6 Months Later: $300 Daily w/Adsense (Lessons Learned)

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by mderbyshire

I have read this thread (over a period of weeks) in it's entirety, and the information here is incredible. I cannot thank XFactor and all other contributors enough! One thing is puzzling me still however, and I sincerely apologize if the question has indeed been covered already -- I tried to find/refind the answer, but I couldn't...

Basically.... to me (and I'm sure to the team at Google), any site which is built around specific products (or a group of products) and is monetized only by Adsense could be defined as being MFA (Made For Adsense), which is of course strictly against Googles terms of service.

What steps could we take to ensure we are not banned or penalized because of this? Should we only go so far in optimizing our sites for a better CTR, etc?

Do Google not mind so long as the content you have on your site is of good quality (readable, makes sense, and offers some value - even if only by reinforcing or encouraging a persons purchase decision, by way of a review)?

Personally, unless a site is built purely for the purpose of promoting specific products through affiliate links (in which case the reviews are normally biased), I am normally appreciative of the reviews I read and consider them to have been of value in helping me make purchase decisions and to find good deals. I'm just unsure as to whether Google understands this and sees things this way too... and also about what we can do to ensure as best as possible that Google does look favourably enough upon our sites to let them remain active on the Adsense program (and in the search results!)

I'm trying to be doubly careful because at the moment I'm planning to use a single domain (with subdomains) for each of my sites until I'm earning enough of income that I can afford to begin purchasing seperate domains for each -- right now I'm flat out broke, you see

The rule is an oxymoron, but it does cause confusion.

I honestly believe that our sites are in good terms with Google, yet
those sites that are sold as PLR in droves of hundreds and thousands
may just be the "MFA" they are referring to.

In the end, what can you do? Google is a mysterious beast.

Contact them for all of your questions. This is your best bet.

- John

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by Michael Gavre

Still refreshing my inbox... I'm gonna go for a run, maybe it'll be here when I get back.

It's going to be another couple of days guys.

I completely underestimated the time it takes to write my first
E-book, but this week for sure.

Don't worry, the internet is not going anywhere this week

- John

[DireStraits]

Originally Posted by McT

Just wondering if anyone has had any success in using this method with a wordpress theme and if so what theme they used?

Thanks

Thanks to John as well for all this great information!

Best Regards
Barb

I'm just starting out with this, and although I've not got my sites up yet, I'm planning on using WordPress for it (at least until I can afford to buy other software.. might well end up using XSitePro eventually when I have the money). Just take a pretty simple theme that is already somewhat close to what John has mentioned in terms of layout, and customize it.. or learn (or pay someone) to make one from scratch, it's not so hard.

As John said, there's no reason why using WordPress should make a blind bit of difference to the results. So long as you're doing your layout and on-page SEO properly and getting backlinks, what your site runs on in the backend or what it's managed with is really of no consequence - they're all just pages on the internet.

Time to get cracking!!!

[internetmarketer99]

Originally Posted by McT

Just wondering if anyone has had any success in using this method with a wordpress theme and if so what theme they used?

Thanks

Thanks to John as well for all this great information!

Best Regards
Barb

I have been having great success using Dosh-Dosh's free BlueSense theme. Just wrote about it in another thread.

You can get the theme here: BlueSense: An Adsense Ready SEO Wordpress Theme

Hope that helps~

Mark

[terryd]

Originally Posted by McT

Just wondering if anyone has had any success in using this method with a wordpress theme and if so what theme they used?

Thanks

Thanks to John as well for all this great information!

Best Regards
Barb

I've just started building sites focusing on mini niches using wordpress and they seem to work well.

Have built 7 sites and 5 of them are on the front page of google for their keywords (other 2 are hopefully works in progress!)

Will be building 10-15 before really knuckling down and promoting them.

I make my own wordpress themes.

[dv8]

Note on blogs vs html sites....

I have 2 sites. One is static html and the other is a WP blog. HTML has been up for a good week and still hasn't been indexed. Blog was indexed in one day. But, it hasn't shown in the rankings yet.

I will probably use blogs just for this reason. At least for now.

[iKenT]

Originally Posted by XFactor

It's going to be another couple of days guys.

I completely underestimated the time it takes to write my first
E-book, but this week for sure.

