I gotta tell ya, promoting all these websites sucks large. I have websites dropping in and out of Google like visitors to the Bunny Ranch. This includes Blogger blogs, Squidoo lens and Hubpages too. Nothing is consistent. Nothing stays upright. Nothing stays in. Nothing stays out. It’s all crap.
I’ve been using BMD. Hell if I know if it will ever do any good. It hasn’t done a thing for me yet. Maybe if I was running scuttle site postings all day and using 20 different proxies to post to the major bookmarking sites it would matter.
Squidoo isn’t working for me. None of my new lens are getting indexed. And the lens that were ranking big, like within the top 1,000 have just been crushed by Google lately. I had a lens go from around a lensrank of 500 to over 80,000 within two weeks. Completely gone from Google. It was ranked top 10. Hubpages aren’t doing me much of a favor. I’m not building them like I had been because frankly they can be a bit of a pain. I just don’t have the time to create unique content for blogs, websites, lens and hubpages, etc. ad nauseum.
Blogger blogs. Dunno what to say. They aren’t treating me any better either. If I’m not updating them they are falling. I can’t update all the blogs with fresh content. It would be a full time job now.
The only thing that is getting indexed for me right now… and I find this rather hilarious and kind of sad are WordPress.com blogs. Remember when I told you that I had started a bullshit blog network on WordPress.com? Well they are the only thing working right now. So what I do now is write shitty little posts and link to all the different sites. I somehow work the anchor text into whatever I’m writing about so I can get my BANS sites, lens, hubpages and Blogger blogs indexed or re-indexed or something. Effing stupid.
Speaking of anchor text, I went back through my sites and decided I would anchor text hammer the shit out of them. I re-did my keyword research at Nichebot. Then I picked two or three keywords that I could compete for (from SEO Elite results) and am working the backlinks as hard as I can.
I got rid of Comment Kahuna. What a piece… I cranked up G-lock Blog Finder and made a ton of comments across the blogosphere earlier today. Here’s hoping that nonsense works. And by the way, the free version of that software blows CK away. I might buy the paid version. It finds relevant blogs way better than CK.
I don’t know about all these efforts in the Web 2.0 party anymore. It seemed to work like a charm…like 2 weeks ago. Now I feel like I am wasting my time. I have too many lens, hubpages and Blogger Blogs that aren’t indexed or that have fallen out of the index lately. It sucks large. I can’t believe the only thing that is working for me is WordPress.com blogs. I am writing them about nothing. Yet they are all indexed. Every. single. post. In every. single. blog.
Eff it. Maybe I’ll shut down writing hubpags and lens for a while. Keep the ones I have freshly published and see if they recover. Maybe they are sandboxed. I don’t know. But if writing about anything, or nothing, at WordPress.com is what it takes to get sites indexed then so be it. I tell you, it’s a lot easier to write a post about Kate Beckinsale’s legs, the Dallas Stars, high gas prices and GTA 4 than it is about typical niches like anti-aging colon acne cleaning. An anchor link is an anchor link. I’ll work it in.
I wrote a new hubpage today. It has nothing to do with IM. Nothing to do with making money. It’s just about a guy, his bike and people in cars who seem to have no problem with ending his life as we know it. Have a read if you like. I Am a Cyclist.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Hang in there, dude. Big G can be a pain in the rear-end sometimes. I have sites that rank highly for certain keywords but now in neverland. Not sure what I did wrong.
Hence, my adsense earnings got slaughtered.
…Now i know why the guberus like to sell “make money online” shovels rather than actually do the stuff they preach.
They are still lots of suckers…err…newbies out there.
The next person who says “make money online is easy. Step 1, do this, Step 2, do that…” will get a wet smelly sock up his tonsils.
Mohd Nizam
I think you got that right Mohd.
