Apparently Google is fucking around with their algorithms again. Damn Panda has got the herd nervous. Snorting around the search engine looking at their web babies falling into the abyss of sub page sewage.
I don’t concern myself with Google. I do every thing I possibly can to funnel traffic from Blogger and WordPress.com to sites of value. It’s a high traffic, low quality gambit. I get tired of having to play Google’s game.
The forums are rife with folks now contemplating what to do with a site that was making $1,000/month but now gets 3 clicks a day. They consider creating even higher quality content, whatever that means. Weren’t you already proud of your content? How do you write even better content? What’s the point of dropping more pages?
No, you have to decide if your site is a place people can find without Google.
The problem is we have been building article sites on dog acne, green basketballs and airplane jackets and then wonder why our traffic declines when Google send their bear to shit in your woods. Nobody cares about those sites. Build things people will find useful and Facebook to their friends. Maybe they will Tweet about it. I hate to say it but blog my friend. Personalize your shit.
You can build these article content sites if you want, just don’t be surprised when Google rearranges their algorithms and sends your site plummeting.
You then have a decision to make. Double your efforts on the loser or move on to something else. Personally I have ditched numerous self hosted blogs and sites over the last 6 months or so. I have also diversified into Hubpages, Squidoo, Tumblr and Blogger, much to the chagrin of the search engine lumpen.
Some efforts work. Some doesn’t. Adsense was taken away. I readjusted to using Shopsense.
For some reason the edict to make money is 1) build a supersite and 2a) pimp your product and/or 2b) Adsense. “In the long run” this will serve “your business” well.
Well my long run has been about 6 years. I have yet to be sorry that I built free hosted sites. Nay, I am more pissed about the self-hosted sites that sucked copious amount of ass than about the free hosted jewels that tanked. I am not sad at all that I promote affiliate products. For every affiliate manager that declines my request, two others are ready for me to pimp their shit.
Do I wish I had some fitness travel site that was pulling in 20K a month and was linked to by CNBC, Huffington Post and People? You bet. But that isn’t my reality. I also wish Lost Ball was more than sewage flotsam too but I’ve never been able to make it more than the occasional crapfest. But my “hobby” still rakes in some cash.
As far as Google…fuck ‘em. They are a multi billion dollar entity that has little interest in the interests of a $25 blog. $5K a month in Adsense revenue might be your world but to them it is the penny that they dropped down the drain. They will always look for better sources to deliver their shitty ads. I was astonished that Google dropped their ads from my site. I delivered 30-60 clicks a day to their empire. If they care less for that then that tells me the little guy is nothing to them.
I wish people would stop relying so damn much on Google. From the start they concentrate on getting Google daddy approval. From using Google’s keywords to figuring out Google’s competition. Yes, yes, Google is the main driver of traffic. I simply suggest you build a site figuring how you can get traffic without Google’s help. And then when Google does kick in it will be a little bonus. But when the assholes from Google release their Panda or Zebra or Snake or whatever animal they see on their footy pajamas into the web sewer you won’t even be fazed.
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I started 3 Wordpress.com blogs several months ago. Wrote about 10 articles of dubious quality and just checked to find that no one has visited them. Surprise! I guess I gotta backlink the shit out of them too?
I would suggest you not write dubious content and write something that people would read. Better yet post up some photos or videos. Talk about popular shit. Sports. Celebs. Movie. Music. Tag the shit out of them. Submit your RSS feed to those few remaining sites that will take them. Add Wordpress feeds to Blogger blogs. Or vice versa. Then the backlinks will work better.
I dunno. I just think that you gotta start with crap that is popular. Build from that. Build a couple. Get some traffic. Use that to backlink to other sites. Link to other Wordpress or Blogger sites to build them up. Then funnel traffic/backlink to your main site.
No you won’t be getting much quality traffic from a Lindsey Lohan site to a 401(k) site. But you might be able to send that LL traffic to a site that sells shoes or handbags. Send that Yankee baseball site traffic to a site on NY hotels or a Squidoo site that sells A-Rod baseball jerseys. Shit like that.
Far more people are going to be surfing around popular topics than boring article marketing shit like “business management” or “laptop ethernet cable”.
Having built, sold, and bankrupted numerous businesses in the last 20 years I personally don’t see what all of the fuss is about.
Then again, I guess if a person has never been kicked in the balls, been stolen from, or in any way shape or form been ripped off or cheated then this “Panda” shit probably comes as some sort of big surprise.
It’s an ever changing world. It always will be. Surprised?
You are right Splork… anyone relying on a free ride of the big G’s coattails is bound to get stepped on sooner or later.
Pretty funny Jack.
Hi Splork, Long time, eh?
My hobby site for home bread bakers makes a bit money — like $100 a month, if the planets line up right. All AdSense; tried Amazon, eBay, etc., decided it was more trouble than it was worth. I try a few other things from time to time, but the niche isn’t one that lends itself to a lot of affiliate success.
I’m on the first page, and even number 1, of Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc., for more search terms than I can count, even if a lot of them have millions of results. Lotsa links from related sites, all organic, even some from foreign language sites. Six years on, I’m not surprised. I don’t play any of the SEO games that seem to get people slapped by Google.
I guess if you have a lot of good, original content, provide a real service and keep the site clean, you’ll get good placements. I love to read your thoughts on the garbage that’s being spewed out and all the phony gurus who espouse it. All the people who are upset with Panda just don’t understand that Google is out to get rid of scraper and scam and spam sites; anyone who builds these things is likely to find them isolated and unvisited, as you’ve been telling people for years.
Your idea of building from a popular trend or fad is a good one, but a lot of people are trying this avenue these days, so it could be difficult to make any serious money with it. If you can figure a way to provide a real service along these lines, then you’ll have a shot at a decent site with good long-term prospects, maybe you’ll have to change things a bit from time to time, but the idea should be serviceable for a while.
Keep up the writing and hollering — I love your work.
Cheers,
Barry