Xfactor Adsense Myths - The Updated Scoop

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2006 - I remember when I chose the name "Xfactor" when I joined
this wonderful forum. It was simply because I enjoyed the X-games
and did not give the name a second thought.

Now there are so many Xfactor threads that come up and so many
people are wondering what and why my information is helping people.

Well, hopefully this can help:

Here is a personal update that many can learn from in terms of growth
and not thinking short-term:

(PLEASE READ CAREFULLY)

... As I cannot make it here to answer questions all of the time.

For starters, I never speculate anything that Google may or may not
do.

Such threads are (and always have been) a draining and mentally
defeating growth amongst marketing forums.

Second, I have a Google rep that contacts me bi-yearly. I expect my
next conversation in July.

In January, my rep asked about any input I wanted to make, as well
as if I needed any tips on monetization.

My Portfolio:

This is probably the most key element here, because the difference
between someone that churns out hundreds of 1-page websites in
record time and me is:

1) I have nearly 13,000 pages of unique content, spread over 100+
websites, with many pages that have been growing since 2008.

2) 2,000 pages of that is on 1 health website.

3) All micro niche sites are nearing 100 pages of content (slowly
added over the course of 6 months to 1 year - other domains older).


4) They all started at 1-5 pages.

: I work with micro niches, not micro sites. Yes,
every site needs to start out small, but if I had a site making $5.00 per
day, why would I not want to add dozens or hundreds of long-tail keyword
focused articles to:

a) get more earnings and,
b) contribute more information to the niche?

5) I love my award-converting template, but due to so many people
using it, I enjoy changing things around. I urge everyone to use their
own creativity - just using my layout as a guide. Do I make less
money? Yes, that's ok with me.

6) Having been a black hat spammer from late 2005 until 2007, I
have purposefully avoided any and all backlink promotions that would
appear not to contribute something to the search engines.

I know what short-term riches feels like, as I did it. But at the end of
2007 I made a very clear and bold commitment to only work long-term.

Hope this little update helps.

- John
#search engine optimization #adsense #myths #scoop #updated #xfactor
  • More useful than you know. Thanks!

    Anybody have a link to the "template" he uses?
  • For what it's worth, I concur with the micro niches and micro sites approach.... to begin with. The key is not to let sites that prove themselves to you via their performance die by content starvation. Go back to those winners and build them out. Over time, you get better at spotting winning broad niches within which to find micro niches and more winners.

    I've not ever bought Xfactor's course, and I don't think he's bought any of mine on Adsense, but we agree on this fundamental course of action.

    He knows his stuff!

    Take Care,
    John Schwartz
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • John,

      I am one happy camper after reading your thread last November.

      Thanks heaps mate for your wisdom and willingness to share it.

      Cheers,

      Craig
  • Thanks for the encouragement but help me out here.

    How do you write 100 pages of content about "thick yoga mat"? Care to show the way?
    • [2] replies
    • Its no point picking an exact match domain. You'll easily rank for that keyword but not for others which will mean some SEO effort.

      And the choice in domain name sometimes catch you out further down the line. If your domain name is 'plastic yoga mats', its going to sound odd promoting 'yoga videos'. A person searching for 'yoga videos', might see that your domain name is something they are not looking for and pass even though my site is on the first page.

    • I will assume you can write ten articles about more or less any subject. Right?

      1. Various asana that are easier with a thick yoga mat
      2. What a beginner needs to start yoga, like a thick yoga mat
      3. Injuries or problems that can be avoided with a thick yoga mat
      4. Occasions when you might make a gift of a thick yoga mat
      5. Medical conditions that make it a good idea to get a thick yoga mat
      6. Different types of yoga that you might study with your thick yoga mat
      7. Reviews and comparisons for different brands of thick yoga mat
      8. How they manufacture and test this or that brand of thick yoga mat
      9. Other uses that one might find around the house for a thick yoga mat
      10. Amusing yoga mishaps that could be avoided with a thick yoga mat

      It's just all about creativity.
      • [2] replies

  • Mmm, thick yoga mat,

    it's so soft

    it's so comfy

    it feels so good on my skin

    it's perfect for wrapping up my victims bodies... 'emmm, nevermind.

    it's so soft, did I already say that?


    I don't think you are supposed to write 100 pages on Thick Yoga Mats. It's time to step-up to a slightly larger micro niche.
    • [ 3 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • You don't have to write all your articles about thick yoga mats. Write some about thin yoga mats or invisible yoga mats or even better yoga mats that act like flying carpets!

      The point is. Just expand on these. Just because the domain is thickyogamats.net doesn't mean that every single article has to be about thick yoga mats. The idea behind getting an exact match domain is that you get to leverage the benefit you'll get in traffic in the short term.

      In the long run the domain will still have most of your keywords in it.

      He used that example because it was direct from Xfactors book.
      • [ 5 ] Thanks
      • [2] replies
    • Hehe, that's good stuff.. Always funny and interesting posts in here..
  • I agree - i think you just went a little TOO micro. Micro niche would be "Yoga Mats".
  • Most people don't understand that concept Kay
  • Thanks John for sharing! I'm actually been doing the same thing. I have 1 site with about 50 pages and plan on writing 500 pages on the 1 niche.

    The more you write the more you make and is a lot easier focusing on a few sites.

    Well done.
    • [1] reply
    • Wow - I didn't know it was a concept!:p Damn - I have a "method" and didn't even know it. I thought it was the next logical step - and I know it works for me.

      kay
      • [1] reply
  • hey john

    i heard you are coming out with another xfactor ebook. any truth to this. and are you going in deeper from the first book.

    you have been a great knowledge giver and i speak for many.

    thank you
    • [1] reply

    • Yes & Yes my friend (Free to all customers of my current book).

