while. Typical blog and ping as long as you are updating with new content will get you indexed eventually. The quickest way is to take a few sites and get them high PR and link to those new sites from those “authority sites”. I have quite a few of those across different free hosted sites and self hosted as well ot get new sites listed.
I bookmark with BMD which seems to help. I also use PLRPro’s PGB and the RSS feed submitter as well. For that many sites, you’ll need time and/or tools.
superblo // Feb 11, 2009 at 4:08 am
I too I was trapped into this quality and perfection thing. Now I’m just doing massive production and persistency mindset to see my earnings soar. The rest will follow.
Pete // Feb 24, 2009 at 9:02 am
That was a nice read… i have been wasting my time trying to build good looking sites…. but yes, as you correctly said the uglier the sites, more reason for a visitor to click out.
I definitely want to try the monstrous click out “CLICK HERE TO BUY THIS THING THAT YOU SO DESPERATELY WANT AND NEED RIGHT NOW”
Pete // Feb 24, 2009 at 9:04 am
Sorry for the repost.. but one more question, do you bookmark only your sites using BMD or you use the under cover demon to bookmark alongwith other authority sites…
Splork // Feb 24, 2009 at 9:52 am
Sorry, not sure what you mean. I’ll try to answer: I bookmark all my sites using BMD plus I also use other sites and RSS feeds to “hide” my site among the entries.
I also bookmark some sites manually. There are some decent ones that are worthwhile to use that are not in BMD.
Random // Mar 31, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Great post! Sadly, I’ve been finding the same results too… all my new blogger blogs are “ugh this is horrible” looking. I even make them scroll down to even see the start of the page with how I set up the ads.
And it works so much better than trying for quality sites :\
earn by writing // Apr 17, 2009 at 7:40 am
Nice post. thanks for sharing your thoughts
mistertortoise // Apr 21, 2009 at 11:36 am
Awesome post,
Keep that standard of writing up and you might just find yourself with an authority site on your hands.
Ricky // May 21, 2009 at 10:31 am
i realised this a long time ago.just dont follow any top blogger – though there are few people like Grizz and court who are awesome.They are really helpful but the REST are crap !!!!!!
kitchener rent to own // Jul 8, 2009 at 8:32 pm
This is so unbelievably true! I started building an authority site about a month ago. It’s got a few comments from other bloggers but gets barely any traffic and makes no money yet.
But a week ago I took a ‘franken site’ I started on June 21st. I fully intended for it to be pure crap from the beginning, but didn’t know a thing about SEO until I started reading Griz’s site. So I took this blog and followed his Make Money for Beginners 5 step thing…started putting his advice into practice on July 1st.
Today it ranks on page 1 and 2 for a couple of keywords and has already started making adsense money. RIDICULOUS!
Now I’m looking forward to building a splog empire…oh yes I’ve turned to the dark side in a big hurry
Cathy from How To Make Money Fast Online // Jul 14, 2009 at 1:37 am
Now, you totally convince me to try making crap site.
A good crap blog I admired most is Grizzly mone making blog.
Andy says listen to a christmas carol dvd // Dec 9, 2009 at 7:08 am
I picked up your site only recently and am slowly reading thro’ the articles hence this post.
what you say is truly amazing and now I am going to have to de-beautify my sites – lol.
It’s amazing that crap sells – but that’s human psychology i guess, because as you say, people are clickers not readers and have the attention span of a … thing with a very very short attention span.
BTW I don’t know where the term splog comes from for a crap blog (splork + blog?) but perhaps CROG would be good. Crap + blog = crog = money making crap blog. Also sounds a bit like crock!
Leave a Comment