Setting up new sites and the perils of sandboxing

**Stavros** · 24-03-08

Hi guys,

Apologies for the following post, I'm not a fan of the "is this achievable...?" type thread but I'm curious to hear your opinions...

I've dabbled in AM throughout the last 4 years or so, dedicating a bit of time to it whenever I get a free moment. Back in 2005/6 I set up a fairly niche seo optimised website which is now (in the last couple of months) earning £35/month through adsense on 200-300 uniques a day, projected £50 next month.
Annoyingly the site is still PR0 but the traffic has been achieved through a lot of backlinking with generous PR 2, 3 and 4 sites... no black hat, no shortcuts, just a lot of link exchanges with relevant websites — a slow and often frustrating process but from what I understand the most rewarding technique for long term stability in the rankings. Nevertheless, overall I've spent very little time to get the site where it is so I'm pretty satisfied.

Recently I've been thinking that if I can knock out about 12-15 similar sites each earning £50-100 a month I'll have a nice second income on my hands, which I'm sure is how it began for most of you.

My only reservation is the speed at which I can achieve this, not because of a lack of time (I figure I could put out 12-15 sites worth of decent content in 2-3 months and spend the rest of the time generating backlinks) ... my concern is with the Google sandbox.
The site mentioned above is at least two years old but it's only since February this year that I've significantly increased traffic and income through a lot of backlinking, even so I can't help but think that the two years that it's already been sat online, despite being dormant, have added a lot of weight to its rankings and the ease with which I've been able to increase traffic.

I guess my question is to you all, is creating a network of 12-15 sites over the following year, each earning let's say £50 by this time next year, an attainable goal?
Should I begin researching my niches, registering domains and getting the sites online ASAP so Google can begin indexing them right away before I begin to develop each one in full?

If I'm honest with myself I believe £50/month from 12-15 sites is quite achievable with a lot of hard work but please let me know your thoughts.

PS, before you say it, I know adsense is an "all your eggs in one basket" strategy, so to save argument lets just assume I'll be working with several revenue sources.

Thanks!

**KieronD** · 24-03-08

Originally Posted by Stavros

I guess my question is to you all, is creating a network of 12-15 sites over the following year, each earning let's say £50 by this time next year, an attainable goal?
Should I begin researching my niches, registering domains and getting the sites online ASAP so Google can begin indexing them right away before I begin to develop each one in full?

In answer to your questions, yes, yes and yes.

In my experience the Google Sansbox doesnt exist. I've had sites live and ranking well within days. However it is true that Google does "prefer" older sites. So yes get your sites live ASAP and then keep adding unique fresh content. My only word of warning would be not to stretch yourself. Instead of 12 to 15 sites earning £50 each a month go for 5 or 6 sites earning £500 each a month.

**Steved** · 24-03-08

Running lots of sites is very hard work in terms of links and in terms of updating them to keep ranking in the engines. There are lots of people that follow such strategies but I think most of them are full time affiliates or very good at multitasking.

I prefer to create fewer, larger sites. In general my larger sites tend to rank better due to the higher number of pages plus every link I get benefits the site as a whole.

If you're getting 200-300 uniques a day but only earning £35 a month you should evaluate your site and see where you can improve it. You can potentially make a lot more with affiliate links as opposed to adSense. One of my sites only gets around 500 uniques a day yet I make more than enough to live off it each month.

I know I've posted this link several times before(originally posted by Jess I think) but this advice changed they way I create sites and got me on the road to being a full time affiliate:
How to Survive the Affiliate Marketing Evolution - Sugarrae

**Affi Liate** · 24-03-08

I agree in most respects with UKoffer.

However, the strategy of 12 to 15 sites is also not a problem.

I chuck 30 minutes-to-create sites up all the time that make small incomes (though not from pantsense) such as what you talk about achieving.

Worrying about getting back links is something I NEVER do.

It's more effort than it's worth imo.

I focus on fast, fast, fast small very niche sites. These automatically start to get back links over time if they rank well in their own right.

You can get a site very well indexed even #1 on google without any backlinks other than one or two of your own.

The trick is the way you manipulate your content* (white hat)

I have had sites #1 Google in 16 hours from creation, with over £100 in comms within 7 days, and I know others on here have done similar.

The sandbox is a load of **expletive removed**

Another thing that "bothers" me is when people talk about regularly updating content. That can be a bit misleading.

I NEVER update content. Take it or leave it. It's a myth.

The only time I would ever consider updating content is if you have a massive site that all your income depends on. Unless you are making over £5,000 a month from that one site forget it...

