Follow me to $100 a day in Adsense in 3 months from 1 blog

[Nick.A]

Wise move, Steve -- safeguarding your AdSense account, I mean -- especially if you use your account for a number of sites/blogs.

There are plenty of other ways to monetize your blog. I don't personally believe that AdSense is king and I am sure you could do much better with CPA offers and other forms of advertising. For now, concentrate on building up the traffic and/or looking into alternative advertising.

See you over on your $100 Challenge blog and forum.

[ManAbout]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

Here's the answer Steve: Who Sees Ads plugin.

This plugin helps you control who sees ads on your blog. You can set it to show Adsense only to new search engine visitors and show it only once. You can substitute in other offers for social referral and returning visitors.
.

Sorry, but I think your "smart pricing" theory is not well thought out and exaggerated. What about membership sites and forums where the visitors are highly targeted? To say that unless the majority of your visitors are from search engines you will be smart priced is a little over the top. We all know that Google has smart pricing in place. But, your theory that it has something to do with where your visitors are coming from is incorrect.

I run 3 membership sites where 90% of my visitors are from AdWords or return type ins. Search engine traffic is non existent. Yet, I make close to $100 a day on adsense off those site. And I know that what I am getting paid for a click is well within what it is in that niche. Adsense is only my supplemental income on those sites, it subsidizes my adwords spending. But if your theory were correct, I would be "smart priced" and that is not the case.

[perfecthomebuz]

Hello Steve,

This is wonderful, I want to assure you that if the zeal does not diminish, I mean if you keep up the way you are going now, you will make $400 daily at the set time.

I am following you and in case you believe in prayer, I will be praying for you.

It is a wonderful challenge.

Taiwo

http://pluginprofitsite.com/main-25325

[Tina Clark]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

... it looks like the challenge is going to have to change.

To me the best part of challenge was always about getting to 2,000 uniques per day.

If Steve is willing attempt that and show us how he does and even help us to do it, I'm in.

If you have that many targeted visitors per day wouldn't you want to test monetization, list building, and product creation anyway?

Follow me to 2,000-targeted-unique visitors a day in 3 months from 1 blog.

Whatever you decide, Steve, many thanks for all the help and inspiration.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by ManAbout

To say that unless the majority of your visitors are from search engines you will be smart priced is a little over the top.

What I said, but perhaps didn't make clear, was that if the majority of the traffic wasn't targeted buying traffic then you run the risk of being smart priced. Organic search traffic, primarily from Google, is the easiest and most reliable way to get this traffic. However, you can get targeted traffic from other sources, including buying it via PPC as you mentioned. As long as the traffic you're sending is converting for advertisers then you're fine.

Social referral traffic is generally untargeted, non-buying, traffic, the kind that can get you smart priced because the clicks you get typically don't convert well.

[ManAbout]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

Social referral traffic is generally untargeted, non-buying, traffic, the kind that can get you smart priced because the clicks you get typically don't convert well.

So, Adsense will penalize you for having a popular site? I don't have any control over who links to my site. If a lot of surfers link to my site because they like my content, why should my earnings suffer as a result?

I understand what you are saying about conversions, as an Adwords advertiser I am all about conversions myself. But, if you look at it from the other side, if a lazy advertiser is not optimizing his Adwords campaigns or his landing pages are poor and thus clicks from my site are not converting, why should I be penalized. I have seen some pretty crappy Adwords advertisers out there. I think the majority of them seriously have no idea what they are doing with Adwords. A lot of how the traffic converts is within the advertisers control, not the publishers.

[Gallery Sites]

Good luck with it. The trick these days is finding or writing "unique content" as so many articles can be duped all over the place. Will watch your progress. All the best!

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by ManAbout

So, Adsense will penalize you for having a popular site? I don't have any control over who links to my site. If a lot of surfers link to my site because they like my content, why should my earnings suffer as a result?

It only hurts when the clicking doesn't convert and the reason isn't the quality score of the landing page. Social referral and other untargeted traffic either doesn't click, which doesn't help or hurt for the most part, or, if they do click they think they're doing it to "help you out". The problem is that they have little or no interest in the advertiser's landing page. They'll usually bounce out of the landing page quickly. If traffic from your site doesn't convert but traffic from other sites does or if the same IP addresses keep clicking the same ad over and over again you'll get smart priced or worse.

