Internet marketing is kinda pathetic. I like getting affiliate and Adsense checks but I kinda chuckle when I think what I had to do to get it. I don’t think for a minute that the shit that I am building is offering much quality to the web. I’m just being honest. If I wasn’t getting a check at the end of each month do you really think that I would be creating websites on bowel movements, concrete screws, lawn gnomes and microwave doors? Uh, that would be a negative.
I ponder how stupid the game has become. All these sites popping up for you to add your site link across numerous blogs so Google will think your site is the shit. It occurs to me though, that spraying your link around might in fact be a special thing, but fat stacks are being made by the membership committee you are paying your $97-147 to each and every month. THAT is where the money is. Yes, all the smart people have determined that Google requires links for your site to be important, so this service is in fact necessary. It’s necessary because there are 34 million acne sites out there and for you to have your acne treatment site noticed you need 21,400 links to be on the front page of Google. How stupid.
I remember when I made my first website. It was on camping tents. I had virtually no competition. I didn’t write it with regard to keywords. I got linked from sites at Universities to various e-commerce sites. I stayed #1 in Google/Yahoo for years. It was so simple. I built it by hand coding some HTML. Then I made it a blog. Now I’ve changed it back to an XSP site. The content never changed. It’s still on the first page in Google. I traded a few links but mostly people would just naturally link to it. People would write me and say how much they liked my site and could they use it as a resource at school or something. Effing A. It was so honest.
I don’t see that happening that easy today. For one people are simply building quick and easy spam blogs. I am. I am writing content to capture long tail keywords. LTK is my last stand in this business. I’m simply capturing easy search engine traffic and sending them along via Adsense. Hey I make a few dollars doing it. It’s what the web has become now. Why spend time building decent sites now? Why waste time with quality when you can build mediocre sites (quickly) and make money?
We build mediocre sites. Sorry, but PLR sites are simply spam sites so you can get an Adsense or affiliate check. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s just layer upon layer of crap on the web. Nobody wants to admit that but it’s how I see it. Anyway, no one is going to want to link to your PLR/spam site. Correction, no one is going to naturally link to your PLR/spam site. You won’t wake up one day and notice that someone has put your article on Digg or quoted you at ProBlogger.net.
So you feel sad because nobody cares about your site. So what to do? Easy, you manufacture interest. You make your site more interesting than it is by generating false buzz. How? You spray your links across all these bullshit blog networks. You can still fool Google into thinking your site is the bomb. Social bookmaking, trackbacks, links, commenting, profile building…it is effing insane what we do to trick Google just so we can trick people into thinking our site is worth a shit to visit.
The game is crazy. I get it. I understand why we do it. But we do it because we have nothing worthwhile to offer the web. If the site was in fact decent, full of entertaining original content and a fun place to visit, I would not have to spend $150/month for 100’s of fraudulent links. No, people would be linking to my site because it was the shit. But because my site is basically spam I have to utilize all the methods at my disposal for tricking the search engine to rank it.
I just find it all amusing.
12 responses so far ↓
Special Offer Of The Day // Mar 10, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Splork,
It’s high time you put your internet marketing expertise to good use.
You’re good in starting a website from scratch, traffic the site and getting some dough at the end. Not many people (a lot are struggling) can do that.
Why not create a service around it and build a custom online business for those who don’t have the skills or time to do it BUT are willing to pay you to do it for them.
Just my 2 cents in adsense earnings.
Mohd Nizam
http://www.affiliatefeedgenerator.net
John Matenkosky // Mar 10, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Splork, first of all, this is a great post because it presents what certainly seems to me to be a realistic picture. Too many people are saturating the poor ol’ Internet with too much trash.
Now, the way I see it, Google ain’t stupid. They know about the link sites and the three-part link exchanges and all the rest. They must have hordes of analysts and programmers busily working on a way to invalidate this whole house of cards.
The inevitable changes will make Google “corrections” of the last couple of years pale in comparison. Maybe some kinds of links will be devalued, others eliminated or even penalized. Imagine the effects on countless websites.
Google wants searches to turn up valuable content. Period. So, exactly, what is “valuable content”? Right now, theoretically, it’s what other people vote for with links.
But that ain’t workin’… and Google will mightily smite those who are gaming the system. Really.
Splork // Mar 11, 2008 at 10:03 am
The IM competition makes having to go to these crazy extremes to get your site noticed necessary. It’s just part of the game.
spikey // Mar 13, 2008 at 5:56 am
Splork,
I read your blog quite a bit I enjoy the “rants” we’ll say but I will comment on this as I feel it’s a bit more negative about something that is indeed working today.
IM from the extent of Adsense/Affilaite/PLR combination has trashed a lot of the results in the SE’s, I agree with this. How ever outside a select few I’d like to know if anyone is earning a full-time monthly income using PLR articles and re-writing them.