      - John
      • [1] reply
  • John you are a wonderful guy. Always ready for help and fast whenever asked about anything. Btw how much are you earning these days and how many sites are you running ?
  • I'm not here to bash anybody, I'm honestly here to help.

    If you really want to make $600/day, you need to think ROI.

    How much is spent on site vs. how much that site makes in the end.

    John's posts are helpful but people really need to start "reading between the lines".
    • [2] replies

    • Many ways to skin a cat in this business.

      I just do what I do, and share that with others.

      Take a little from it, a lot, nothing, or all of it - and grow personally
      from there.

      - John
      • [ 5 ] Thanks
      • [2] replies
    • I have 25 xfactor sites, all 5-pagers, that I started building 4 months ago. I did exactly what was suggested in the book and wrote all the content and articles myself. I am building 2 sites per week and make an average of 70 cents per site per day but I notice that I am getting better at this game every day. I'll stop at a hundred sites this December and should be making $100 per day minimum. Then I'll build out those sites, starting with the most promising--all by myself.

      Based on my concrete experience, everything you have written is totally meaningless and irrelevant to me. In short, complete gibberish. But then, I'm a simple man. What do I know.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • John... I'm sure I speak for a lot of people here when I say it's good to hear back from you again with regards to the whole AdSense malarky

    I know over the past few weeks/months a lot of people have been fretting about deindexing, AdSense account bans, etc, mostly in relation to building small sites. But as you say, the idea isn't to build small sites, but to target sites to small specific niches (at least at first) to reap the SEO benefits this can give you initially and get raking that moolas in quicker than you would if you slapped up completely random articles about completely random subjects on a single website.

    Although I'm sure that can work too. It's just a different approach.

    Personally I don't worry too much about any of the aforementioned things other people are fretting over.

    I'm sure one thing people will pick up on here is the thing you mention about having an AdSense rep...

    So many people worry about "manual reviews" of their accounts, etc, but I'm pretty sure it's safe to say if you have a designated rep within the company they've looked at and scrutinized all of your sites and don't feel anything is wrong with them. I'm sure that brings you (as it would anyone else in your position) a certain added level of peace of mind.

    My question is just this, really: How did you come to engage with this representative? Did they simply contact you after a certain point (of earning so much per day / sending them so many impressions/clicks or what not), and take it from there?

    Is this something that is commonplace, do you know? In other words, when those of us also have a portfolio of sites similar in size and success to yours, are we likely to be allocated a representative which will allow for us to build a closer, stronger and more mutually-trustful relationship with Google?

    I hope this question makes sense.
    • [2] replies
    • Hi John... Do you still manage getting 50%-75% CTR ?? After a lot people copying your template....( including me )

      I only manage ctr 5% :confused: even i have follow all your lesson...
      • [2] replies
    • Mr Dire - you'r a smart cat. I've read a few of your posts in the past.

      You'll be doing well

      About a rep - I was called the first time in late 2008 when my health
      site reached around $4000 monthly.

      They asked if it could be used on their case study files, but I turned it
      down.

      - John
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    • Actually, it's perfectly realistic when you think about it.

      I use a 336x280 ad block at the top of my page. That ad block has 4 ads within it. On those sites, every single one of those ads is closely relevant. My visitors can and often do click on more than one ad.

      I don't know in what way they do it (whether they click, return and then click again), but I'd wager a bet that they're opening each link in a new tab/browser window.

      Simple really
  • I apologize if you think I am starting too many threads.

    There have been 3 started this year related to adsense and publishing.

    I too would love to see all of the XFactor misunderstandings and such
    from being started.

    I tend not to open them up - works very well

    - John
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Don't be angry - life is too short

      And thanks for bringing up more points I can clarify - see how
      wonderful you are about letting me know what to post?

      - The Xfactor misconceptions and confusions are not those that have
      my book and email me questions - it's the public - the very same Xfactor
      threads that are making you so stressed out.

      - I do have a forum

      Any more questions? I'm in a giving mood this weekend.

      - John
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Well a forum is about sharing. People are keen to hear John's views on things. Whats the fuss? If you don't want to read about it, dont click on the thread

    John - are you still launching new sites? Or do you now just focus on building out your existing ones? Also - is your content still similar to what you stated in your ebook? i.e for product based niches, mainly rewrites of product descriptions.
    • [1] reply
    • Hi Culvers,

      With so much going on, both online and offline, I plan on stopping at
      around 15,000 total pages, then backlink to get all pages ranked and
      earning daily. That may take a while.

      There is never one-way to set forth a plan. I do have some testing
      with other niches and such, but I've got so many more exciting projects
      I'd like to get into.

      Your Content Question:

      And as far as content, the example I gave is just one way of going about
      writing.

      You can write about anything you wish, really.

      Depends on your niche and keywords.

      Someone asked how can so many articles be written around, for example,
      "thick yoga mats".

      Well, one of the basic ways of keeping your sites of higher quality is to
      write about the niche itself.

      Someone already pointed this out earlier in this thread.

      So taking a "Yoga Mats" example, how much more depth could you add
      to your site by giving viewers more information on yoga?

      They are already interested in yoga mats, because they found your site,
      so take some planning on adding more beef to add tips on all-around
      yoga.

      If they want yoga mats, common sense tells me that they are interested
      in yoga.

      Now starting a site from scratch could be:

      1) Micro Niche: "Thick Yoga Mats"

      2) Targeted Niche: "Yoga Mats"

      3) General Niche: "Yoga Supplies"

      4) Authority: "Yoga"

      - John
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • John is all about helping people. Even in the promotion page to buy his ebook, he tells people they can learn everything they need from the free forum thread, thus promoting this forum. If you read his main thread, every time somebody tried to get him to self promote, he directed them away from it.

