Forum Moderators: martinibuster
would you rather have 10 sites that makes 10 dollar per day or 1 site that pay 100 with google ad sense.?
I think by far this forum on the web.
I only mean by artists example is I can concentrate on one site and put lots of details minutely while enjoying my work.
I've been working on one site for 7 years just trying to make it a 'good' site.
You guys are depressing me.
I've been working on one site for 7 years just trying to make it a 'good' site.
Nothing wrong with that dude. That's 7 years of building what is probably a great site and with the potential to make 7 times more than any others.
Some of us are just saying... imagine if Goog pulls the plug on traffic to that one site? If you invest one day a week to build a new site (at say one new site a year), that would give you 7 sites with 7 potential revenue streams, bringing in 7 x 7 times your earnings.
That's a lot of eggs in a lot of baskets. And if someone decides to break the eggs in one basket, you've got a system running to produce more eggs. Gives you less head(egg)! Sorry... couldn't resist the pun Hobbs... ;-)
Two lessons learned:
1) Don't try to fool mother nature, Google or visitors
2) Think more about #1
2a) Don't get too clever
If suppose I have a single great site, I put all the eggs in one basket and its dangerous.
If I have 16 sites, then its lots of eggs in lots of baskets and its good.
Now suppose I have just one big site with the multiple stream of income like, I have adsense, then I sell softwares and utilities, I am also running (paid ofcourse) magazine from the same site, I have good afiliates that gives me some money, besides I have direct advertisers who like to put their ads on the top of my pages. And some other ways to make money from teh same site other than adsense......
What will you call this in terms of egg and basket example?
If traffic to your ONE BIG site remains stable and you only get into a mess with Adsense, then true, you have other revenue sources to depend on.
The problem here is that IF you depend on Goog as your main source traffic for your ONE BIG site. If they suddenly penalize you or drop you from their listings (for reasons only known to them and which HAS happened to many websites), then you will not get anybody visiting your ONE BIG site to see all your affiliate links and other revenue sources.
That's what we're talking about - building different sites on different topics so that if Google decides to hide one of your egg baskets, or fry all the eggs in the basket, you still have OTHER eggs in OTHER baskets.
Hope my "eggs-planation" was clear...
Damn I'm hungry again ;)
Personally, PR hasn't affected me even though the last update saw my main site drop a notch. In fact, traffic has been on the up and so have everything else.
Unfortunately, direct advertiser enquiries seem to have decreased because they assume that lower PR means less traffic (which is not the case). Also, unless you have been banned (grey PR bar), the only other thing that would make me lose sleep over a PR drop is that some services (like some text link ad marketplaces) won't allow you membership.
Or just diversify your traffic to the one site... Wouldn't that be just as good? Unless you are capped then of course it is time for a line extension.
That's what we're talking about - building different sites on different topics so that if Google decides to hide one of your egg baskets, or fry all the eggs in the basket, you still have OTHER eggs in OTHER baskets.
You guys keep obsessing about Google Search while failing to address the real "all of one's eggs in one basket" issue: depending on AdSense. No matter how many sites you have, if you get whacked by AdSense, you're going to be on the street unless you have multiple sources of revenue--and to maximize such multiple sources of revenue, you need the critical mass that you're unlikely to achieve if you spread your energies and audiences acruss a plethora of sites.
Also, I think it's limiting to have a publishing strategy that's rooted primarily in fear ("What if Google bans or penalizes me?") instead of ambition ("How can I become a leader in my niche?"). Still, to each his own.
You guys keep obsessing about Google Search while failing to address the real "all of one's eggs in one basket" issue: depending on AdSense.
Which is why a second site that is not dependent on AS makes a lot of sense :-)
Also, I think it's limiting to have a publishing strategy that's rooted primarily in fear ("What if Google bans or penalizes me?") instead of ambition ("How can I become a leader in my niche?"). Still, to each his own.
I think that grows out of the fact that we've all seen our sites go up and down in Google for no apparent reason.
Yes, by all means, it is important and the wise thing to do early when you can.
But, that's not a real problem if you have a good site with good traffic, and loyal visitors and word of mouth.. And good serps.
No one is going to be "on the street" if AdSense drops them if they have a good site with good traffic.
It should only take a little time to experiment with different networks (doing that early is wise I know), but the worst they would suffer is a temporary interruption in income flow (few months) and probably less earnings in general, no big nightmare if you got what it takes.
Loosing all your traffic (if you depend totally on search engines) on the other hand is a real nightmare for any new site that does not have the critical mass yet to spin on its own. And by the way, yes, Google might even drop eventually too..
So while what you call "obsessing about Google Search" is a real issue, obsessing about not having multiple income sources is a valid (true) issue, but an inconvenience at most and not as big a nightmare.
EFV - Do you think you would still feel that one site is the best way to go if you had never recovered from your big loss of google traffic?
EFV - Do you think you would still feel that one site is the best way to go if you had never recovered from your big loss of google traffic?
I'm inclined to think that I recovered from the loss of Google traffic in part because my site did have "critical mass" not only in terms of content, but also in terms of quality inbound links. Let's say that bakedgoods.com (with subtopics on doughnuts and muffins) has inbound links from the BBC, major media sites, academic libraries, etc. Whatever trust or authority is bestowedby such links is, presumably, shared by the entire domain. If, on the other hand, the owner of bakedgoods.com has split off the doughnuts and muffins subtopics as completely separate domains, each domain will be on its own, and "trust" that accrues to topic or subtopic won't be shared by the others.
For what it's worth, Google hasn't always been my main soruce of search referrals: There was a time back in 2002 (into 2003, I think) when Ask Jeeves was my #1 external source of traffic.
Also, as I mentioned earlier, a large, comprehensive site can generate a lot of traffic internally. Indeed, such internal referrals may help a site achieve greater credibility with search engines (we can't know for sure) by demonstrating the intrinsic value of the site's content.
Obviously, if you're covering several completely different topics (say, dogs, cars, and Lutheran theology), it doesn't make sense to combine them into a single site. But if your topic and subtopics lend themselves to the "sun and solar system" model that I wrote about earlier, you should at least consider the possible benefits of building a site that can achieve critical mass and authority status within its niche.
as inbound links from the BBC, major media sites, academic libraries, etc. Whatever trust or authority is bestowedby such links is, presumably, shared by the entire domain.
It is not that hard to have multiple authority sites, each with links from places like the BBC, academic libraries, major media, etc., especially if you like to write, do research and making web sites is your only job.
But if your topic and subtopics lend themselves to the "sun and solar system" model that I wrote about earlier, you should at least consider the possible benefits of building a site that can achieve critical mass and authority status within its niche
Hobbs... following what's been what's been happening to you and Opti lately, anyone would be inclined to believe that ONE BIG site is not the ideal model for everyone.
EFV... kudos to you and others for having the critical mass (for one site) that you describe, but you and many others who have reaced a that level of success seem to forget - not EVERYONE can be have ONE BIG successful site (akin to EVERY doctor being a brain specialist).
sigh never mind... my brain's fried.
[edited by: Hobbs at 6:35 am (utc) on April 18, 2007]
After what I saw recently (clean websites completely dropped from index), I'd rather have a "backup" in term of money
You have 10 sites... if one disappear, you still have 9 sites that are earning money and you have time to figure out why the site was dropped.
Also you can target different keywords