Don't worry, the internet is not going anywhere this week

- John

Hey John,
For me no problemo. In fact this little extra hiatus has given me some time to play around with my VM running Windows XP on my Mac (For Mac curiositees, I'm using Parallels v4-awesome!)

Holy guacamole! Can't tell the difference. Instead of yammering on about this. I have the following request...

'John, help me to help you', by posting your 'Xsite Pro' Affiliate link here in this thread or PM it to me.

Either way, I would like to get it (most likely in Aug after payday)

Mahalo Nui for your Kokua (Hawaiian for 'many thanks' for your 'help')

Ken

[loybond]

I didn't want to submit to 25 SB sites at one go, because I was under the impression that it may cause sandboxing. Since it works for you, I'm going to try this out as well - I am doing about a site a day.

Is using UAW really any better than manual submission? I'm submitting to Ezine (for the PR) and GO (for the immediacy) manually. Even though articles on GO are live right away, it hasn't helped get me indexed yet.

Originally Posted by bay37

Maybe reseller plans come with more bandwidth? Or maybe there is no reason at all. It really doesn't matter what hosting you use. Seriously.

I'm currently putting amazon links on all of my websites, because I'm a little scared of a manual review from Google. Purely MFA sites are not exactly the best way to go IMO, but that is simply my choice. I don't want to risk my Adsense account getting closed. Even if having more links means lower ad ctr.

I'm currently posting 10 product reviews per website, then I SB the site to 25 do follow SB sites (manually). Then I wait for a day or two and see how I'm doing in Google. Then I submit 1-2 articles per website to UAW. Then about 3-5 days later do another 25 SBs and keep posting articles to UAW until I hit top 3 (or top 5) in Google.

I write about 3-4k words worth of content every day (5 days a week). Writing content takes me ~3hours. Then I set up 2 websites (I have a VPS), configure WP, change the template (I don't use any plugins as I found they don't help at all. Just a waste of time.), add content (pages), do SBs... Slowed down to 2 sites/day.

I'm almost at $20/day now, ~20 days in. Changed my goals to $100/day by 1st of September. I plan to reach $100/day with around 40-50 sites.

Do work. If you work hard enough, success is guaranteed. Its all a numbers game really (and some common sense). Create a system for yourself and follow it every single day. Do not get distracted or discouraged. Things tend to go wrong from time to time, just keep working at it and you will succeed.

Do not look for a magic formula, there isn't one. Start doing.

blah.

[jtwardy]

You can get your static html sites indexed within hours if you add an RSS feed and submit it to RSS directories then ping every time you make an addition of new content on your website.

[capone2009]

john when do we get the content on your adsense course?... you said 20th

[magentawave]

Hey John, or anyone else doing Adsense sites...

Has anyone made money feeding content to their sites from article sites like ezinearticles.com, and articlesbase.com, etc., etc.? Of course you can't modify these articles which means they include the authors links.

Steve

P.S. I've got lots of other work to do, so I would rather you take your time and make it right John.

[exodian1]

That is just amazing. I'm thinking of testing this out but I wanna try with blogs instead. Hey Xfactor, I want to know if you target one certain brand of product or a certain product in general?

[Carl Pruitt]

Originally Posted by SoundsGood

Oh, man. I'm just gonna let this one go...

If you are decide to sell the sites separately later on, a reseller plan makes it easier and you can just charge the new owner for hosting. Maybe throw in a few months for free with the sale.

[Carl Pruitt]

Originally Posted by DireStraits

...

Basically.... to me (and I'm sure to the team at Google), any site which is built around specific products (or a group of products) and is monetized only by Adsense could be defined as being MFA (Made For Adsense), which is of course strictly against Googles terms of service.

What steps could we take to ensure we are not banned or penalized because of this? Should we only go so far in optimizing our sites for a better CTR, etc?

Do Google not mind so long as the content you have on your site is of good quality (readable, makes sense, and offers some value - even if only by reinforcing or encouraging a persons purchase decision, by way of a review)?

This is just my opinion, and that and a $1.75 will get you a cup of black coffee, but I think the key is to look at your site and ask yourself "If I take the ads off of this website, is the site still interesting and useful to readers?". Are the ads the only purpose for the page to exist? It is obviously a fine line.