    I, for one, am very appreciative of what he has to share, and have gotten my Adsense income up to $200 per month through his advice. I did not buy his ebook, but read his thread from start to finish and really appreciate everything he has to share.

    John, if you are reading this: I read a thread about turning interest based ads off in Adsense account settings increasing CTR. Have you ever tried this?
    • [3] replies
    • I think he makes a lot of $$$ from the 101 websites with Adsense, I don't think he needs the money.
    • Would also love your input on this John.
    • Hi John,

      Honestly, I have not changed my interest-based settings and I do
      not plan to.

      I have no negative reasons not to do so, just that things are running very
      smoothly as is.

      - John
  • thank you John!!!
  • Thank you, Xfactor. I have come across your information before and it has helped me comprehend the micro-niche side of Adsense. I am pursuing an authority site, but your work has helped me figure out how to attack micro-niches within my larger niche. I appreciate your help.
    • [1] reply
    • Your welcome.

      And remember: An authority site is simply a bunch of micro niches
      all rolled into a sensible category structure on the same domain.

      It's good stuff.

      The only mistake I made with my 2,000 page health site is not
      siloing. It would have helped my rankings better in the long run.

      Big lesson learned there.

      - John
      • [1] reply
  • Dude,

    seriously ... how much must it suck to be you?

    As a final note ... you're one of only 3 people here in several years to make my ignore list. Then endless stream of nonsense emanating from your pc to my screen ends today.

    • [ 11 ] Thanks
  • John, I am curious to see if you have suffered a traffic drop since the Google changes that have occurred the last couple of months, most notably May? Many ecommerce sites that rely heavily on long tail traffic have taken large hits. These sites rank due to internal linking rather than offsite promotion.

    I know that these sites are my main competition and from what I have read you do a bit of product targeting as well so just interested to see which way your traffic went where others dropped. My theory is that SEO'd product pages should be replacing the product pages that otherwise rely on nothing but domain trust and authority.

    In regards to your micro site/micro niche recommendation, I couldn't agree more. Leaving a page sit at one page deep is leaving money on the table. You also have the potential to diversify your income of the one domain.

    Taking your yoga mats example - you can sell yogo mats and you can sell books that teach you how to use yoga mats. There should be at least 10 different thick yoga mats that get recommended by instructors each day that you could write about, compare, demonstrate etc. Turn the $1/day business and make it worthwhile.
    • [2] replies
    • About your questions:

      1) My rankings and earnings are always fluctuating, and I am aware of the
      recent changes (which I think is great), but due to my pages have at least
      500 words of content on most - I'm not concerned.

      2) Siloing: Here is a very simple diagram:

      http://trafficcpanel.com/wp-content/...-structure.png

      It's a basic, simple way of categorizing big sites that is nothing new, but
      something that should be considered in the beginning of a site.

      Of course, micro niches and such do not need this.

      - John
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
    • It's amazing how much more work we can come up with from a creative
      standpoint, instead of relying on tools to do and show us everything.

      Great ideas you have there.

      The mind can be much more profitable than anything we ever could buy
      online to teach us how to make money.

      - John
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    • [ 3 ] Thanks
  • I am not affiliated with John, but he has helped me go from making a few pennies per month on AdSense to an expected $850-860 in total for month of May and this is in 2 months time frame.
  • I undertand that both DireStraits & Xfactor said that super high ctr trick is based on niche ad relevancy itself ... but ...
    i have a website about digital meat thermometer, i checked it on spyfu and that niche had nice relevant ads (showing low price, deals etc)...but my adsense never reach ctr up to 50%, actually below 5% ... :-(

    I'm really sure that i've done good on-page SEO like keyword in domain then
    title : digital meat thermometer
    Des :digital meat thermometer bla bla bla
    h1 :
    digital meat thermometer
    So, is there anything wrong on my website ?? how can i check that adsense ads showing relevant ads or not? i live in Indonesia so i can't check the ads relevant directly by visiting my site ...
    • [1] reply
    • It's worth remembering that as good a tool as SpyFu is, and as important as it may be to check your keyword(s) out with it in order to get some idea of a keywords revenue potential from Google ads, the tool itself - at least as far as I know - doesn't take into account any advertisements which may be set to show only on the content network (AdSense)... only those set to display under the sponsored links section of Google itself.

      So you might see 20 advertisers displaying in SpyFu with an average CPC of $.75 to $3.50... yet it may simply be the case that none of those advertisers also chose to display their ads on the content network.. and even if they did, the CPC itself for their ads on the content network versus Google search may be vastly reduced.

      There is really nothing you can do to get any guarantees or predict with any absolute certainty how many ads are going to show, how relevant they may be or how good the CPCs will be for the content network, without actually testing.

      I myself have experienced this. I always check my main keyword for new sites out in SpyFu before making a decision to go ahead with launching that site or not. One of my sites showed plenty of ads for my target keyword but when I launched the site only one closely relevant advertisement was displayed, and after a month or two that itself disappeared. The only ads left were those moderately relevant (about similar products but not the specific brand of product I was targeting).

      This resulted in a site which - although still nicely profitable - had a much lower CTR than those sites where the ads were directly relevant.

      As for your question about how you can see what ads are displayed for visitors in other countries, you have two options:

      1) Ask someone in the country you'd like to check for to visit your site and check and/or take a screenshot (which may be risky if you don't fully "trust" them).

      2) Look for a free proxy server physically situated in the country you'd like to check the ads for, and load your web page through this proxy. This should work.
      • [1] reply
  • John got a question for you mate..

    Say I wanted to build a really large site like you did with your health site....300-1000 pages should I just keep adding as many new pages as I can at first and then 6month later go back and start building backlinks or should I say submit 20 articles, work on backlinks, then submit another 20 etc...
    • [2] replies
    • Hey Ernie,

      I have a 1200 page site in the work from home niche. Its quite an authority now so when I add content and link to it from my HP, I just wait til it gets indexed and see where that page shows up in the SERPs. From there I know how much work I need to do to get it to rank.

