12 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
12 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Help: Neglected site with tons of potential.

by hotrod26
10 replies
Ok, I have a website that has been totally neglected but could be a huge money maker.

It is an article directory. It is a five letter domain that can actually be a word. I put this site as my sig. because I was not sure if I could put it in the post. It is getting about 400 or 500 hits a day. There are over 78,000 authors signed up and about 350,000 articles with almost 1.5 million article views.

I just added some banners to the site yesterday, before that there has been no way at all for it to make money. The site is not loading well at all due to the large number of articles on it.

I have a lot of ideas for the site but I figured the members here are the best people to help lead me down the right road on this.

Here are a few of the things I am trying to figure out.

Should I import the 78,000+ people to my aweber?

Should I keep this site as an article directory or redirect everything to the home page and make something totally different?

What should I do about the site not loading good? (Sometimes I cannot get it to load at all) I have tried figuring out stuff to do in the database to make it load better but I am no expert on databases. It is currently on godaddy shared hosting, would moving it somewhere else like hostgator take care of the problem?


Any advice, ideas or input anyone has would be greatly appreciated.

I know this site could be quickly turned into a real money maker or I could flip it right now and bring in a good chunk of change, and no I am not going to flip it, at least not yet.
#neglected #potential #site #tons
  • Profile picture of the author Kay King
    It is getting about 400 or 500 hits a day.
    The site won't load at all so I have to wonder if any of those "hits" are seeing anything there.
    Signature
    Saving one dog will not change the world - but the world changes forever for that one dog
    ***
    Dear April: I don't want any trouble from you.
    January was long, February was iffy, March was a freaking dumpster fire.
    So sit down, be quiet, and don't touch anything.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8021242].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author hotrod26
      Many of the hits show as multiple page hits on statcounter.com and there are hundreds of new articles being posted daily, plus the banners that I added yesterday are getting clickthrus so at least some of the traffic is actually seeing the pages.

      I am sure I am actually loosing tons of traffic from the site not loading properly. So, I guess the number one priority is getting the site to load.

      I think I am going to try moving it to hostgator because sites seem to load much better there than godaddy
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8021267].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Kay King
        Have you asked your current host why you are having loading problems?

        If the site structure or a plugin is the problem - changing hosts won't help. I just tried again - the site does not load.
        Signature
        Saving one dog will not change the world - but the world changes forever for that one dog
        ***
        Dear April: I don't want any trouble from you.
        January was long, February was iffy, March was a freaking dumpster fire.
        So sit down, be quiet, and don't touch anything.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8021668].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author TheCondor
          Definitely not loading at all.......just the white screen of death.
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8021919].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Sam Woods
    Loaded for me after a while, but it is slow.
    Are all the articles on the sites landing page?
    22730 pages of articles on front page.
    Signature
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8022092].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    Godaddy hosting > World's worst hosting

    I'm sure you'd get better results with Hostgator
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8022458].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
    Originally Posted by hotrod26 View Post

    ...or I could flip it right now and bring in a good chunk of change, and no I am not going to flip it, at least not yet.
    If you can actually flip if for decent money that's what I'd suggest you do. Article directories have fallen out of favor. They've been dropping in popularity and effectiveness for at least four years. Grab what you can get and put it toward a real money maker.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8022663].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Kay King
      I finally got the site to load - load time: 4 minutes! Looking at the content - neglected is putting it mildly. I'm not sure the site had any purpose other than filling up pages.

      Where are you getting those articles? I don't believe writers are waiting minutes to load a site and submitting in the thousands - and I don't think you have any editorial policy for what is published. Lots of ads and keyword stuffed crap there.

      The categories are not accurate as articles aren't always in the right category...or even close.

      On one page 3 articles were identical with different titles/authors. I might think PLR but they were too bad to be PLR....and that's saying a lot.

      ----------

      Under the category "exercise" - articles about 'get your ex back', 'mold in your basement', 'payday loans....

      ---------
      Also noticed several with text with similar quality to snippet below:

      Alterum might be unprepared with all right how small fruit juice a bone of berry really produces. That's a to izzard of gallivant towards the arsenal. In argumentation you babble thoughts above portion your bit fresh adamant colored bouillon every already morning, consider better self requires circa 3 oranges forth make arrant cup.

      It looks like you worked to build a huge site - but I see little value in the site.

      Sorry to be negative - but you did ask...so I took the time to look at it.

      kay
      Signature
      Saving one dog will not change the world - but the world changes forever for that one dog
      ***
      Dear April: I don't want any trouble from you.
      January was long, February was iffy, March was a freaking dumpster fire.
      So sit down, be quiet, and don't touch anything.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8022970].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author sethalexander
    Just for site load times I'd sign up with someone like CloudFlare Home | CloudFlare | The web performance & security company They have a free version that would help you out some.

    I agree with what Kay King and travlinguy said. Although, having a 5 letter domain is nice. You could definitely develop it into something if you wanted to but I'd start with a completely new concept/plan.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8022982].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author hotrod26
    I agree that article directories are on their way out.

    Basically I set the site up, and then spent one day marketing it and it somehow took off. Of course by taking off, I mean got loaded with spam.

    I know article directories are not the best way to go, I know the site doesn't load, and i know the content is crap. I also know that the traffic and the 78,000 people that signed up as authors are worth quiet a bit. Of course I know a lot of those 78,000 are fake emails, but even if only 10,000 are good that is huge.

    I am currently duplicating the site on hostgator to see if it loads on there or not, if it does I will point the domain there and then we can go from there. I really want to see what the true traffic is before changing the site or anything. I think there may be a lot more traffic than what is showing because the site does not load.

    I know that neglected is an understatement. I have had things that were more important at the time.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8023855].message }}

Trending Topics