Many people fill pages with massively overused PLR, scraped content, other people's RSS feeds and sometimes even titles and article snippets to try to rig the search engine rankings, and the content on their site is clearly there solely for the purpose of getting someone to the site to click on the ads. I think this is what Google means when they prohibit MFA type sites.

For that reason alone, I would encourage anyone who uses this method to really take care to make the content something Google doesn't find somewhere else. I think it only makes sense that if you want to make a living as a web publisher selling sponsorships of your content, you should make the content worthy of the money being paid. Give them a good value for their ad money and you most likely won't have any issues with the guidelines.

That being said, if you have quality content and you have traffic to it you can always find someone to advertise there even if you didn't have Adsense.

[bay37]

I have never had any of my websites sandboxed because of SBs. Sometimes I do 100 SBs on day 1 of the website going live. Never had any problems.

From my experience, it takes Google from 4 to 8 days to crawl all of the SBs (if I do 100, Google normally finds ~15 straight away and then 5-10 a day for the next 5-10 days).

After 25-50 bookmarks I normally get a temporary boost in rankings (like jump from positions 7-8 to 2-3) for a couple of days, and then my website goes back to where it was before SB submissions. I like SBs because once the links get picked up by Google, their bot seems to crawl my sites at least once a day, which helps with testing and stuff.

Articles provide higher quality backlinks. I don't really get any traffic from my articles, but the backlinks have a long(er) lasting effect.

I haven't tried submitting to ezine. I'm just too lazy to write 6-8 quality articles/day (plus content for 2 mini sites). I like all the automation features that UAW offers.

See, I'm a tech guy, not a writer... I like to automate stuff (once I get a nice system worked out). I never abuse any of the automation tools, but I do use them once I'm comfortable with doing the work manually and know what works and what needs to be done.

At the moment I'm well on my way to automating everything apart from content writing and keyword research (even that is more or less automated). So far it seems to be working for me. Getting clicks every day, it is good fun I gotta admit.

Once I get to $100/day, I'm going to diversify awaaay from Google, perhaps get a hundred or so CB sniper sites going, then try other contextual ad companies etc. I'm paranoid about my Google accounts being disabled, but hey, thats me!

p.s. I only use SBs for indexing purposes. Always get indexed within 4-12 hours of launching a site.

Originally Posted by loybond

I didn't want to submit to 25 SB sites at one go, because I was under the impression that it may cause sandboxing. Since it works for you, I'm going to try this out as well - I am doing about a site a day.

Is using UAW really any better than manual submission? I'm submitting to Ezine (for the PR) and GO (for the immediacy) manually. Even though articles on GO are live right away, it hasn't helped get me indexed yet.

[magentawave]

Originally Posted by Carl Pruitt

This is just my opinion, and that and a $1.75 will get you a cup of black coffee, but I think the key is to look at your site and ask yourself "If I take the ads off of this website, is the site still interesting and useful to readers?". Are the ads the only purpose for the page to exist? It is obviously a fine line.

Many people fill pages with massively overused PLR, scraped content, other people's RSS feeds and sometimes even titles and article snippets to try to rig the search engine rankings, and the content on their site is clearly there solely for the purpose of getting someone to the site to click on the ads. I think this is what Google means when they prohibit MFA type sites.

For that reason alone, I would encourage anyone who uses this method to really take care to make the content something Google doesn't find somewhere else. I think it only makes sense that if you want to make a living as a web publisher selling sponsorships of your content, you should make the content worthy of the money being paid. Give them a good value for their ad money and you most likely won't have any issues with the guidelines.

That being said, if you have quality content and you have traffic to it you can always find someone to advertise there even if you didn't have Adsense.

Use a plugin for WP like Max Banner Ads to rotate your Adsense with affiliate banners from Commission Junction, Amazon, etc. in there to throw off Google - IF that is even a problem.

Duplicate content is only an issue if you have a do-follow link in it that goes directly back to the original source of the article.

Steve

[loybond]

That's good to hear. I submitted to 10 SB sites and got indexed in a few hours, though only the domain, not all the pages.

I've created a few sites so far, but the main problem was getting ranked in Google. I keep submitting articles but the sites are still buried deep. Once I get organic search traffic, I'll be fine, as my CTR is good.

Do you have a list or something for the 50/100 SB sites? I followed a couple of lists for dofollow SB sites, but I'd be interested to know which ones you use.

