Forum Moderators: martinibuster
We have watched our traffic levels rise on our network as well and yet still our monthly revenue falls back into +/- 3% of what our usual monthly revenue is.
We basically have stopped trying to increase CTR and traffic as a result of this happening on 5 separate occasions. This is on a large established and respected network of pr 7 and 6 websites a few of which you would know by name producing several million users a month. It is excellent traffic of the best quality that took 5-7 years to attain and not some scraper generated buy-my-viagra-cheap trash.
My resident engineer who is also a math expert told me that statistically it is impossible to have what is happening happen. He explained it to me in this example.
"You have a swimming pool filled with golf balls and each golf ball is worth 3 cents to 10 bucks, now I want you to blindfold yourself and pullout #*$!,xxx number of golfballs this month.
Now wait one year and comeback on the same month and fill that pool up with all new golf balls with totally different values and blindfold yourself and grab x,xxx,xxx golf balls and have them add up to 99.9997% the same amount of money as last years number."
He believes we are being hardcapped to a maximum amount of revenue we can make no matter how much traffic or CTR we increase.
I am pretty savvy and read/post around allot but have not seen to many people bring this up. So my question is has anyone else seen this behavior or is it just us?
Do you think we should just come out and ask G if they have us hardcapped a set dollar amount or not?
Thanks in advance
If big traffic = lower EPC, give me 10 sites each getting 1,000 visits/day over 1 site getting 10,000 visits/day. Is that about the gist of it?
That's the way I am going forward and it seems to be working well and to ensure it continues I am even going to use different C Class IPs for specific widget groups of sites I have.
I think each site MUST have new content nearly everyday to be successful. At first this means writing your own content or getting permission to post articles already out there. Once a site gets visible then it will draw content if you have a system in place to accept submissions from other people and manage them. I've now got a few sites that get 2-3 dozen articles a day with no effort on my part. All I do is scan through them to make sure they are appropriate and not ad laden porno.
Another aspect the favors multiple site approach is that Google spider seems to only consume about 20 new pages every few days for typical sites. The sites that I have getting 2-3 dozen article submissions each day it appears Google will never catch up. Whats the point of adding 75 pages a day of content if Google will only index 20 new pages every few days?
I usually get new class C once I get about $50 a day from a site. At that point I move it over to a new server with a small batch of sites that are getting practically no traffic and not worth linking to the core site.
All in all I've got 350 domain names with about 10 solid sites and about 40 that are just off the ground.
I think each site MUST have new content nearly everyday to be successful.
Whilst I would like to be able to do that unfortunately my trade niche simply does not generate much new content and I have to rely upon providing authoratative technical information, images etc.
Believe it or not my main directory trade portal lists 70 international competing niche portals of which only mine and two others have regular updates and one of those is in Portuguese!
Supply and demand is what it's all about, nothing more, nothing less."
I wouldn't be so sure.
Yep, multiple sites have huge advantages. Unfortunately too many webmasters try to get by just putting up a few pages and moving on.
Multiple pages and subtopics are more important than multiple sites. In fact, a reasonably large site with diverse content may have an advantage over multiple small sites, because Google can serve on-theme ads when page-targeted ads are in short supply.
I think each site MUST have new content nearly everyday to be successful.
"New" doesn't matter. "Niche" does. Evergreen content can earn money with AdSense day after day, month after month, year after year. (At least, that's been my experience in the last 2-1/2 years.)
Another aspect the favors multiple site approach is that Google spider seems to only consume about 20 new pages every few days for typical sites. The sites that I have getting 2-3 dozen article submissions each day it appears Google will never catch up. Whats the point of adding 75 pages a day of content if Google will only index 20 new pages every few days?
In the long run, what does it matter if it takes one day, five days, or a month to get those 75 pages indexed?
One disadvantage of the multiple-site approach is that Google can be very slow to include new sites in search results. If your site about baked goods is indexed by Google, your new doughnuts pages are more likely to show up quickly if they're part of your baked-goods site than if you've launched a new doughnuts site.
I usually get new class C once I get about $50 a day from a site. At that point I move it over to a new server with a small batch of sites that are getting practically no traffic and not worth linking to the core site. All in all I've got 350 domain names with about 10 solid sites and about 40 that are just off the ground.
To each his own, but that doesn't sound like a long-term strategy: It sounds more like what everybody and his brother were doing with affiliate sites a couple of years ago. IMHO, a far better long-term strategy is to focus on delivering intrinsic value to the user--at least if you're counting on search engines for traffic.
Multiple pages and subtopics are more important than multiple sites.