[ManAbout]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

It only hurts when the clicking doesn't convert and the reason isn't the quality score of the landing page. Social referral and other untargeted traffic either doesn't click, which doesn't help or hurt for the most part, or, if they do click they think they're doing it to "help you out". .

Somehow I don't think Google holds social bookmarking traffic with the same level of disdain that you do. The high rankings of social bookmarking sites tell a completely different story. If Google thought that traffic from such sites was unproductive I doubt that they would rank so high.

I very much doubt that a few hundred uniques a day from a social bookmarking site is going to get you smart priced. There is much worse traffic out there than social bookmarking traffic. If most of your traffic is coming from places like China or India for example, then I could see you getting smart priced out. And even then, I still blame google for that because they don't do a good job filtering those IPs out, much as you try to exclude them in Adwords.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by ManAbout

Somehow I don't think Google holds social bookmarking traffic with the same level of disdain that you do. The high rankings of social bookmarking sites tell a completely different story. If Google thought that traffic from such sites was unproductive I doubt that they would rank so high.

The search ranking of a site has nothing to do with how well traffic from it converts. It's non-converting, non-buying, social traffic. Pursuing it, especially for Adsense, is a huge waste of time and money.

Originally Posted by ManAbout

I very much doubt that a few hundred uniques a day from a social bookmarking site is going to get you smart priced.

I've had that happen so I have no doubt that it will cause that result. Remember, it's not the hits alone but non-converting click-thrus, especially high bounce rate, same IP and/or referrer and other suspicious patterns that can cause smart pricing and potentially banning.

[ManAbout]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

I've had that happen so I have no doubt that it will cause that result. Remember, it's not the hits alone but non-converting click-thrus, especially high bounce rate, same IP and/or referrer and other suspicious patterns that can cause smart pricing and potentially banning.

And you know this for a FACT that you were smart priced because of traffic from social bookmarking sites? Did you get an actual statement from a Google representative telling you that this was the case? It is just your best guess at what might have happened. That doesn't make it a fact. Your guess is as good as mine.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by ManAbout

And you know this for a FACT that you were smart priced because of traffic from social bookmarking sites? Did you get an actual statement from a Google representative telling you that this was the case? It is just your best guess at what might have happened. That doesn't make it a fact. Your guess is as good as mine.

There are better forums for pointless, time wasting, arguments. Try one on politics, religion or fishing.

[gid86er]

this is a good one, thanks

[DeanJames]

Social referral traffic is generally untargeted, non-buying, traffic, the kind that can get you smart priced because the clicks you get typically don't convert well.

bgmacaw is spot on here folks. Social traffic doesn't convert well for advertisers. Period.

Dean

[LilBlackDress]

Steve, I am new to the forums and just saw this thread. Wow! Great info. I just built a bunch of mini-sites and this is really interesting to me.

Question for you. I know that .com is the best, but for one site, a .info had the words I wanted so I snatched it up. What is worng with .info if you promote it?

Also to the person who asked about WP themes. There are a ton of great free ones out there, but many of the sites they are at have malware etc. So do regular virus scans when searching for themes.

[Miguel Oliveira]

Aren't you going to update the blog anymore? Because the last post was on the 18th, I was just wondering - I'm learning a lot from this post!

[Steven Fullman]

Originally Posted by LilBlackDress

What is worng with .info if you promote it?

Absolutely nothing.

You might find it harder to rank, but once you get 'em to your site, folks'll click away on those adsense ads regardless of whether it's a .com, .net, .info, or .hoohaa.

Steve

[Julia Andersson]

Originally Posted by LilBlackDress

Question for you. I know that .com is the best, but for one site, a .info had the words I wanted so I snatched it up. What is worng with .info if you promote it?

There is nothing wrong with a .info site. I have a couple of them and they still get search engine traffic. I guess the main issue is when people try typing a specific address into their browser without searching. If you had a site handmadecrafts.info and I typed handmadecrafts.com into my browser then obviously I wouldn't come to your site. Naturally, the first url ending that we think of is .com followed by .net and .org and sometimes, if I'm looking for something in Australia I will tag the .au on the end.

All these extensions are now virtually meaningless anyway. It used to be that .com addresses were for companies only, .org was for organisations like charities etc. These days, anyone can have any one of these addresses as long as they can think of something unique to put in front of it.