      I used to spend 3 months adding content to my sites, then spend a month or two promoting them. It doesnt matter though, but what does matter is that you consistently put pages online.

      Martin.

      • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • For every question there are about 100 different options.

      How confusing is that?

      Seriously, what makes some people get frustrated out there (not you),
      is asking a question and then getting about a dozen options.

      We all want 1 answer, 1 method, and only 1 road that will be the end-all,
      be-all definitive process.

      But it doesn't exist.

      So, having said that - it doesn't really matter how you go about your
      site in question.

      Note:

      I've loaded 500 articles at once to my health site some months back,
      and the site suffered no setbacks in current rankings.


      So if I were you, think structurally instead of bulk numbers.

      For example:

      1) Launch with your home page, all of your main category pages, and
      a minimum of 5 pages for each of those category pages.

      2) Start regularly back-linking to the home page (think less links, higher
      quality, and consecutively, and to each new article as best possible.

      3) Devise a plan where you can maintain your regular backlinks, while
      adding content on a scheduled basis as well (think "5 pages per week
      and 2 backlinks daily" - something along those lines).

      This will not only keep your site slowly growing, but the backlinks will
      also grow slowly, and most importantly - naturally.

      And then let the natural process of the search engines take over (think like a Jedi),
      while you continue to build up your site and other sites.

      - John
      • [ 2 ] Thanks
      • [2] replies
  • Hey, John

    Great going there!! And thanks for the thread.

    I'm curious how you set up the navigation for sites with a lot of pages. How do you combine not having all too many clickable links up high on the page with usable navigation for the visitor?

    Best,
    Evita
    • [1] reply
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      • [1] reply
    • Hi Evita,

      Long time, no talk! How are you doing?

      About your question, do you remember the old example that I created
      based on the simplistic health site I was running a couple of years ago?

      Very much the same, with categories on the left.

      I have a nice header though that I went back to.

      No real rhyme or reason for these little attributes - sites can look and
      flow any which way a person wants.

      - John
  • LOL, it's like a cult now isn't it. I felt like somebody just hung me on the cross and lit me on fire. I will skip the two posts above to avoid getting into circular arguments but you have no bases to give opinions on something you never purchased.

    I, on the other hand, DOES own John's e-book. I was in his forum for a little while where I witnessed stay-at-home moms writing 500 articles and making $1/day from their sites.

    and I'm the bad guy?

    The point I raised are valid questions and I will ask again.

    How does one build 100 pages of content around "thick yoga mat" and still yield a profit?

    1. 100 pages of content at $15/article is $1500.
    2. You submit 10 articles to promote each page to EZA and GA, that's $150 more. Multiple by a hundred it's $15000 to just promote this one website.

    Total cost, $16,500.

    Are you guys diluted? Please, be constructive with your feedback instead of name-calling and talking about how John is a loving family guy.

    Cigarette's companies donate millions of dollars each year to Africa, but that doesn't negate the fact that cigarettes cause cancer.
    • [2] replies
    • Your hatred is so apparent. You're skewing the facts to make your point.

      I'll keep it short so you'll understand:

      1) When you have more than 30 pages of content.. you don't really need to backlink newer articles as much. Most of them can be left unlinked externally.. and they'll still rank. just due to the internal links a website with over 1k articles generates!

      2) $15 an article? Well.. If you read what he's written... he used to write most articles himself. Even if you were to outsource.. you'd easily get articles for under $10 of HIGH QUALITY if you know where to look.

      2) The articles are added over time.. not at once. you reinvest your profit to make more.
      • [2] replies
    • Man I really hate it when stay at home moms get such a bad rap. Some of us are actually quite good at this internet marketing game you know and make a very nice income thank you very much ..

      sigh
      • [ 3 ] Thanks
  • Do you use wordpress blog platform? How to structure it in siloing form. Thanks.
    • [2] replies
    • The platform does not matter nor does it affect SERPS. I use Blogger for 100+ XFactor style sites.
      • [1] reply
    • Wordpress should work well for silo-ing if you use categories effectively. Set up your categories, remember the category slug field is used as the folder name if you include category in your permalink structure.

      To set your permalink, go to settings->permalinks and make it something like:
      /%category%/%postname%/

      Now each category will be a folder on your site in google's eyes, representing a silo. And each post in that category will be an article in the silo. And you can explicitly place a link in each post to the previous one in the same category to simulate what was in the diagrams shared previously.

      It's not a perfect silo structure, but a very good approximation.
  • Can't agree more. Used to be involved in black hat stuff and like you said, it just don't last. It's better to concentrate on long term result
  • I think part of the reason why the xfactor stuff works so well for him is because he's creating quality content.

    It seems all he does is create optimized webpages and then link back to them through articles he published at ezinearticles.com. I believe that's his only source of links (that his intentionally getting).

    Unless these are very low search terms that's not enough to get much traffic from the search engines.

    BUT, if his content and his sites are of quality, he'll start getting links naturally from people who visit his sites.

    AND if the articles submitted to ezinearticles.com are of quality, people will start distributing them. That way he'll get more links.

    So by offering really good content, he could be getting a ton of extra links. Links maybe even he doesn't realize he's getting. So he's leaving all this out of his book. And it's not because he doesn't want you (or all the work at home mom's) to succeed, but because he doesn't realize it.

    I have no idea, but that's my theory at least. I do quite well with my sites, but I have a lot of link building methods and optimize my sites better than he covers in his book.

    I know if all I did was build links through EZA it would take too long to see the rankings I like to see. That's very minimal SEO, but if you're providing really good content I can see how it could work out for you over time.