I think my hubpage was a little over the top. :/
After reading it today, I dunno. I wrote it when I got back from a ride on Sunday pissed at getting harassed again. I tried to tone it down but my emotions kept getting in the way I guess. I think the tone implied that all drivers are fat and mean, when that is not the case at all. Oh well. I got it out of my system. I fully expect someone to write a retort about how cyclists suck now
There was a bunch of cyclists near where I live that used to hire a delivery truck to drive in the middle of the road behind them to block cars from passing them. The sheriff’s department ticketed the truck driver and all the bicyclists.
Don’t worry about what Google is doing though. It takes about 6 months to a year for links to get counted and for a site to stabilize. Sites pop up and down all the time due to the algorithm changes. It also seems like they’re doing a lot of changes right now which makes things worse.
I also think that they’re going after what they consider ‘thin’ sites again which includes sites specifically for affiliate offers, including BANS, MFA blogs, Squidoo lenses, scuttle and other bookmarking sites and probably a few other things. They also seem to have taken a dislike for .info domains. However, the algorithm changes seem to really love WordPress.com blogs, forums and some unmonetized sites of other types.
That’s great Frank. Aren’t you full of good news today.
I swear I must be stupid or something. The only thing that really works for me consistently is blogs with my own original content. Blogs that I do no promotion for. XSP sites as well.
Anyway, I can’t keep writing, writing, writing. Unique content is killing me. Re-writing is killing me.
All due respect to Vic and all he’s trying to do, this BANS, BMD shit just ain’t happening for me. It’s a bit early but I’m beginning to feel like this is just another shitpile I’m chasing to nowhere.
I put a StoreStacker store hanging off a couple of my XSP sites and they brought in a few sales right off the bat from Amazon..which of course amounted to like $3 . Maybe I’ll hang some BANS off some XSP/WP sites.
Oh and speaking of thin sites, those WP blogs that I use for WPDFI and datafeeds from ShareaSale are doing pretty good. None are on their own domain. They are either on a subdomain as a standalone store. Or they are in a folder as a “store” off a blog or XSP site.
Oh and that’s pretty funny about the cyclists. That’s a great idea though they shouldn’t block traffic. That’s stupid. But I have known some guys training as Cat 1-2 racers, having their wife or gf follow behind them to keep them safe(er).
Hi Splork,
Loved the article(s). It’s sometimes painful to watch you going around in circles with this internet thing – ‘Squidoo is great – Oh! It’s not anymore. Hubs are great….etc’.
And then for a split second I feel glad that I’m not caught up in the same mess…then reality bites and I realise that I’m also revolving endlessly in a similar, but slightly different circle of my own
I loved the way the comments took off on your hub – ranging from offers of reprints in local papers to simply…’horse poo.’
You gotta love the internet and the heartfelt opinions of the masses.
A question for you – you’ve got yourself involved in submitting content to a large variety of different Web2.0 venues in order to link back to your sites. Over time, the results are up and down like a yo-yo, apparently.
Putting the type of ‘money’ sites that you are linking back to on one side for a moment, what is your overall feeling about managing all of these external sites purely to promote your money sites?
If you had to choose one system out of two right now, and stick with it forever, which of these would you choose -
a) as you are – submitting to all these free venues like squidoo, hubs, free blogs etc
b) only ever putting content on your own sites
And more importantly, why?
You see there is a lot of trial and error reported on LostBall but it would please me to see you report that you found something that really works, and continues to work. Even if you didn’t name/reveal it – it would just be nice to avoid the inevitable ‘that one crapped out as well.’
I mean this in the most respectful way possible – I’m not trying to sound like a smart-ass – what I am getting at is that you should have a hell of a lot of intel from your ‘experiments’ and you could continue to test everything new under the sun – but do you want to? Or do you want to take this intel, process it, and create a system that WILL stand the test of time and WILL reward you substantially for combining smart work with hard work?
I know I would like to…
On a side note, unless I missed it, I’m really glad you haven’t jumped on the qassia bandwagon. So many hopeless newbs have jumped on that one that it’s become a badge of shame in peoples’ forum sig files.