[Amarjit K Pal]

Good luck! I will be following this thread

[Steve Crooks]

Sorry about that, its just been updated..

Originally Posted by Miguel Oliveira

Aren't you going to update the blog anymore? Because the last post was on the 18th, I was just wondering - I'm learning a lot from this post!

[Steve Crooks]

Everyone has different opinions on this but all I can say is the proof really is in the pudding. Go to google and search for a reasonably competitive keyword phrase like "dog training supplies" for example. How many .info's do you see in the top 50? Try this for any reasonable phrase you like and tell me the answer.

You may get ranked for some obscure long tails but you don't stand much chance in all honesty of getting ranked for the keywords you should be targeting.

Of course every argument has a counter argument and I hope someone can come up with some evidence that .info's can get ranked highly on google.

Originally Posted by LilBlackDress

Steve, I am new to the forums and just saw this thread. Wow! Great info. I just built a bunch of mini-sites and this is really interesting to me.

Question for you. I know that .com is the best, but for one site, a .info had the words I wanted so I snatched it up. What is worng with .info if you promote it?

Also to the person who asked about WP themes. There are a ton of great free ones out there, but many of the sites they are at have malware etc. So do regular virus scans when searching for themes.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

Of course every argument has a counter argument and I hope someone can come up with some evidence that .info's can get ranked highly on google.

I have a .info that is #1 for a decent keyword that's worth about 200 uniques a day. I've seen a few others around that rank well so it is doable for long tail and low competition keywords provided that you build the links for it.

On the flipside, you're right,you don't see that many info's doing well in mid to high level competition keywords. Is this because of Google's algorithm or is it just that these domains are either parked or redirected versions of the .com or just plain old spam? It's hard to say for sure. And you have to deal with the perception of spammy-ness even if you have squeaky clean, top notch, content.

I wouldn't write off .info's completely but I wouldn't buy another one new, maybe pre-owned if it was something special but it would have to be a real deal. If I wanted to start a bunch of niche blogs on a tight budget right now I'd go with Blogger blogs instead.

[Julia Andersson]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

On the flipside, you're right,you don't see that many info's doing well in mid to high level competition keywords. Is this because of Google's algorithm or is it just that these domains are either parked or redirected versions of the .com or just plain old spam? It's hard to say for sure. And you have to deal with the perception of spammy-ness even if you have squeaky clean, top notch, content.

I wouldn't write off .info's completely...

I humbly admit that I may be wrong but I think one of the reasons for .info domains not ranking highly is because they are relatively unused. Just think about it, it's much MUCH easier to get the keywords you want in a .info domain which means that much less people use them.

Having said that however, I admit to never having attempted to get a .info domain into a top spot on search engines. Personally, I tend to use them in instances where I want to connect to affiliate pages where I am not permitted to do so directly. For example... ezinearticles don't allow affiliate links, but they do permit redirection to an affiliate page from a domain that you own (the warrior forum don't allow us to do this... according to the rules anyone found doing this will have their account cancelled). For this purpose they are handy as a cheaper option since many domain services sell .info domains for under $2 per year.

[traceye]

Originally Posted by Julia Andersson

I humbly admit that I may be wrong but I think one of the reasons for .info domains not ranking highly is because they are relatively unused. Just think about it, it's much MUCH easier to get the keywords you want in a .info domain which means that much less people use them.

I agree with this. I have an .info domain which I originally purchased to redirect to an affiliate site (which I did for a short while).

But over the last six months I've been building a blog on it with original content for a highly competitive niche. It is climbing the serps very quickly and is on page #1 for many 2/3 word keywords.

I think the reason for not many .info's on first place of Google isn't because of the extension but rather the quality of information on them.

t

[freddie_fireman]

Originally Posted by traceye

I agree with this. I have an .info domain which I originally purchased to redirect to an affiliate site (which I did for a short while).

But over the last six months I've been building a blog on it with original content for a highly competitive niche. It is climbing the serps very quickly and is on page #1 for many 2/3 word keywords.

Great information, but I wonder what would happen if a competitor bought yourdomainname.com ? Do you think they would have an advantage in the serps? Maybe it only matters if yourdomainname is being read out on radio or TV.

[Julia Andersson]

Originally Posted by freddie_fireman

Great information, but I wonder what would happen if a competitor bought yourdomainname.com ? Do you think they would have an advantage in the serps? Maybe it only matters if yourdomainname is being read out on radio or TV.