    Anyway, that's my theory on why the xfactor method doesn't work for a lot of people. Clearly it's working out for him and I think it's valuable that he's sharing it. The people failing probably aren't entering the right markets and/or aren't offering valuable content.

    Lisa
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • I really do not know whether his method works for him as he claims. We only have his word. But what he says is not impossible or unrealistic.

      I do not think your theory is true because there are thousands upon thousands of quality sites in any micro-niche.

      And also, who is to say that something is of good quality or not.

      Xfactor wrote all of the articles himself to start with, assuming he still has his 100 niches, I really do not think that xfactopr has 100 University Degrees that cover all of those subjects.

      I think jhe said that he used tow rite 10 -30 articles per day. I therefore do not think that much research went into those articles. Thus, I do not think that quality is what made him successful (if true).
      • [1] reply
    • I have to agree with Lisa here. I have a website that rank top 3 for years and I did no backlinking at all, but I'm still receiving many new backlinks every month.

      I mean, people listed my website as a recommended link from their EDU websites and other high PR websites.

      Why? People have been backlinking to me because of the high quality content that I've made for this site. I'm not a good writer but I made at least 10 revisions on the homepage, making it relevant and useful.

      This site is making me $140 in Adsense last month. So what lisann and xfactor said is true. Quality content is very important.

      However...

      I do have sites that have OK (+ PLR) content but ranked high in search engines because of my systematic backlinking activities, pretty much similar to what lisann do to her sites.

      So, it's really an art to how you want to rank your sites.
      • [1] reply
  • One thing that I think is getting lost on people is that if you are the guy making $1000/day then you have HUGE financial leverage to outsource a lot of content creation.

    If you are profitably putting $1000+/day in your bank account then you can spend $10-$15k a month on content knowing full well it could take 3-6 months before any of that content begins to generate any positive cash flow.

    A newbie can't do this and to someone not making that kind of money it seems insane and ridiculous and simply not possible.

    But it does work and works well.

    The perfect example of mass outsourcing of content is ehow.com. They generate 4,000+ articles a day (while paying about $15/article) and will bring in around $200 MILLION this year and all they do is focus on the long tail and generate adsense clicks.

    So paying for 4000 articles a day at $15 each will cost roughly $22 million but they are projected to make $200 million or about a 10x return on their content investment.

    (checkout this wired.com article on them: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/1...andmedia/all/1 )


    So to say outsourcing 100 articles in a small niche at $15 a pop is impossible to do profitably is completely absurd.

    It is possible but just not overnight after reading a 100 page ebook.
    • [ 3 ] Thanks
  • I have tried many types of link building, but I keep going back to EZA and other article directories. Nothing builds the rankings like submitting articles.
  • Wait!....WHAT?!?....

    John: I am glad that I purchased the course and I have learned a lot from you. I have 17 sites launched all with 5 or 6 pages. I don't launch junk and its about 50/50 in terms of what I write and what I outsource. I understand that it will take a fairly significant investment in time and money to build my business. I average about $6 a day and it is growing in a steady fashion since January. I have been at IM for about 2 years so I am not a newbie but not a pro either - I have a good understanding of niches, kw research and basic SEO.

    With all due respect, and having read the course a few times, I did have a problem with some of the numbers that were given. For instance, 45 websites X average $150 = $6,750 not $10,000. OK so this is a minor point and perhaps the remainder comes from the health site. The much bigger issue here is the gigantic number of pages that you have online. 11,000 pages on ~100 sites? I thought we were building ~5 page websites and targeting 5 or so kw with 1,000 searches or more. Remember, 1,000 searches roughly equals $20/month. By this math, if every page is equal to 1,000 monthly searches then you are now making $200K a month. OK, take longtails that have 500 monthly searches and you are making $100K/month. Point is, I think we need to bring some reality to the discussion.

    See my problem is that so far I am making about $1 a day on sites that are 3 months old and ranking and I am starting to think that I need to build more than 300 - 400 pages a year to approach a decent income.

    So, if the initial 100 websites with 5 pages each = 500 pages and over the course of 1 year you have ~11,000 pages then you either spent 5,250 hours (each page takes 30 min to write), or ~$100K on outsourcing, or some combination of both in one year to get to this level.

    I am not assuming anything here, I would just like some clarification.

    thanks,
    Jerry
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • You are already making $6/day from your websites. You have all the numbers you need to reach at some meaningful conclusion. Why do you need to hear it from John? Unless you want to start a time wasting argument i dont really see the benefit of this kind of posts. John might have made some mistakes in the numbers he gave out. So what, everything else is correct and very helpful. You have even proved it yourself. Besides, what works for one may not work exactly for others.



      • [2] replies
  • My personal experience:

    Following the course guidelines, I built appx. a dozen sites. More than half began averaging $3-$5/day after about a month. The remainder, with one exception, sees about $1.5/day.

    What I learned from the course has been invaluable, and I continue to apply it. I have taken most of the suggestions, experimented & tweaked them, and continue to see improvements.

    The course was, and is, one of the best investments I've made in terms of increasing my Adsense revenues, and certainly in terms of overall ROI.

    I wish all my investments were as worthwhile.

    bfas
  • I didn't use John's math, I used my own. I built some adsense sites using both John's and my own techniques, and will scale up the whole thing over time with the resources available to me. I will ensure ROI, and time management is at the top of the agenda, and aim to create a site - end to end, from keyword to SEO in under 30mins. When you think outside the box with these profitable systems, then you are on to a serious winner.

    Probably a good idea if the thread is closed, and a discussion begins in earnest on John's actual product... just my $0.02
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  • John, thanks for all your input. I've not come across many threads where someone put so much effort into trying to help people along.