Originally Posted by bay37

I have never had any of my websites sandboxed because of SBs. Sometimes I do 100 SBs on day 1 of the website going live. Never had any problems.

From my experience, it takes Google from 4 to 8 days to crawl all of the SBs (if I do 100, Google normally finds ~15 straight away and then 5-10 a day for the next 5-10 days).

After 25-50 bookmarks I normally get a temporary boost in rankings (like jump from positions 7-8 to 2-3) for a couple of days, and then my website goes back to where it was before SB submissions. I like SBs because once the links get picked up by Google, their bot seems to crawl my sites at least once a day, which helps with testing and stuff.

Articles provide higher quality backlinks. I don't really get any traffic from my articles, but the backlinks have a long(er) lasting effect.

I haven't tried submitting to ezine. I'm just too lazy to write 6-8 quality articles/day (plus content for 2 mini sites). I like all the automation features that UAW offers.

See, I'm a tech guy, not a writer... I like to automate stuff (once I get a nice system worked out). I never abuse any of the automation tools, but I do use them once I'm comfortable with doing the work manually and know what works and what needs to be done.

At the moment I'm well on my way to automating everything apart from content writing and keyword research (even that is more or less automated). So far it seems to be working for me. Getting clicks every day, it is good fun I gotta admit.

Once I get to $100/day, I'm going to diversify awaaay from Google, perhaps get a hundred or so CB sniper sites going, then try other contextual ad companies etc. I'm paranoid about my Google accounts being disabled, but hey, thats me!

p.s. I only use SBs for indexing purposes. Always get indexed within 4-12 hours of launching a site.

[McT]

Thanks for the help everyone.

I have another question for John or anyone else that may know the answer.

With a product related mini site that shows only adsense ads in text with no other affiliate programs such as amazon, where would I get the product photos from to place the 4 or 5 product photos in a row at the top of the site as discussed in this thread?

Thanks

Best Regards
Barb

[lonniewa2]

I sure as heck hope the course will be ready today. John, give us an update please.

[tim254]

Originally Posted by lonniewa2

I sure as heck hope the course will be ready today. John, give us an update please.

Read up a couple of posts as John said it will be a couple of days.

Originally Posted by XFactor

It's going to be another couple of days guys.

I completely underestimated the time it takes to write my first
E-book, but this week for sure.

Don't worry, the internet is not going anywhere this week

- John

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by lonniewa2

I sure as heck hope the course will be ready today. John, give us an update please.

Please read Tim's post above.

And I would prefer anyone to just email me instead of posting
a question on my course here on the thread.

These kinds of posts will get this thread deleted, which I also
mentioned already.

Let's not ruin it, thanks!

- John

[clickbump]

Got a wordpress site up, just need to lock in on the domain name and I'm ready to go.

Can you guys help me with the best domain name for the search phrase
"keyword for sale"

Here are the available domains

Group 1
(keyword)forsale.net
(keyword)forsale.org
(keyword)forsalenow.com
best(keyword)forsale.com
(keyword)onsale.com

Group 2
(keyword)Blowout.com
(keyword)Wholesale.com
(keyword)AtCost.com

I'm torn between the value of getting the exact match keywords (group 1) in the domain name and getting a more brandable and less suspicious domain like those in group 2...

Whenever I see domains like group 1, my B.S. receptors naturally perk up, but I'm wondering if that's just me...

[Kael41]

(keyword)forsale.net would be my first choice

[clickbump]

Originally Posted by Kael41

(keyword)forsale.net would be my first choice

Thanks for the feedback. Would you choose the .net over the .org?

(keyword)forsale.org

[tim254]

I've heard various recommendations on that, but most said that .org is the better way to go.

[internetmarketer99]

(keyword)onsale.com without question. It's the shortest, it's a .com, and contains your primary keywords. "On", "for", etc., are mostly irrelevant.

Mark

[Kael41]

It's actually a toss up to be honest. Sometimes i'll grab the .org over .net, and sometimes the other way around. In terms of ranking well, i really haven't seen a difference amongst my sites.

Originally Posted by clickbump

Thanks for the feedback. Would you choose the .net over the .org?