PS you look absolutely nothing like I expected in your photo. But what is a ‘splork’ supposed to look like anyway?
Yep, the party may well be over for some Web 2.0 promotional tools according to this warning from linktopia, http://linkatopia.com/pending.
One of my lenses which climbed onto page one from only one week of promotion going head to head against the likes of about.com disappeared the following week.
The other lense which is heavy on content that I do absolutely no link promtion for is sitting pretty and ranks for a many competitive words in its niche.
These results can be a bummer at times but oh well….pressing on.
Roger, I’m at the point where I want to simply concentrate on “money sites.” I do lens, hubpages, Blogger, etc. simply to feed links and traffic to my main sites. They were never meant to be anything more. The problem I’m finding is that I spend time using these sites but I find that they don’t really help that much. Or at least recently. They’ll work for a month or two, maybe more. Maybe less.
Anyway, as another fine American said so eloquently, it’s horse poo.
Yea it seems like I don’t have much success. I certainly don’t write much about it. I dunno. I hate to brag or something. But here is the deal. My XSP sites are the bomb. They always have been and are today. I have some Niche Mania sites. They average a dollar a day. Some on subdomains. All of my WPDFI sites make at least one sale each month. StoreStacker stores blended with my main sites are doing well. Three years old portal sites still make some nice Adsense income, though I have been counseled not to build anymore.
But your point is well taken. I slide around working this thing or that. Mostly for fun I suppose. But I like your thinking. I think in hindsight I was stupid for working this BANS crap and should have just hammered WPDFI sites for affiliate sales. I dunno we’ll see. I have 25 BANS hanging out there on lovely .info domains. I’m pretty much done matching each domain, BANS or not, with a lens, hubpage, Blogger blog and days of slinging BMD runs. It’s taking up too much time for very little payoff it seems. Though my stats from that cycling post has just gone crazy. It has pushed all my hubpages back up.
Yea trying to imagine what somebody looks like whether online or radio or whatever is always interesting when you finally see them. They never look like what you expect.
Splork, from my experience, the web 2.0 sites are only good if you’ve a good user there. each user you create at a social site, you need to interact with others. Create a del.icio.us account, it’s not enought to add links, you need to create network with other users, you need to bookmar sites that are HEAVLY bookmarked by other users, and so on. Digg, you need to add friends, you need to add hundreds of other stories, and then add slowly your sites, you’ll get VOTES, and that means more power to the link.
I know i know, it’s a lot of work, and this is not our primary job. But it’s the only way to result. I’ve made things like that, and i’ve links from web 2.0 sites that are on the top of the rankings, and that links it’s like having my site there.
It’s not an easy world, but it’s a numbers game!! Monetize everything you do, don’t waste any site, blog, squidoo, hubs or any other site. Don’t add adsense, but you can add for examplo kontera ads to the blogs, and ebay editor kit ads, there are plenty of possibilities. Remember if you’ve 900 sites and everyone makes 5 dolars a month, that’s 4.500 dolars total!!! But if you look individually, 5 dolars a month, that’s 0.16 dolars a day, which it’s really possible.
Just don’t give up, that was my problem. I gave up long time ago, then i return, now i’m suffering the troubles of building and building and building, and promoting promoting promoting. But i don’t give up now, and i’m seeing the LIGHT, the path. The only problem it’s the work and specially the lack of TIME.
This whole thing with the .info domains is killing me. I know that Vic says that he has most of his re-indexed after getting PR4 and 5 sites linking to them but this is liking saying “flap your arms real fast and fly to the moon.”
So I’m building loads of blog farms which link to squidoo lenses and huppages but it all takes so long. I would rather have paid extra for a com net or org domain.
One of the first .info domains I bought has 3 articles distributed with Article Marketer, I’ve commented on a number of blogs, got 6 BLS links (another 6 is in the pipe line), I’ve got links from my own sites and yet I’m not indexed. Today I’ve been getting web directory links and working a bit with squidoo.