    One thing I like is the "If it ain't broke don't fix it" approach that you seem to have to the whole thing. Also, not getting lost in petty details, and staying focused.

    This strategy is not for the faint hearted. It's not an overnight success thing - and you'll end up disappointed if you try to short cut it and do it all in a week. Google doesn't like it when people move too quick, also they appear to be lending ever more weight to authoritative, content heavy sites. It makes sense - think about who is paying them. Advertisers are not going to keep spending money if it doesn't lead to sales, so if you want to get on the right side of Adsense, start thinking not about just getting as many junk clicks as you can, but about how you can help send advertisers the kind of traffic that they want. That's your job, that's what Google is paying you for and if you remember that I think it will really help. This isn't a get-something-for-nothing kind of game.

    Part of this is volume. If you have twenty pages and it brings you a dollar a day, replicate your strategy. But don't base your statistics only on your most successful pages. Some sites will be hits and some will not. I made the mistake at first of basing my stats on my most successful page, which sometimes brings $5-10 in a single day from Adsense. I did keyword research, built another 50 similar pages and wondered why I was not getting rich. For a minute.

    Part of it is quality content. Think of it as developing an empire. You've got to build on solid foundations if you want to get traction. An info-site has to be something that people will benefit from, and not just some more internet garbage. eHow is rocking it with Adsense because of their brand reputation, because they aim to make their name synonymous with "getting good answers and advice".

    The other part, is plain and simple, getting your pages to rank. If none of your pages rank, you won't get any search engine traffic, and you won't get clicks.

    I say don't obsess on click through rates, article length, all those small details. Concentrate on the important stuff... see yourself as a middleman who attracts visitors, helps them out in some way with useful info and then they go on their way. Hope my ideas help.
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • The premise of your whole argument is flawed.

      Google does not want Made For Adsense (or advertising) websites. Adsense was designed as a way for people to monetize websites that serve another function. Whether you have 1000 or 10 pages...it does not matter. Would your "Kenwood GRX-1897 muffin toaster" website exist if it was not advertising anything? You see Google have found a way to filter out all such MFA sites. Adding more faeces to faeces does not change anything.

      You are advocating the contsruction of websites that suit advertisers. This is wrong in Google's eyes and the proof is in the recent Google update in June.

      Read in every IM forum about all of the people crying in their beer because Google has suddenly degraded all of their MFA sites to page 300.
  • Unless you are Mahalo or other large scale scraper sites. In that case the rules don't seem to apply :-)
  • Your page can still contain keywords and subject matter that attracts the high paying bidders with the same page - there is no need to funnel them to other pages.

    Google shows ads based on your pages content. This content can be SEO'd to attract certain organic words but if the content is suitable you can "stuff" the higher paying ones in there too.

    Take the weight loss market as an example. You can target a low competitive high traffic phrase such as "how to lose weight eating jellybeans on toast". This has a CPC of $0.05c - no one wants to touch it. You can however compare it to some big brand diet products and your content now has the potential to attract advertisers who pay big dollars for those brand words. The market is still weight loss, you just have tweaked the content to the higher end advertisers.
  • I tried it out a while ago and it was a moderate success. Actually, it was a domain that wasn't being used so I tested it w/o EZA, no marketing, just directory submission, decent on-page content, and it brings in 70-to-100 every month.
    Now the thing is I didn't make it solely for AS. It can be monetized a few other ways which should be more lucrative than AS is my ultimate goal.
    • [1] reply
    • Hi everybody,

      I'd like to ask you all something.

      What happens when the product's niche you want to develope is low competition but the first page on google is full of the merchants selling those products?

      Isn't this what will happen all the time?

      Will you go with it anyways? What's your experience?

      What are your thoughts on this?
      • [1] reply
  • I have that very situation on one of my sites. I almost gave up cracking the first page. But after 4 months of it hanging around and me adding more backinks every now and then, it broke the first page.

    Currently, it is floating around9 and 10. However, I believe it will continue to climb.
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  • Thanks for posting this thread John!


    Since you have access to a Google rep, have you ever had a discussion about having the Adsense blocks directly below the article title? are they okey with it?


    Thanks.
  • This thread only vriefly touched on "Google doesn't want made for AdSense sites".

    I have yet to read anyone explain how to get around this, and the two sotes mentioned in this thread seem textbook examples of MFA:

    thick yoga mats
    digital meat thermometers

    Does anyone really believe that such a site would be built for no other reason than to make money via advertising.

    When you're network starts making money and Google finally puts human eyes on it and they see 50 articles on yog mats, is there any way they AREN'T going to think it's MFA?

    I'm sure XFactor is making dough, but it says right in the rules don't build sites for the explicit purpose of whjoing adsense.

    How does one get around that when we are building site like portablecampingstoves.com, or blackconversesneakers.com, or redleatherboots.com

    How can sites such as these EVER be percieved as anythin other than MFA?
    • [1] reply
    • Add some decent content to your sites. Maybe even add some videos. And also review and sell products via Amazon.com or some other affiliate program. If you're reviewing and promoting products then the site is not simply "made for adsense".

      What I like to do is have some pages on my sites reviewing products and not even have adsense on the review pages. But I'll also have informative articles and videos on other pages of the site and those pages will have adsense on them.

      That's how I like to do it anyway.
  • hey adam

    that sounds like a good answer.... yet even so, when google eyeballs see a site with dozens of artciles with names like

    vitamin c pills
    vitmain c supplments
    citamin c and scurvy
    importance on vitamin c
    vitamin c dosage
    natural vitamin c
    etc...

    it seems to me the only thing thay can conclude us that someone is mining keywords to draw traffic to present adsense, no matter what content is actually on the pages.