Hey Freddie

I am willing to hazard a guess that the .com version of her domain was already taken.

Would that be correct Tracey?

[freddie_fireman]

Originally Posted by Julia Andersson

Hey Freddie

I am willing to hazard a guess that the .com version of her domain was already taken.

Hi Julia,

... taken, and probably parked somewhere gathering cyberdust. But say someone notices Tracey's .info site, sees the .com is doing nothing, buys it and builds it up. It could be that there is a .com serp bonus, and the competitor could quickly outrank the .info site? There might be an organic backlink bonus - people feel more comfortable linking to a .com? I think there actually is a "read it out over radio or TV" bonus. I know my browser tries adding .com if I don't explicitly add it.

The 5:1 and 10:1 price advantage of .info domains over .com domains seems significant to me. But the prevailing judgement seems to be to ignore it because of ... well, I'm still not really sure. Perhaps it's this fear of a .com competitor eating your lunch. Has anyone had that experience, or heard tell of such a thing happening? Maybe it's just that no-one wants to be the test case

[Julia Andersson]

LOL, entirely possible of course... I've got one or two of those type of domains myself

Like you, I'm not sure why people don't take .info domains seriously. But the fact is that they don't. These domains have their uses regardless.

As far as whether Tracey's .com domain version is a non used domain... well, we just need Tracey herself to weigh in on that one.

Originally Posted by freddie_fireman

Hi Julia,

... taken, and probably parked somewhere gathering cyberdust. But say someone notices Tracey's .info site, sees the .com is doing nothing, buys it and builds it up. It could be that there is a .com serp bonus, and the competitor could quickly outrank the .info site? There might be an organic backlink bonus - people feel more comfortable linking to a .com? I think there actually is a "read it out over radio or TV" bonus. I know my browser tries adding .com if I don't explicitly add it.

The 5:1 and 10:1 price advantage of .info domains over .com domains seems significant to me. But the prevailing judgement seems to be to ignore it because of ... well, I'm still not really sure. Perhaps it's this fear of a .com competitor eating your lunch. Has anyone had that experience, or heard tell of such a thing happening? Maybe it's just that no-one wants to be the test case

[Steve Crooks]

I have just released a free PDF guide for anyone interested in getting the placement of their Adsense blocks right. The link is in my signature..

[tntrader]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

Sorry about that, its just been updated..

I must have missed where you shared the URL. Do you mind sharing it again?

[Steve Crooks]

It's 100 Bucks Challenge

Originally Posted by tntrader

I must have missed where you shared the URL. Do you mind sharing it again?

[Louis Raven]

By changing it to 2000 visitors a day as opposed to $100 a day does this mean the $100 was not achievable or that you'd rather not add Adsense?

Also, for those already on the list will we receive the eBook?

[Steve Crooks]

It is achieveable but I would rather just concentrate on the traffic now. Nothing has really changed, 2000 visitors is still a massive challenge and would equate to $100 roughly. I may still put adsense on at some stage I am just looking at my options.

If you are on the list you should have got an email just now with a link..

Originally Posted by Louis Raven

By changing it to 2000 visitors a day as opposed to $100 a day does this mean the $100 was not achievable or that you'd rather not add Adsense?

Also, for those already on the list will we receive the eBook?

[happyslob]

I'm just seeing this for the first time, and I'm cheering you on Steve! It sounds like an awesome goal, and it will certainly boost everyone's morale.

Take care,
Christina

[happyslob]

Oh, bummer, I just got to the end of this thread! lol It will be interesting, then, to see if you can find a great alternative...wouldn't THAT be amazing?

[george_b3nson]

Steve, thanks a lot for your tips.
I've just found your post this morning. You inspire me to do better in Adsense

[traceye]

Originally Posted by Julia Andersson

Hey Freddie

I am willing to hazard a guess that the .com version of her domain was already taken.

Would that be correct Tracey?

Yes the .com was gone. Funnily enough the .com contains junk information and only four pages and doesn't rank anywhere (which is a complete waste of a domain if you ask me).

It would be very interesting to know which would win if the SAME info on a .com or .info was created.

And it's something you could never really test either because having the same info on both domains could get hit with the dupe content penality (if you believe such a thing exists).

My personal thoughts are still that it doesn't matter about the extension, its the content that matters.

