What ever happened to the people running 1000 adsense sites hoping to make $1 a day?
I remember somewhere in 2012 or so there was a fad of making microsites in the hopes of generating $1 of adsense per day per website. The idea was to have a ton of websites, 100, 500, etc and hopes they can rank and generate minor traffic. Did anyone reach any decent goals? Not asking to see if its viable, I know it's not, but curious regardless! 39 💬🗨
HostedExperts The fact that you didn't hear back from these people tells you the answer.
lloydchiro Because they're drowning in money?
akr0eger Their yachts don't have internet
Good-Chart We moved on. I actually had a great Return of Investment (RoI) with micro niche websites. I had over 30 of them. Some were making 300-400$ a month others were making 5$ a week lol. Google updates and thin content penalties is what happened.
rnbguru At its peak I was making 3000 a month from that strategy. Then Google did an algorithm change that killed all my sites. I received so many letters from companies too demanding I turn over domains because I had their brand in them. In retrospect I should have grown it faster and perhaps made the sites more worthwhile. On the other hand I am glad I don't see as many of those awful sites in the rankings. Now I just make web sites I care about and don't worry much about monetization.
ILikeSunnyDays Does it make money though? I got into that hustle too but it didn't last
Arinupa Like he said, he made money then, now he makes money but with fewer sites. rnbguru It used to. Back then having a domain that matches the keywords was huge value so a crappy site for a low competition keyword could rank well. The users would then go to your page and ideally click one od the links to a site that is more relevant. For instance, if I bought potterybarncouches.org. Users would search pottery barn couches and the site would rank 3 or 4 with almost no backlinks. They would then see an ad from pottery barn in the adsense block and go to their and you would make a fair amount. I think it was the panda update back then but it really devalued the top level domain weight. So to your point. It doesn't make money anymore. At least not for me.
doomsday0099 did you hand over the domains?
rnbguru Yea. A lot of these would be where I would buy say furniturerow.net and write four or five articles about the furniture row company. Maybe I could fight it but the whole strategy was low effort high pay off so it was easier to just make more.
watsondigital First and foremost, Google is sending a LOT less free visitors to sites. Secondly, Google has improved and this is a good thing: no site can be good enough when it's one of a thousand, run by a person that just hopes to make a $1 a day from it. On the other hand, I would NOT settle with one site, too risky. 2 or 3.
slp35 ✍️ Yeah this is 8+ years ago, definitely not in current times. Just wondering if it worked for a few years. Actual__Wizard Actually Google is sending more free visits then it ever has, but the distribution is much more focused on a handful of sites.
opus-thirteen I did this around 2010-2012 with ~ 20 different sites. Spun content, overly large ads, the whole bit. It did ok, maybe $900-$1100 per month, but even back then you needed constantly fresh content. Once it took more than an hour a day to maintain it just wasn't worth it. ILikeSunnyDays Its hard to maintain more a handful of sites on your own without paying people in some way and then it gets non profitable.
seoconspiracy I entered the Adsense program 9 months after the launch in june 2003. The early days were crazy.My average Click Through Rate (CTR) was 30%. Back then, no need to build 1000 websites to make 5 figures monthly income.Back then, we didn't have Content Management System (cms) like WordPress.Websites were handmade. I was building the design around the Adsense rectangle.The average screen resolution was 800×600.The user would basically only see the rectangle before scrolling.With a few <br> to push down the content, it was simple to push visitors towards the Ads block.Creating content was easy back then. No need to blog, directories or homemade search engines were doing very well. Adsense alone was bringing $15k/month without working too much. Then, around 2008, I started to work 10x more to make 10x less.Indexing search engines didn't work anymore and directories were getting hit when they started to rank high.Thus, we had to start blogging… By the end of 2008, I quit making money with Adsense. When Panda hit in 2012, it ended the game for the rest of my friends who were still in it. Maybe it's possible to make as much money without working more than in the early days. However, I would target different markets/countries/languages.Also, optimizing for mobile instead of desktop brings new complicated challenges. Outside of my consulting job and teaching gigs, I monetize websites by doing real e-commerce or selling leads.Some affiliate systems are still worth it if you stay out of the usual crap (Amazon, Tradedoubler, etc.). IMO selling websites is the best deal nowadays. Every SEO (who get results) is all-in on Private Blog Network (PBN), Private Links Network, Linkwheel or whatever you call it.Build a website, rank it, put a banner "website for sale" and wait.
Arinupa Dude I really want to sell leads. Do you make whole sites for that, capture emails and sell them? I know it's probably a lot of work… Alright will take your advice.
seoconspiracy It's highly competitive and complicated to set up, but there is still room for new players. Everybody buys leads. Start with finding who you could sell leads direct. Go niche as much as you can. Going deep and focusing on getting high quality leads is the way to go. Don't go wide and stay away from affiliate offers. Going direct pays out a lot more for the same SEO work. Arinupa Alright will do. I'll look up ways to generate leads and niche down. Is SEO conspiracy a website? I'd read it. seoconspiracy It's a video and audio podcast you can find on all the good places. On seoconspiracy.com you will find all the social media and the latest podcasts. Arinupa Alright nice, thanks, will follow.
slp35 ✍️ Ah yeah man, early 2000s was really the wild west. 2009 update was brutal, and then 2012 was the final nail in the coffin iirc. I didn't really think about it, but your last method is kinda what I've been doing the past 2-3 years. Some Private Blog Network (PBN)/backlink packages, nice site, content, and sell it. My typical turn around time has been 4-6 months. Been working fairly well in my niches.
seoconspiracy It was a wild ride for sure. Happy SEO memories… Those who are still standing today prove the ability to adapt. Glad to count you in.
drum_playing_twig Problem with shit like this is that if Google does one little git push of an algorithm change your entire business goes belly up. Arinupa Lol how would you maintain those sites ugh I can't imagine [deleted] Like many gimmicks they do well short term but fail in the long term before Google shakes them down. A buddy of mine was into Autoblog software for microsites, but never made much at all to even pay server costs. maityonline84 It never works.
