Times are hard and they look like they will be getting harder for most people. Spammers however have some advantages over the rest when times get hard: -

The click based spammers (Adsense, AFF ppc offers etc) don’t suffer the same problems as those selling a physical product as they don’t actually have to sell anything. They get paid for the simple action of a ‘click’

Even if you are skint you can still window shop and click.. They also have the advantage that they aren’t tied to a product or service so swapping out to an alternative offer is pretty painless, as long as there are advertisers they will prosper.

I think that there will be advertisers throughout any downturn as it remains one of the most measurable ways to spend on advertising there is.

Those spammers who have created networks to promote a set niche will have to do some adjustments it seems but they are often in a position of power where they can sell their cheaply gained traffic to the highest and most desperate merchant.

Spammers often also have the luxury of being able to earn a living whilst the spam adds to what they earn, giving them security and making the downturn less painful.

So if your feeling the credit crunch fire up the spam and ride it out.

If you use a free theme from a Google advert you are an idiot..

Yeah you are, admit it. You would have to be unless you knew what you were doing. Having spent some time recently helping out when people have had their blogs hacked I decided to take another look at the free theme scams and was shocked by what I found.

I say I was shocked, thats a lie really. I knew what to expect and I knew where to look. I have to also admit I know all this and how effective it can be as I have done some of this in the past too.

OK so what I did was nip over to Google and search for ‘Free wordpress themes’ and heres what we get: -

Now as you can see we have a few paid adwords ads for free themes, suspicious? Yeah me too…

We also have a couple of decent organic results from upstanding places like Smashing Magazine etc.

So what we will do is grab a random theme from the top adwords adverts and the top organic result and have a poke around to see whats there.

Read the rest of this entry »

Like most people who make money from the internet I am always on the lookout for what might be an opportunity and testing things to see what works. I might do a test run of a new type of spam or I could hear about the launch of a new community or service and decide to do a few tests to see what potential it has for delivering adverts or leeching off visitors. This is the brief story of one of my experiments, a tame one but it nearly had a rather scary outcome.

Anyone making a living from the internet or even those using the net to supplement their day job should be testing all the time, it doesn’t have to be writing scripts and doing large runs just testing the water with various ideas can unearth a gem that will make you thousands. This time I decided to continue to mess around with Gumtree, a Craigslist like classified site with a large user base in the UK.

Read the rest of this entry »

This post is really aimed at one person – Greg (Keniki)

For months now you have been posting comments on this blog and a few others and to be frank I am starting to get a bit worried by them. Some of them elsewhere have, at best, bordered on illegal and at worst been illegal – here however they have been a little random.

You have asked me to remove comments on many occasions, which I have always done and I have always remained civil and friendly in my replies. I do now feel that you need to look carefully with what you post and how it looks to everyone else and I dont think ill be removing comments in future – if you think youll regret what you are about to post please refrain from posting it in the first place.

Just so we can see what I am talking about heres the log of comments from Keniki on SEOidiot.com: -

Keniki
Date: – 2007-05-26 01:01:46

“ I came here and what? saw an ip list you want me to start producing ip lists as well no problem? You have no debate and no answer to me. ”

Keniki
Date: – 2007-07-26 01:42:19

“ I must say Seo Idiot, I do like your cartoons. Hey I’ll bounce back but will probably be walking away from the web next month once I finished the fix. Take some time off and go surfing. ”

Keniki
Date: – 2007-07-26 01:51:54

“ …for a few years ”

Keniki
Date: – 2007-07-26 02:21:12

“ So you guys won, even if I bring back the site’s attacked you won because I don’t want to work on the internet anymore. Its a new generation and you do things that I just won’t compete with. I won’t set out to destroy other websites even though I know they are doing this to me. I can track you expose you slag you off and sound off at SE’s for not stopping it. But I draw the line at attacking back although I could do it better than anyone you have. I’ll walk away from the net once the protection system is complete. Once fully tested I’ll release it open source. ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-07-27 01:45:59

“ Well if I got shot next week I rekon there would be about 10,000 possible suspects… You know the line. Is there anyone Keniki could have upset? Happy to say Matt Cutts is in the clear. ”