    My fear is to build up a a few dozen sites, start making money,then have it all evaporate when google says "redteakettles.com? really? camocombatboots.net? seriously? and those other 40 sites? guesswhat? buh-bye!"
    • [1] reply
    • In a worst case scenario where G takes your adsense away you'll just have to find another way to monetize the traffic. I don't like to go into niches where the only way I can think of to make money is with adsense. I like to be able to sell affiliate products or generate leads or something else in addition to any adsense revenue.
  • First up, adding another revenue source to the sites such as Amazon is ideal.

    I think the original intention of the xfactor sites is a simple foundation template but now so many of them are online and Google is bound to do something about this green/black template all over the web, I'm not sure what, but it's best to be safe and start creating more pages and beyond 'vitamin c pills, vitamins c supplements' etc...I couldn't agree more!

    At the end of the day if Google comes along to a site with 50+ pages, a diverse use of keyword categories, multiple revenue sources and all the bells and whistles that come with any other website...then why would they sandbox the site? If it's actually a contribution to Google customers purchasing decision and provides them with options other then Adsense...it's sure to be a winner..

    I just hope for the sake of all those that put ton's of hard work in, that the big G sees sense in that when Judgment day comes...like any 'method' and most things in life, what goes up, must come down and I think it's wise to think alittle outside the box to hedge these sites against any downside. I imagine that domains like 'www.redmailbox.org' will be the first to be flagged.....(.org: I can't believe people are registering these) I mean talk about sticking your neck out!

    Anyway my 2 cents..

    Cheers!

    ISEO
  • hey xfactor.... i just want to know, how do you update your websites? you said that your websites have 200 articles, did you add them all directly to your website at once or add it one by one???

    By using xsitepro, is there a way to publish article/page faster? like wordpress blog ...
  • Thanks XFactor, this is what I was looking from your side to hear.

    Unique Quality Content and Whitehat Backlinking is what going to win in the long run. Keep doing this multiple times and you can gradually build up your business for long term success.
    • [2] replies
    • I agree totally. I started out with Johns book,and still have some 2 or 3 page sites. But I have quite a few in the 20-50 page range and am sitting between $60-80 a day. I have amazon aff links and an articles and videos section to add value. This month should clear over $2000. I use my own templates and backlink mainly with articles now.

      The system works GREAT, it just needs tenacity and consistency, no luck required !
      • [1] reply
    • When is the next version coming out? I am totally stoked about the update!
  • wow you must be very rich now.
    remember other people who are in need. Spend some of your fortune to help their lives.
    God bless you.
  • Great post xFactor!
  • See if page one is all PR 0-2 or 4-6. 4-6 is a lot harder to beat than 0-2. Also Y Page links = 0 or hundreds. If it's hundreds, it's a tough battle = going to need lots of hard work and time. So combine those two, PR 0-2 and Y Page links = 0 if possible then it's easy to get to page 1 but this kind of ideal situation isn't not as quite as to find but it's there.

    I recently found this by reverse engineer why my site on page 1 all the time and why so many of them not ranking at all. Those above are a few of the hints.
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks Irsan!

      I still haven't seen any niche with 0 backlinks. Have to keep looking for
  • But what else is there to say, really? Johns original thread contains all info you need really (and he states this himself). The book/course will appeal to the completely clueless who need their hand holding through the complete process, but TBH once you've put a couple of these sites together you should be able to fly solo. The real trick is getting ranked for your target phrase - even with long-tail phrases this is getting more difficult by the day. The entire approach is reliant on obtaining organic (free) traffic from the search engines, so the things that most people have difficulty with are actually the kind SEO problems that all of us face - they aren't unique to John's (or any other) micro niche 'method'.
    • [1] reply
    • This is so true. I followed xfactor method religiously and I thought I was doing the right thing and I scaled up massively. It was a great time, my income double and tripe practically in few short months. Google mayday hit me in 1 scoop and my earning went down to about 1/4-1/3 of my original income which as over 1K/mo. It was great but I learnt my expensive lesson and I am not giving up. Succeeding online or offline takes processes up and down and constant improvement. The key is to focus, learn something till you become very good at it and the money should eventually come to you.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [2] replies
  • John: Do You still put your pages around specific product niches? If yes, You are doing so as in example above "Yoga Supplies" - many product based articles around Yoga? Do You add any different content to this sites or just product based articles like in a book?

    Do You still use this ugly template?
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  • Nice that you have got your sites earning regularly, if you always strive to give the search engines the unique content they want, they will always reward you
  • Hello xfactor,

    Great stuff your xfactor method!

    Please explain me; so does google not see my site as an only mfa sites, do you have an blog on your "yoga mat" black and green site?

    Or you have not a blog, only products and product reviews, and the content you writing about the yoga mat topic you write on squidoo or others, and then link back to your "yoga mat" black-green product site?

    So, additionally you write articles too, to high pr directories with a link back to your "yoga mat site", or how you should make this?

    Example; I think when i have 10-15 wellness product topics and write daily 8-10 blogposts on my product site without adsense,they i promote on different social news sites, or write it on squidoo with back link to my wellness product site.

    Addition i write daily 8 different articles to 8 different high pr directories, i must become very good traffic and high ctr to make very good money within 2-3 months with this adsene method?

    Hope you can me eyplain this a little bit.

    best wishes and success
    marco005
    • [1] reply
    • Hi Everyone,

      I've just gone through the 217 pages of John's new adsense course and I truely believe it answers a lot of the questions that people have in this thread.

      He is very clear on keywordresearch, backlinking and sitestructure. Absolutely worth reading! Great information. Answered a lot of my questions and reinforced my doubts about the use of keywordtools and stats.

      Not everything he says I agree with though. For example he goes on and on, about the quality of his content, but what he comes up with I don't like that much. Too brainy, too boring and not really selling the click in my humble opinion.