I believe you can make a decent income, and offer valuable content in any niche the same way you did with your tent site, how ever it takes hiring a professional writer to create the content or time on your part to actually research the niche and write your own articles.
PLR content is usually crap, lets face it, it’s churned out by the 100’s of articles so that membership sites can make big bucks selling a dream to newbie and still believing IM’ers who think their next quick 20 page niche site will be the one to make 20 bucks a day.
OK, sorry my own rant there. What works? Hard work, research, quality content about a niche that real people can use to educate themselves on the search they did in big G or any other SE.
To the linking….. I believe that the link services are a required part of quickly building income. They are not a long term business plan, but make hay while the sun shines.
Think back to when Link Metro first came out I made big bucks getting sites to the top with a custom automated script that requested links like crazy…how ever that doesn’t work any more. Some of the site still pull it down a bit while others have died.
I think that instead of looking at the negative to these services, and worrying about how much cash the owner is making. We should be taking advantage of them today and building up our piggy banks so we can build something long term.
Whether that long term thing be a membership site, a product (physical or digital), an apartment building offline what ever. The fact remains that we do need money to make more money, and adsense/aff. income can be the jump start to bigger things but only if you put your head down and focus.
My 2 cents, those that really wanna go hog wild should take your advice on your tent site. Choose a few markets (not to out there or small) and write their own content, submit their own articles, email for their own link requests and spice it up with some of the 3-way and auto blog link building tools.
You’ll get further a head this way then trying to rehash the same stuff as 100’s of others and just assuming that 100 sites is needed rather then 10 to make it happen.
Grizzly // Mar 13, 2008 at 9:29 am
You just had to go and mention the absurdity of this whole business. lol
Yup, everything you said is true - it’s little more than a game and until Google can find a way to rank sites based on quality (whatever that means) rather than links this is the system we have. I admit I make money with it but I certainly take no satisfaction in the work involved. Sadly G will keep changing the the algorithm to try and stop this nonsense and we will keep finding ways around it.
Excellent post splork.
Splork // Mar 14, 2008 at 8:08 am
spikey, yea what you write is true. But what I do know is that these mediocre spam blogs make money. Spending time building real sites might. As long as you are really interested in the subject. Honestly I’m just not motivated that way right now.
Splork // Mar 14, 2008 at 8:09 am
Thanks for reading Grizzly.
Dorian // Mar 18, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Think long term… sure build some junk sites for quick cash… but long-term is a site that people will bookmark and return to. These are the sites that people will link to also.
Like this site… but a different topic.
The Internet Marketing field is a land where no-one clicks on ads and every knows the latest “Guru” product is a scam.
Hard to make money in this area unless you like to scam newbies…. and we know you are too honest for this. (which is good and the reason we read your blog)
Splork Fan // Mar 30, 2008 at 8:26 am
Splork, this is probably your best post of your ENTIRE blog. You have captured the entire problem in those paragraphs.
Competition and increasing competition, will hurt everyone in the end. Blame it on all those make “money online” blogs.
Yours doesn’t belong in that category though…
BTW, how much a month are you now making? I am sure you are making 4 figures, maybe 5 figures a month, despite all your rants.
You’re honest in this regard - You know what you’re doing and you’re just blogging about it. I am sure you make next to nothing from this blog.
Kudos.
Splork // Mar 30, 2008 at 12:10 pm
“Splork Fan”. That’s pretty funny. I appreciate you coming in and reading the blog.
I make virtually nothing from this blog. I have a few affiliate links, and sometimes I get a sale or two, but not much. If I talk about something on here and I use it then I’ll link to it.
I’m more like most people trying to make a buck that you would suspect. I struggle. I grind. I waste money on this tool and that ebook.
I don’t make anywhere close to 5 figures a month…unless you use a decimal point.
Splork Fan // Mar 31, 2008 at 3:01 am
LOL, I have been a fan since I first read your take on DJK…let me see Day Job Killer was it?
I think you can see my email, I’ve posted a few comments here before.
I just like the way you “bust” some of them gurus, and you just had to blog on the topic above, that people who don’t know anything about bowel movements are creating crappy websites and making them rank on Google, and how the whole thing seems MIGHTY stupid.
Even though you and me are doing it…
Splork, that really was your best post IMHO.
Keep it up, your blog is how a blog should be.
No pretenses here, love it.
Vinny Lingo // Apr 5, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Considering how much of your blog I’ve just read through, I guess you could consider me a Splork Fan, too.
It’s a worn out metaphor, but IM these days is like the tail end of the Gold Rush days. If you want to try something fulfilling, start helping small businesses to get their sites ranking well. That’s a truly beneficial (and profitable) service one can feel good about. It’s also how I’m paying the bills until, maybe, my IM money pile gets big enough.
Leave a Comment