Keniki
Date: – 2007-08-21 02:10:05

“ Ersun is just pissed because I outed his company “MEMSET”, keniki.com will take all liability for lawsuits. ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-02 22:33:42

“ Just go to doubleclick Paul they advertise on any old shit, hijacked pages no problem we’re advertise with you, scraped content hey no problem we’re advertise with its not as if we’re google is it……..er yes you are now doubleclick… ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-02 23:55:06

“ opps forgot to add keniki is part of the fuckblackhats3 group of communities admittedly its just three people that work together now but hey from small acorns…….. ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-03 00:03:01

“ You know we have a script that will defend all apache users worldwide from all forms of hijack scraping mail bots etc. We are trying to get google to agree to look at it and distribute it. ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-03 00:15:37

“ I know what your thinking, it don’t matter we have api’s from google yahoo and ask, api’s from google without ajax beeing tracked and dealt with yahoo and ask will just be banned untill they change there ways. As sites continue to ban yahoo and ask they will become useless search engines and go bust. ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-04 06:52:22

“ Paul I like you, 1) because you are creative and have a good sense of humour. 2) because deep down you know sabotagueing other peoples sites is wrong and unlike ersun who is happy to try to ruin other websites and posts himself as the gimp from pulp fiction you have something to offer. Paul you are witty , artistic and know how to build a website. I think you can build sites that show all the good aspects of you to the world. You don’t need syndk8 you don’t need any of this shit. Why because you can create content people would like to read. Black hats survive off stealing other peoples content. Mostly because they are people like ersun with a personality failure. And are unable to create unique ideas for themselves. You howether do not fall into this category and I urge you to walk away from black hat seo and use your skills to create commercial and fun websites that add value to the internet. Then I am sure google would welcome you with open arms as an advertiser. Keniki ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-04 07:11:20

“ Let me tell you something Paul, I recently took a site from position 300 to position 3 on its target keyword (very competitive even google themselves compete on it). Without a single link added to the site………… So google if you think I am adding links your mistaken, its called google bowling…… ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-04 07:37:42

“ Who am I to lecture you? I am giving advice but this year I have sold over of 7 million pounds worth of goods online. Small fry compared to the big boys but not bad off an idea and a couple of website’s I created off freeware… I also employ 48 people in uk. We let twenty go this year largely due to saboutage of our websites. Perhaps those jobs are now filled by interntet companies abroad. Those uk jobs have gone to other countries because uk black hat seo sabotaging established sites in uk. Ersun wouldn’t give a toss about that he still be changing into the gimp pvc suit to attack another uk internet company and cause more loss of jobs in uk to benefit some internet companies in the east that pay there staff $1 a week. Keniki ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-06 00:01:26

“ Withdrawing all comments on Ersun, be gratefull if you could remove comments Paul. Had a long chat with Ersun last night and he is making a fresh start creatively. I believe he is a very talented guy and look forward to seeing what he can “create” in future. I reckon this guy(he hates me calling him kid) if focussed correctly can create some fantastic original websites and beieve he is with the right people to help do this. My best wishes go with him. I am totally made up that he has choosen a creative path. Keniki ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-06 00:22:37

“ Now how about you Paul ready to turn your back on the black hat bullshit? ”

Then we see that he decides to change his name to Everything you do – for some reason.

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-20 02:46:54

“ Ersun the fix is in. You can do nothing and you know it. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-20 02:51:06

“ The fix was ip detection user agent detection from those two factors complete protection was created and we reverse and forward dns user agents against ip by the way. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-20 02:58:47

“ I will release a new site in febuary that uses complete protection. It will evan email google,yahoo,ask and msn when a attempt to scrape the site happens and there ip address. Checkmate. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-23 00:01:28

“ Ah keniki is dead for four years. Yeah been busy Paul and very very pleased with protection. No referrers used so its full proof all server side code. Yep I am proud of it. Image protection all server side as well. Api abuse protection. Evan though I say it myself its excellent code…..and preserves accessibility. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-23 00:38:27