      But hey... it's an honest and open report about his development as a publisher over the years.

      I learned a lot ;-)

      JP
  • Hello to all,

    This weekend i have much think about the great xfactor method.
    I think to make money with this method, amazon will there be better than make moeny with adsense.

    Why? I will make an example ;

    So you will promote amazon products with prices no less under 100$ each item.
    When you writing daily blogposts and 10 article each days to high pr directories, so you will be after 3-4 month have 300 users a day ore more.

    Lets calculate, that an adwords advertiser to promote this products must pay an cpc from 2,50-5$, so ist possible you become 30% of them , lets say 0,75 per click.

    You have with the xfactor method 20% ctr, thats are;

    with adsense;
    60 clicks a day x 0,75$ x 30 days = are 1350 $ adsense income

    with amazon;
    say you have a 3% conversion rate, thats are 9 sales every day multiple 100$; (7% commissions by products not books)

    9x 100$= 900$
    30 days = 27.000 $ x 7% amazon commisssion= 1890$ income only from amazon

    So think the most buyers buy more than one product on amazon , so in this example, the most buyer will buy 150-200$ in your niche from amazon, you have doupled yur income with amazon commissions.

    With adsense not.This will be stay on 0,75$ cent per click or in months with less search volumes,a little bit lower than 0,75 cent per click.

    But i think with the xfactor method with an big amazon leatherboard with pictures and product reviews, you will have more than a 3% conversion rate, i think up to 5% ore more.

    with best wishes
    marco005
  • Banned
    John you are a wonderful man. Always ready to help and quickly, when asked something. Btw, how much you earn these days, and how many sites do you use?
  • Hello,

    yes that is great stuff from john.

    Butt, when he said, he had over 2000 pages on his 1 health website, that does mean, that he has a blog, who he putt adsense or not?

    I can not believe, that his health website has 2000 static pages, only about products (product pages).
    He is doing blogging, other it can not be possible.

    But i think, the problem about is this (please correct me when ive been failed);
    You blogging about an topic (categorie), on your health website, with articles, that have very less or nothing search volumes, who are fast ranking in google, so that these articles have not competition.

    But this is dangerous, then an article with theese keywords who have no search volume or very less, so there are not advertisers for this keyword, so google you not pay an high EPC, so when you put adsense to this article site/post.

    So why should google blend high EPC adsense on such article sites? Google is not your friend, google is an imperium,who is primary Maxime is to make money, millions of money, not pay you very very much money.

    Think about the box.

    I will be start with xmethod, but i do not blogging on my static product xfactor sites, nothing.
    Or perhaps too, when its possible, to find 100-200 additional topic -categorie keywords with high cpc, so if there are many of theese keywords, yes you can blogging about, otherwise nothing.

    Or im be wrong about that?
    Please correct me if im wrong.

    best wishes and success
    marco005
  • Hello john,

    I see on one on your authorits sites, you have your written articles who are on article directories, putting in your website under recent posts too, with the same text.

    Is this not duble content?


    with best wishes
    marco005
  • Your name is all over the net, congrats for your success and thanks for sharing really valuable information to us, Finally I finish read the whole this thread
  • Hi Guys,

    With xfactor, will this work?

    Order 200 articles and post it on my blog. Each article is $5, so 5*200 = $1000

    Then I spin one arrticle into 4 articles. So I now have 5 articles (with the original article).
    800 spinned articles and 200 original articles, total 1000 articles. Each spinned article will cost me each $2. Total spinned article = $800.

    I submit each articles to 2 article directory. So there will be 2000 backlink. I outsource this for $400 or $0.2 per article.

    I order 1000 blog commenting service each $0.25 will will bring me 1000 backlink

    So 3000 backlink, and 1000 articles with $3250 investment. In one year, I hope at least it will give $10 / day or $3600 a year.
  • My quick 2 cents...

    I'm far from one of XFactor's cult members and I'm often quite critical of some of the less-than-useful WSO's and special offers I see. I've been in internet marketing for years on the local seo side for SMB's, but just recently got into the publishing game.

    The XFactor thread was my second read about how to publish and monetize through AdSense and seemed plausible. Once finished reading the (ungodly long) thread, I decided to give it a go. I made some mistakes along the way starting out and I did NOT copy exactly things like his template, link building through article marketing only, etc.

    It's an unfortunate truth that no matter how well intentioned your plan or process is, there are going to be plenty of people that try and fail with it. Is that due to the variances that people add or is it due to a failure on the part of the person attempting? I see many people asking the same questions over and over in the same thread...even from the same member, often enough. I truly believe that those people want to be SOOO sure they're not wasting their time, that they miss opportunities through failure to act. (Being careful...this same argument is what's used to push people to buy their $17 crappy ebook and I'm NOT advocating that, heh.)

    Anyway, we've found a more limited success with piggy-backing on XFactor's method and others and we're looking to exploit it on a large scale. We started all of this WITHOUT purchasing anything or spending a dime on XFactor's (or anyone else's) course. (Subsequently, I went back and purchased his second course. It's useful, but really just a collection of information that can be gathered for free)

    I'm grateful for the information he put out, but I would warn others to NOT follow any program exactly to the T. Even if you find success, it will be an exact copy, similar to so many others that are already out there. It pays to experiment a bit...
    • [1] reply
    • The system still works, you will have to adjust it quite a bit but the basics are the same. Small sites can still be built and rank fairly quickly. My income sky rocketed after combining this method with a couple others.
      • [1] reply
  • Does anyone have an update on xfactors case study, building a site to earn $100 a day?
  • Can you update your income and how many sites you have now?

    Thank you.
  • Hi John,

    How man of the sites are authority and micro niche sites?
  • Jeffrey,

    Check the date of this thread. You're alittle late to the party and his method is considered outdated imo.

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