(keyword)forsale.org

[exodian1]

Hey John,
I was wondering if I would be able to employ this same method except with blogs instead of websites? Also I started up a blog and tried to target a niche so I targetted Sandisk Memory Cards. Would this be a good niche to start off with? Here's the website below:
www(dot)sandiskmemorycard(dot)blogspot(dot)com

[bigbyte]

I would not buy a .org in combination with the word "sale" in the domain name. Ask your not so Internet savvy family members and friends and .org will come back with the original meaning of this TLD and not with something commercial. The commercial intend is responding less to a .org.

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by exodian1

Hey John,
I was wondering if I would be able to employ this same method except with blogs instead of websites? Also I started up a blog and tried to target a niche so I targetted Sandisk Memory Cards. Would this be a good niche to start off with? Here's the website below:
www(dot)sandiskmemorycard(dot)blogspot(dot)com

Yes you have the right idea with your tight niche.

And yes, you can use blogs indeed. I just prefer the higher
CTR and better control of the layout that a plain static site
gives me.

- John

[madmagician]

I have two questions:

First Question:::
I was buying a domain name and wasn't thinking. I used brandname-producttype-.com and I remembered reading that it's a bad idea because you might be asked to take it down by the Brand Company?

Since I already bought it ...you think it'd be a good idea to just go ahead and pursue it? It's got a very low competition and according to the GKWT is searched about 12k times a month.


Second Question:::
What information do you put on your pages? Price information and where to get the products?

[XFactor]

Originally Posted by madmagician

I have two questions:

First Question:::
I was buying a domain name and wasn't thinking. I used brandname-producttype-.com and I remembered reading that it's a bad idea because you might be asked to take it down by the Brand Company?

Since I already bought it ...you think it'd be a good idea to just go ahead and pursue it? It's got a very low competition and according to the GKWT is searched about 12k times a month.


Second Question:::
What information do you put on your pages? Price information and where to get the products?

1) Personally, I would go for it. The worse thing that can happen is
that you are told to take the site down. So always keep that in mind
when making such a choice.

2) I have talked several times about content creation on this thread.

- John

[wolfmmiii]

John....Thanks for this info man. You've lit a fire under me to just go and do the work and let the chips fall where they may. No more analysis paralysis!

[McT]

Hi John

Don't know if you saw my question above or not but I was just wondering where I could get product pictures for my mini adsense sites?

Usually I would just use the amazon pictures available for the product that I was promoting, but I believe you have said that you have found it better to not have amazon on your sites and just have the adsense ads.

So I was wondering where you get your product photos from to use in these type of sites?

Thanks John

Best Regards
Barb

[nielsencl]

Originally Posted by madmagician

I was buying a domain name and wasn't thinking. I used brandname-producttype-.com and I remembered reading that it's a bad idea because you might be asked to take it down by the Brand Company?

Since I already bought it ...you think it'd be a good idea to just go ahead and pursue it? It's got a very low competition and according to the GKWT is searched about 12k times a month.

I would agree that your risk in using the domain is low. If the company finds out and is bothered by it, they generally will have their lawyer send you a C & D letter which is pretty scary the first time it happens. But if you contact them, you should be able to give them the domain and that will be the end of it. Only in rare cases will a company sue for damages. That may only be in cases where they think the domain owner has money and they feel they have a case.

Here's an idea I have mentioned on other forums: You can try contacting the company and asking for permission to speak well about their products on your site with their trademark. They may refuse, or not even respond, but they may also like getting the free advertising if they are not jerks or just stupid. At the very least you can save a copy of your email (send yourself a copy via email) and show that you tried to ask for their permission first.

[andyj00]

Hi John, fantastic thread! So much information here, thanks a lot!

I have a question..... You say you write 5, 10 or 15 articles a day? Where the heck do you get ideas for the content? You surely cant be an expert in every niche that you write about so you must get your ideas from somewhere? Do you write about products? If so, what sources of information do you use?

Thanks.
Andy

[Si_P]

Hi,

This is my first post so go easy on me!

I have been reading through your thread and think it is awesome so after having thought of pursuing Adsense sites, this has set it in stone for me to get the finger out and get cracking at firing up some niche sites.