Oh well, only another 100-odd .info domains more to fully promote. AGGHHH!!
Ah, Splork…you must have been in my head again. An hour ago, I was bitching the same moan to my husband.
Honestly, I’ve never been a fan of lenses, hub pages, social bookmarking and all that Web 2.0 stuff. Oh, I have ‘em. I jumped on the bandwagon like everyone else. And I get a few clicks here and there, but eh. Very quickly in I realized it wasn’t worth my time to keep building more.
The best thing for my sites has been good ol’ fashioned SEO and link building. And I frequent a forum or two that make me some sales, but my participation is more for education. Sales are just bonus.
Your latest hub reminds me of why I stick to mountain biking
Jen, you said “ol’ fashioned SEO and link building”, but web 2.0 site it’s the same thing, they’re sites, they’re links, they even are similiar to forums
The only difference from other sites it’s you can register and use them wisely to get your “point of view” (aka links).
Haha…good point, Dinheiro.
Now I have to go rethink my whole strategy…again!
I looked long and hard at the whole web2.0 thing and decided that it wasn’t for me.
First, the whole thing is too ephemeral, flighty, confusing. If I can’t flowchart it without creating a spaghetti web, then it might not work.
Second, I don’t think the people who are reading or accessing the web2.0 sites are buying, they’re talking, visiting, digging, marking friends, etc. They are social, not commercial.
Third, the whole effort seemed to me to be away from the mark of getting buyers to your website.
People are spending so much time digging, squidooing, lensing, propellering, whatevering that they lose sight of the goal, which is to find potential buyers and convert them to customers.
Maybe I’ve got it wrong, and if I do, someone please tell me, but the whole web2.0 just isn’t for making money, yet.
Barry
I so feel your pain. I have had to start all over also after getting my butt kicked in the ground. But I refuse to quit!
I am not sure about BMD either but I have chosen to put my trust in Vic and believe that this is the way to go about it.
Squidoo’s whole new platform sucks as far as I’m concerned!
I have been burned to the ground so many times that I refuse to take anybody at face value. Honestly of all the people in this business right now that are dispersing information, Griz is the one that I am listening to the most. Though I do like to read what Frank at OpTempo is doing.
I think Vic has good info and he’s a swell guy for doing what he’s doing. I’m just not seeing the results from BMD and BANS.
I went to check Shareasale stats this morning and some joker bought a shitload of stuff amounting to close to $100 commish. I just built another WPDFI blog as a result. Those things seem to work for me.
We don’t use web 2.0 to attrack visitors, we use it for backlinks, and BMD it’s not web 2.0, it’s a small part of it. I finally can say that i’ve success with web 2.0, but in my web 2.0 success, bmd it’s 5%, there are plenty of opportunities at web 2.0 sites that will help your site rank high. But, of course, you need to do your homework and rank for keywords that have average searchs (between 1000-5000 searchs a month).
It’s a lot of work, but results are here.
Hi Splork,
.
I hope you don’t mind, but I took a quote from this post to put on my blog (the post is actually about you). Hardly anyone one reads my blog by the way, so it won’t do you any favors (which is sad, but never mind…) but I wanted to make the post about you anyhow
I have been following your struggles and successes with making money online for some time now and I have to say that it’s money making blogs like this which make my reading list worthwhile.
You tell it like it is (as many have already said here) and I can’t tell just how grateful that makes me to you after reading all the bs out there.
And, within all the experience you talk about here, there are some damn good tips too – tried and tested by you.
You definitely look like the real deal to me and it really takes a lot for me to say that about anyone.
Oh yes, and I am still wondering abut BANS. I’m not at all sure it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread for making money out of…
I might just follow more of your experiences first
Zania, that was a cool post you wrote up. I don’t mind a bit. And your website is very nice looking. Thanks for the comment and thanks for reading.
My pleasure Splork
I have BMD working around the clock now. Hope to see some results from it someday as well. I have a second laptop that I don’t care about so it is no loss of time for me no matter what.
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