How is that possible? I have a site with a great domain name about animals, another site with a great domain on music, and a huge site with a great domain name on diet. How could I possibly be better off with one site with subtopics when there is such diverse content?
Having multiple domains open up much more business opportunities if you are willing to sell successful sites. With one all encompasing site you are limiting opportunities to find buyers and if you find one then you are out of the Internet business and starting over from scratch. I can be open to selling off my animal related site for example because I've got plenty of other sites already in play.
"New" doesn't matter. "Niche" does.
I disagree. If I want my 20k daily visitors to come back to my site every day, the content better not be exactly the same. If you rely on old content then you are constantly forced to get new visitors each and every day. It makes you dependent on the fluctuation in Googles search engine. I like to make sure EVERY visitor that comes to my site through Google will have a reason to come back to my site tomorrow. On my diet site I have thousands of the same visitors that come every single day. Would they come back everyday if the site had little or no changes? Not likely. This also has a lot to do with my first topic on reselling a website. Sure revenues are great to have but having a sticky site that creates strong, dependable, flow of users is very attractive to potential buyers. When people look to buy our sites the first questions almost always relate to stickiness and what sort of 'user' base the site has.
In the long run, what does it matter if it takes one day, five days, or a month to get those 75 pages indexed?
Because Google can never catch up. It's simple math. If I add 150 pages every two days and Google only will index a max of 20 pages every two days then you end up with lots of unindexed pages. One of my "lucky" sites that gets lots of submitted content has over 4,500 articles and adds three dozen or more every single day. Google has currently indexed about 850 pages and adds about 20 pages to it's index every two days. Google will simply never catch up to the growth of the site. So what did I do? I started another site that is in a similar field and populate site with the bulk of new pages Google can't seem to catch up with on the original site. The result now is that the new site is making money and getting pages indexed more effectively than the one site ever could on it's own.
tne disadvantage of the multiple-site approach is that Google can be very slow to include new sites in search results.
If your site about baked goods is indexed by Google, your new doughnuts pages are more likely to show up quickly if they're part of your baked-goods site than if you've launched a new doughnuts site.
You are talking about very similar items and seem to be missing entirely what I mean about multiple sites with DIFFERENT content. I just started an auto racing site with a great domain name... how will folding the very popular auto racing niche into my already successful diet site be smart business?
To each his own, but that doesn't sound like a long-term strategy: It sounds more like what everybody and his brother were doing with affiliate sites a couple of years ago. IMHO, a far better long-term strategy is to focus on delivering intrinsic value to the user--at least if you're counting on search engines for traffic.
The quality of the site is what's important which is exactly why I said many multi-site webmasters move on too quickly to the next site before they got a strong intrinsict product. That's why I said it's not smart strategy to just throw up a few pages and call it a site.
Having multiple sites opens up new possibilities you can't get with just one. For example, I a friend who is a former Nascar driver. Him and his former mechanic are extremely excited about writing articles FOR FREE for my new auto racing site I mentioned above. How would these guys help me for my diet site? Would your answer be to just leave the Nascar expertise that was dropped in your lap for someone else to generate money from? Having multiple sites in different areas of expertise allow you to tap a wide range of resources from friends, business associates, and family.
Do I work on this alone? No, I have several paid employees and dozens of people that do work on these sites for free. In fact I almost never do any work on the sites at this point as I stick to the bigger picture. I've also got an internship program with the local university who will pretty much give me free basic content builders anytime I request it. MOre often than not I've been able to turn a student loose on a site with just a bit of advice and ended up with a site that can make money.
Having multiple sites that actually make money also increase your visibility and percieved professionalism. I know dozens of Joes in my local community that have one or two sites. When people found in my community found out I have 350 domain names and dozens of professional, money making sites, guess who they come to for advice and information on getting started on the Internet?
One disadvantage of the multiple-site approach is that Google can be very slow to include new sites in search results.
If it is a brand new standalone site then I would agree however if is a satellite of the core/mega site with a hardcoded link from the main navigation then Google picks up on it very quickly.
I also use my own image ads for promotion on the core site which creates a a good response and click through rate.
If it is a brand new standalone site then I would agree however if is a satellite of the core/mega site with a hardcoded link from the main navigation then Google picks up on it very quickly.I also use my own image ads for promotion on the core site which creates a a good response and click through rate.
My quick checklist for getting Google to index quickly.
- Directly link from your successful sites PR 4 or above for the first few weeks. Even out of topic is better than nothing to getting in Google.
- Use WebCEO or another submit program to announce the site to the major search engines
- Create a sitemap and submit to Google.
- Spend $5 a day or so to buy adwords traffic for a few weeks.