Tracey

[Julia Andersson]

I'm with you on this one Tracey. I think it's the content that matters. It would be interesting to test though... Hmmmm, maybe a project there. Create two sites with identical domains just making one a .info and the other a .com, targeting the same keywords (but with different content), with backlinks on the same sites and see which one ranks higher.

Anyone want to take that on?

Originally Posted by traceye

Yes the .com was gone. Funnily enough the .com contains junk information and only four pages and doesn't rank anywhere (which is a complete waste of a domain if you ask me).

It would be very interesting to know which would win if the SAME info on a .com or .info was created.

And it's something you could never really test either because having the same info on both domains could get hit with the dupe content penality (if you believe such a thing exists).

My personal thoughts are still that it doesn't matter about the extension, its the content that matters.

Tracey

[shawnyates]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

For a number of reasons really, but mainly I have no control over where the visitors are coming from now and the untargeted quality of the traffic will mean my whole adsense account will get hit with smart pricing potentially. Would you really put your adsense account at risk?

For the uninitiated, could you explain how smart pricing would affect all websites under your adsense account? How would one know where all their traffic comes from out to constantly take this into consideration? Is there perhaps another thread that this is detailed more in depth?

[imnoob]

Hi Steve, if u want to set up adsense in your blog, can it be a free blog or one which u need to have a web host? Thanks and good luck.

[MrCheeze]

Just found this post, looks interesting. I will be following it. Good luck.

[Julia Andersson]

Originally Posted by shawnyates

For the uninitiated, could you explain how smart pricing would affect all websites under your adsense account? How would one know where all their traffic comes from out to constantly take this into consideration? Is there perhaps another thread that this is detailed more in depth?

Hi Shawn

This question has actually been addressed in this thread already (though I can understand if you missed it with the number of replies)... I'll give you a little tip for searching for something within a given thread. While the page is active press CTRL + F which is the keyboard shortcut for 'find on page' (dunno if it works on a mac). Enter the term you want to find, in this case 'smart pricing' then click 'find next' if the text is on the page then it will be found. If it's not on that page then do the same thing on each page of the discussion until you find what you're looking for.

To answer your question though. If your site is sending non-converting clicks to advertisers in your adsense units then it's easier for google to apply smart pricing to the account than the individual website (especially if you're using exactly the same code on more than one website). Figuring out which site has resulted in the smart pricing sounds like it could be hard since you would need to remove adsense of each site, one by one, and wait a couple of weeks to see if your average adsense earnings per click increased.

Non converting traffic usually comes from social sites and sites that pay members to visit other sites (i.e. 'Paid to read' or PTR sites and traffic exchanges). Note that PTR and traffic exchange traffic is treated as invalid traffic by google anyway and consistent use of this kind of traffic will result in your adsense account being cancelled (I received a warning for it on my adsense account).

[adsenser]

Thanks.. I'm following your way.. Hope to get into right path soon.

[Steve Crooks]

Just updated the 100 bucks challenge blog with an article on social bookmarking. Also will be updating on the progress of the challenge, I saw a small surge in the number of visitors arriving overnight as more and more keywords are getting indexed which is encouraging.

[star007]

Steve,
I've enjoyed reading your thread and I certainly would not intentionally put MY adsense account at risk. All the best!
star

[Steve Crooks]

I have just been doing some tests with the "who sees ads" plugin and I think I can now use this in conjunction with adsense on my blog!

[davevita]

Good luck! I'll be watching for the results.

[pearsonbrown]

Well I don't think Steve has done anything that Adsense would disapprove of. He is 'adding value' and that is the current mantra.

And here's a very roundabout 'proof' of my opinion.


1. Google certainly monitors this forum and will have picked up on this thread.
2. Just like the rest of us, it could have 'reverse-engineered' the information Steve gave us to work out what Steve's blog is called.
3. Unlike the rest of us, it is a domain registrar and so could work out what Steve's other domains were. It then could have 'zapped' the Adsense from those.

Since this hasn't happened, I think this proof that Steve's approach is not upsetting Adsense.

Pearson

[magentawave]

I have read this entire post but obviously missed something crucial here...

And why did the $100 a day in Adsense in 3 months challenge end? Is it because of Googles rule that we aren't supposed to tell anyone how much we make from Adsense?

Thanks
Steve

[Frank Ayres]

I think Steve is being very sensible to be cautious about losing his adsense account