I have downloaded MNF and performed a few searches on products that i am interested in. I have found a keyword phrase which under 'exact' search has:

Search Count - 2900
Exact Search - 92
Ad Cost - 3.42
OCI - 99%
SOC - 1 (only 8 allinanchor results)

What I want to know is:

1) Is this a good find and worth pursuing?
2) What should you be looking for in Search Count, Exact Search, Ad Cost, OCI, SOC??

Which should have high values and which should have low??

Thanks,
Si

[DireStraits]

Originally Posted by andyj00

Hi John, fantastic thread! So much information here, thanks a lot!

I have a question..... You say you write 5, 10 or 15 articles a day? Where the heck do you get ideas for the content? You surely cant be an expert in every niche that you write about so you must get your ideas from somewhere? Do you write about products? If so, what sources of information do you use?

Thanks.
Andy

In an earlier post, he stated that only about 1 in 10 articles he writes are related to the page/site he's linking to and promoting in the resource box.

I find it hard to write articles about a specific topic I'm not an expert or passionate about too - even after doing bucketloads of research, the words just don't flow when the knowledge isn't your own and well organized inside your head.

However, I know that when given free reign to write about whatever I want in whatever manner I want, the words tend to flow easy and it's possible to churn out article after article.

Try it. Just make sure that there's something useful and sensical in what you write and you're not just spitting out dreamy thought babble that makes no sense to anyone reading it, and your articles will still be accepted and you should be fine.

[bay37]

Originally Posted by Si_P

Hi,

This is my first post so go easy on me!

I have been reading through your thread and think it is awesome so after having thought of pursuing Adsense sites, this has set it in stone for me to get the finger out and get cracking at firing up some niche sites.

I have downloaded MNF and performed a few searches on products that i am interested in. I have found a keyword phrase which under 'exact' search has:

Search Count - 2900
Exact Search - 92
Ad Cost - 3.42
OCI - 99%
SOC - 1 (only 8 allinanchor results)

What I want to know is:

1) Is this a good find and worth pursuing?
2) What should you be looking for in Search Count, Exact Search, Ad Cost, OCI, SOC??

Which should have high values and which should have low??

Thanks,
Si

I only look at search count and soc. Then Google the keyword and look at the competition (page one). I say go for it. You'll most likely get onto page one without any backlinking (somewhere between positions 6 and 9). Try it.

[Lucky500]

John probably already wrote about this and I am too lazy to go through the whole thread again.

Quick question:
If you find a great niche, is there a minimum CPC that you should go for, in other words would you pursue a great niche where the CPC is only, say $2 bucks?

Good luck to y'all.

[Bounderby]

It has been stated that not all sites will be a success, and with the multiple small site approach obviously the occasional failure is not to be cried over.

But what makes a site unsuccessful? Failure to rank in the SERPs? Failure to attract visitors, or receiving plenty of visitors but failure to get a CTR? What is the most common of these, or are there other factors also?

[Si_P]

Originally Posted by bay37

I only look at search count and soc. Then Google the keyword and look at the competition (page one). I say go for it. You'll most likely get onto page one without any backlinking (somewhere between positions 6 and 9). Try it.

See when you look at the competition on page one, is that for the keyword phrase on its own without any allintitle and quotes? And is that a a broad or exact search?

I really would like to know if the Exact Count should be high in the tens of thousands or be low, less than a hundred???

I'm going to try and set up my first site tonight and see how it goes. I am also going to try and write at least five articles and submit to at least 10 directories with some social bookmarking. If you say i shouldnt need backlinks for 6-9 then I would hope at least in the top 3.

Thanks,
Si

[bay37]

Ouch, got half of my sites de-indexed today (due to violating Google's quality guidelines). So there goes half of my income. Time to re-group.

Basically they emailed me back saying that "thin" affiliate-like websites do not meet their quality guidelines and I got a manual review = removed from index until fixed. Apparently, re-written product descriptions (some sites had 2-3, others 4-6) won't cut it.

No big deal, but re-inclusion could take up to a few months(?!) so I just deleted those sites that got penalized and registered a new batch of domains, this time with better keywords, etc. Good times, I love challenge.

I got a manual review because my Adsense income started going up after a long time of inactivity. All (around 12) mini sites got de-indexed at almost the same time.

weeeeeee

[kevin campbelle]

Originally Posted by reelfat

Everyone needs to realize that the real threat is NOT that 'cease and desist' letter, it's the affiliate network kicking you out of their program. Read EPN's latest update. They will kick you out of their program if you're using trademarks in your domain names. Amazon and Adsense may likely follow suit.