“ The other great thing is there is a silent detect of abuse. A site will be launched with this protection in Febuary. By the way sold up other interests in several sites and banked some money. Now I am very hungry for new markets that require an honest spin and sites that febuary launch will prove are untouchable from black hat seo. Cheers ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-23 01:34:56

“ Seo idiot I have spoke with a lott of people holding domains for other people online one guy “Miles” had this kid registering over 300 domains for this experienced “ksearch” seo in his name. Why are these so called black hat seo’s so scared to register a domain? ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-23 01:54:51

“ Its easy to talk directly and without emotion as there is no longer any fear from black hat seo for me. Definition : Black Hat Seo is a deliderate attempt to sabotage another website. My sites will from now on be untouchable and I can go back to work. Evan though I know black hat techniques (to create protection you learn enemy) I will never deliberatelty damage a competitor website. That would be dishonest and I would gain no feeling of achievement from that. I can beat black hat honestly now so I’ll just do that. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-25 01:46:24

“ Like I said keniki is dead, it died the day blackhat got cured. I am always glad I amuse you ersun and hey for the record you taught me a hard lesson but I respect you for that and it was a lesson I needed to learn. Now where would be the fun in posting the url? ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-25 01:49:04

“ I’ll give you a clue “Need a loan?” ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-25 02:59:28

“ Call me “gameover” if you don’t like “Evertything you do” ersun. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-25 03:39:31

“ I checked out on the web this is your safe home. No longer so Ersun I think your a prick and I seen personaly how you threatened the host here and I hope he backs me saying fuck off you vile piece of scum. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-25 03:54:01

“ and thats keeping it friendly south london style. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-25 04:01:38

“ You know where I am from where noone ever wins there is no escape, but I did and people defend those who escape with passion when I say some middleclass kid is causing me a problem. They offer a xxxxxxxxx solution. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-25 04:05:10

“ of course I always refuse it. ”

I know its against Googles TOS but I couldn’t give a flying fish what they say. What I thought I would do is show you a snapshot from one batch of sites over a full year and discuss some of the ways in which I worked to get these results.

I often have debates with people over instant messenger where they tell me that you cant make money at Adsense any more and that Google ban too quick now. I hope this illustrates its still possible to operate if you are careful…

I have also become jaded by people telling me what’s possible to profit from and what isn’t now – this post has helped me focus on what I will be doing in the coming year

I track each batch that I do and track the following stats: -

Number of pages crawled

Number of pages indexed (3 Main Engines)

Number of days X % of the pages survive in Google from first full crawl to deindex (What I call ‘Burn Rate’)

Indexing methods used

Uniques

Page views

Clicks

Revenue

Where each click went (Remember that you should really only be selling your traffic to Googles Adsense program till you can determine what affiliate program to redirect out to – here’s my post in Affearners on the subject of how to move from Adsense to affiliate)

My normal way of working is to create a batch of sites in a niche and share indexing methods etc to get them indexed. I would normally wait until that batch gets de-indexed by a certain percentage then create a new batch with different templates etc in the same niche – Remember domains die keywords dont! For this example I decided to replace one site per month and run them independent of each other so my stats would span a year of normal data.

Just to note some things before the stats -

My burn rate was on average 41 days for this batch so I replaced one site per month until month 10 then stopped.

My CTR for this batch was 13.26% on average which is about 4-5% lower than my normal for MFA crap.

The sites where plain text with one adsense ad block and links disguised via css.

The content was crappy mfa spider food padded out with generics to get the keyword and topic balanced.

The niche was Tea’s used for Slimming (I went as vague as I could)

Also just to note – you wont be impressed with the earnings here, a little over $2150 in 12 months from 32 domains.

I decided that for the best illustration of long tail made for Adsense work I wouldn’t spam the sites beyond getting them indexed. So this example shows that I bought 32 domains at a cost of about $70 (24 at first and 1 per month) , shared hosting at around $100 for the year and my time (2 hours initial setup and 20 mins per month to add a new site in)

So with 4-5 hours total work and $170 I made a profit of around $1900 ish

Yup I know there should be a $ symbol not a £ on the earnings but MEH

OK heres the stats.