When I've taken this approach I've had brand new sites showing up in Google within a few weeks. Your mileage may vary.
1) Google HATES change. This includes large swings in traffic in the upwards direction. If I get an abnormally high traffic day - My EPC plummets... I don't think it would matter if I got 10x more clicks than on a low traffic day - payout will still be nearly the same.2) After sustaining this increase in traffic over the course of a couple weeks, income begins to steadily rise - but it will never grow linear to your traffic for the vast majority of sites... if not all sites.
This is exactly what I see. I had a 15% traffic increase and eCPM dropped 25% .... today it rose again but CTR dropped ...
BUT on the long term it seems to straighten out .. hence statistics don't show anything.
It looks like tarpitting ..
I assume they somehow estimate how they gonna spread the adwords during a day and if your day overperforms that throws the estimate.
They must have some kind of model how to spread adwords .. I doubt they leave this to chance... not with shareholders to please now.
Our site deals with a wide range of topics and over the last few years has become primarily a news site, with 10 to 15 new staff-written stories daily.
While new Web sites and new pages are created daily, the number of advertisers and their individual budgets are probably growing more slowly (though no one really knows the answer to this). There are certainly days when I believe I can see us and similar sites suck up the ad budgets for a topic that has suddenly become "hot." It's a natural ebb and flow across a broad range of topics.
But, to get back to the point, when inventory grows faster than demand, revenue stagnates. Like EFT, I have been in and around the advertising business for more than 30 years and nothing I see in AdSense looks weird to me. In fact, it looks pretty damned good.
As for forming a "union" of publishers to deal directly with advertisers, pleasant dreams.
I have a site with a great domain name about animals, another site with a great domain on music, and a huge site with a great domain name on diet. How could I possibly be better off with one site with subtopics when there is such diverse content?
Nobody's suggesting that you should. I was merely taking issue with your suggestion that multiple sites were preferable. (Obviously,if you're writing about topics as diverse as animals and music and dieting, it makes sense to have separate sites.)
Having multiple domains open up much more business opportunities if you are willing to sell successful sites.
Maybe (if you want to sell), though not necessarily. The NY Times bought About.com for more than $400 million, or a lot more than About.com's guidesites would have fetched if they'd been sold off piecemeal.
If I want my 20k daily visitors to come back to my site every day, the content better not be exactly the same. If you rely on old content then you are constantly forced to get new visitors each and every day.
First, I didn't say that a site shouldn't have new content; I merely took issue with your emphasis on cranking out new content every day. On a site like mine, for example, new content matters mostly in terms of increasing the pool of "evergreen" content. Why? Because people visit my European travel-planning site to plan trips. If they're planning a week in Venice or a weekend in Regensburg, what matters is that I've got content on Venice or Regensburg--not that I published a new article today or yesterday. What's more, they aren't going to visit my site 365 days a year; they're going to visit when they're planning a trip (which works very well for me because that's when they're researching ways to spend their money).
It makes you dependent on the fluctuation in Googles search engine. I like to make sure EVERY visitor that comes to my site through Google will have a reason to come back to my site tomorrow.
I get a lot of repeat visitors--again, not because of new articles, but because of breadth and depth of coverage, especially for certain major subtopics. If John Doe is planning a trip to Europe, for example, he might visit when he's trying to decide where to go, again when he's planning the details of an itinerary, again when he's ready to book transportation, again when he's looking for a hotel, and so on. This gives me opportunities not only to provide the user with information and to earn AdSense revenues, but also to profit from affiliate sales that occur at different stages of the trip-planning cycle. Obviously, not every site works this way, but not every site depends on a last-in, first-out blog or newspaper model, either.
Because Google can never catch up. It's simple math. If I add 150 pages every two days and Google only will index a max of 20 pages every two days then you end up with lots of unindexed pages.
That hasn't been my experience.
Having multiple sites that actually make money also increase your visibility and percieved professionalism. I know dozens of Joes in my local community that have one or two sites. When people found in my community found out I have 350 domain names and dozens of professional, money making sites, guess who they come to for advice and information on getting started on the Internet?
I don't get many calls from people in my community, but I do get calls from USA Today, the Washington Post, guidebook publishers, PR people, national tourist offices, prospective advertisers and partners, etc. Why? Because I'm following in the tradition of author-publishers like Karl Baedeker, Temple Fielding, Arthur Frommer, and Rick Steves by creating both editorial content and a personal brand. That obviously isn't the best strategy for everyone, but it works for me, and it's something that other AdSense publishers should at least consider if their interests, knowledge, and experience inspire them to build authoritative sites on a major topic instead of dividing their attention and energies among many topics.