RF

This is so true. People be careful with Adsense. You never know when they may add trademarks to their list of things that they will ban you for, from their program. They have been moving aggressively within the last year to clean house with even some vague guidelines that are subject to their interpretation..

Kevin.

[Bounderby]

^ This suggests to me that this is a pretty risky model to follow? Isn't a small site with basic product reviews essentially what this whole thread is about? Or do you think it was the few pages that did it - I am aiming for 15-20 pages of content on my sites, but it is still effectively re-writing product descriptions!

[kevin campbelle]

Originally Posted by bay37

Ouch, got half of my sites de-indexed today (due to violating Google's quality guidelines). So there goes half of my income. Time to re-group.

Basically they emailed me back saying that "thin" affiliate-like websites do not meet their quality guidelines and I got a manual review = removed from index until fixed. Apparently, re-written product descriptions (some sites had 2-3, others 4-6) won't cut it.



weeeeeee

Ouch...Which is basically the same strategy that many are attempting to follow in this thread?

Kevin.

[kevin campbelle]

Originally Posted by bay37

so I just deleted those sites that got penalized and registered a new batch of domains, this time with better keywords, etc. Good times, I love challenge.

What do you mean by better keywords? So what are you going to do to these new sites that will be different?

Kevin.

[bay37]

Originally Posted by kevin campbelle

Ouch...Which is basically the same strategy that many are attempting to follow in this thread?

Kevin.

Nah, I don't think so. Well, not entirely anyways.

The sites that got penalized had very little content (3-4 250 word product descriptions), yet were ranking on page one for their keywords. So if you are doing the same - pray you don't get reviewed and add some 5-7 pages of content asap.

I must note that the penalized sites had no other outgoing links apart from Adsense ads. I truly believe now that it is important not too look like you put them reviews/descriptions out there only for people to click the ads.

Other sites with more content (10 pages or more), some pictures and a few outgoing links passed the review just fine.

From what I understand, the way your site "looks" does matter to the reviewer. Which makes sense anyways.

I also know that this had nothing to do with backlinks (2 mini sites were literally 1 day old, with 0 SBs or article links pointing to them) or duplicate content (all content was written by me). All of them got the exact same penalty from Google.

I'm now changing my strategy (slightly) for new sites. The idea is still good, and it's not difficult to make some nice money with Adsense.

[kevin campbelle]

Originally Posted by bay37

Nah, I don't think so. Well, not entirely anyways.

The sites that got penalized had very little content (3-4 250 word product descriptions), yet were ranking on page one for their keywords. So if you are doing the same - pray you don't get reviewed and add some 5-7 pages of content asap.

I must note that the penalized sites had no other outgoing links apart from Adsense ads. I truly believe now that it is important not too look like you put them reviews/descriptions out there only for people to click the ads.

Other sites with more content (10 pages or more), some pictures and a few outgoing links passed the review just fine.

From what I understand, the way your site "looks" does matter to the reviewer. Which makes sense anyways.

I also know that this had nothing to do with backlinks (2 mini sites were literally 1 day old, with 0 SBs or article links pointing to them) or duplicate content (all content was written by me). All of them got the exact same penalty from Google.

I'm now changing my strategy (slightly) for new sites. The idea is still good, and it's not difficult to make some nice money with Adsense.

Ok Thanks. It might also be a good idea to not build too many sites too fast so that they would not see a big jump in income. At least for people with inactive accounts.

Kevin.

[bay37]

Originally Posted by kevin campbelle

What do you mean by better keywords? So what are you going to do to these new sites that will be different?

Kevin.

I noticed how easy it was (for me anyways) to rank for most of the keywords. I also get loads of traffic from random long term searches I'd never even dream of.

So my new strategy is to pick a slightly more competitive phrase as the main keyword and build 15-25 page websites around that niche. Yeah, nothing new. But a lot safer (again, that is just my opinion).

Also, better keywords = slightly broader phrases. If I can think of at least 10-15 related (but not re-worded) phrases (to the main keyword/url), and SOC for the main phrase is less than 30 or 40 - it's killing time.

I'm not very good at SEO, but I'm getting there. Slowly.