What kind of site does it take...

...to make enough to live off of?

[Curiosity]

A lot of webmasters on this forum are making a living off their sites. What I'd like to know is: How do you do it? Does it take a huge, professionally created site? A series of small sites? Can one person working alone with minimal programming skills manage it? I know that every site and topic is different and that there are probably tiny hobby sites out there raking in the cash, but what kinds of site setups are most likely to pull in enough cash to live off of?

[Shiznaught]

Here's my newbie question:

What is a scraper site and what does it have to do with dmoz?

[ogletree]

A scraper site is a site that is set up like a directory. You make one page per keyword that you want to rank for. You then type that keyword into a search engine copy some resutls and make a page out of it. You end up with thousands of pages that look like a search engine. There are programs out there that auto generate these things.

It has nothing to do with DMOZ. DMOZ probaly won't list a site like this unless you have a currupt editor.

[phantombookman]

I began trying adsense at Xmas for the first time on a couple of my sites, the results have been disappointing really.
The main stumbling blocks are
1:3c clicks
2:Being in a low traffic sector
3:Uninteresting ads that no one would click on.

My most successful site is, as a consequence, going to remain ad free, the income is simply not worth lowering the integrity of a resource site in my case.

Just my experience so far

[ogletree]

You should look into some affiliate ads. That way you know what they pay and you know they are on topic.

[vabtz]

..following how this thread is wandering..

I can't get my affiliate links to convert well. :(

I am getting click throughs ( finally )

[mafew]

I'd like to learn more about affiliate ads (I know nothing).

Where's a good place to start?

[vabtz]

This forum is the one geared towards that:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[MidwestWebGuy]

Sorry for the noob question, but is there a way to see how often a phrase is searched for on Google?

[Algebrator]

NotreDamkid,
You mentioned Overture View Bid being one of your favorite tools. Wouldn't it be more accurate to check the average / max CPC in google adwords?

[anallawalla]

is there a way to see how often a phrase is searched for on Google?

Not that I know of. You can look at the Zeitgeist to see the most popular searches, which are usually celebrities, disasters, movies etc.

In my limited experience, I have tried about 15 niches and figured out the ones that pay the most. This knowledge in itself is a starting point, but the time investment to write content (or find someone competent enough to do it) is a stumbling block. I have focussed, instead, on building more sites. I have 3-page information sites that pay more than 30,000 page data-fed sites with AdSense (although the latter do earn affiliate sales commissions).

[Algebrator]

anallawalla,
You are able to get top SERPs ranking for 3 page info sites? Are you in low competition (non-SEOed) areas? You have lots of backlins? Sandbox not bothering you? (or getting traffic from Y /MSN? )
Please, do tell ;-)

[arrowman]

is there a way to see how often a phrase is searched for on Google?

Adwords cost estimation gives you an idea.