It's all about, I repeat, how you manipulate content...

Aff.

*I cover some of this in my free SEO article which is too big to post here.

**Affi Liate** · 24-03-08

I'm going to elaborate on this slightly just to be clear:

The only time I would ever consider updating content is if you have a massive site that all your income depends on. Unless you are making over £5,000 a month from that one site forget it...

I aim to get sites on page 1 google within 2 weeks.

Once they are there they will stay there for at least 12 months in my experience.

If they wound up from the outset on page 4 - obviouslly I would update content to try and jig it to page 1.

Other than that there is no reason why I would want to update content.

Aff.

**sussexrob** · 24-03-08

I agree with Affi

My main site hasnt had anything added to it for ages and it has still increased in ranking over the last few months.

I aslo had a site which was getting £30 quid a day in adsense so if i can do it anyone can

Rob

**tbp** · 24-03-08

As the others have said, the Google sandbox doesn't exist.

I believe that it did once, but hasn't been around for a long time.

I specialise in creating niche sites, and after launching a new site its generally in Google within 2 - 3 days, and can be at number one 7 days after launch.

The main thing is to ensure that Google can find your site quickly so that it can start to index it. I think most peoples problems in the past have been because they put a site up on the net, and expected Google to magically index it straight away. This isn't going to happen, as its bots have got to find the link. If you link to it from a small site somewhere that itsself isn't indexed frequently, then it's going to be a while before Google is even aware of the new site.

As a result, it helps to link to a new site from a large site thats frequently spidered to help google find your link. Examples of these sites are Craighs List, Gumtree and Digg.

**Stavros** · 25-03-08

A lot of interesting opinions... thanks all. Interesting you say I should be pulling in more money with my 200-300 daily uniques, I'll definitely check out some other revenue sources. The site is based around a type of product that retails for anywhere between £50 and £500.
My experience of content updates is similar to Rob and Aff, the site in question hasn't seen any significant content added in about a year but having read Sugarrae's post (thanks Steve — excellent link!) I can see how regular updates may prove more essential in the future.

So... fewer sites, more content, and forget about the sandbox seems the general consensus.

This is where I begin!

**tbp** · 25-03-08

I would definately try and scrap adsense. In my mind, the only place for it is in the few areas where there are no merchants available.

Say for example that you get 10p a click from adsense, this is nothing compared to what you would get if you take someone to a merchants site and sell a product at around £30 with a 10% commission. Even though adsense is guaranteed, and you make not make a sale for each visitor you send to a merchant, you are still going to make a lot more from affiliate links than from a merchant.

One of my sites is selling a product worth £50, at 10% commission, but visitors regularly put more items in their basket, and most of my sales are for around £100.

I think that with a bit of work, £50 a month from each site is definately achievable, and this should be a minimum goal. With 200 / 300 uniques a day, and advertising the right products and merchants you should definately be making a lot more than. Most of my sites are around 40 - 50 uniques a day, and I easily beat your target.

You're web site copy is the most important thing, and your call to action. You need to give more information about the products than the merchant can (because they don't usually have the space), and extra pictures.

You need to sell the person on the product on YOUR site, so they go to the merchant as a formality to purchase the product. Don't just shove up a merchants link and hope that the merchant can persuade them to buy, which is what a lot of affiliates do.

This works extremely well for me, and some of my sites have a 50 - 60% conversion rate, which is why I can make more than your target with 25% of the traffic you're getting. If you can do similar on your sites, then you should be able to make a lot more than your target

**CAdams** · 25-03-08

aye, I wouldnt concentrate on adsense alone, but its worth having it on some of your sites as long as it blends in and doesnt look out of place.

You could earn £35 (or a lot more or a lot less) per sale if you promoted some services/products. I would aim for making as many sales a day as you can, even if it ranges from £2 per sale to £100 per sale, it all adds up.

**tbp** · 25-03-08

but its worth having it on some of your sites as long as it blends in and doesnt look out of place

I would give this very careful consideration. Adsense takes the browser away from your site, and not even in a new window, so it's highly possible they won't go back.

As a result, you could be losing an affiliate sale earning £'s, for the sake of a couple of pence.

I used to think it was better having both adsense and affiliate links, but my earnings actually went up when I removed the adsense. It's just extra leakage, and not worth it for the small prices you get per click.

**Stavros** · 25-03-08

Originally Posted by tbp

I used to think it was better having both adsense and affiliate links, but my earnings actually went up when I removed the adsense. It's just extra leakage, and not worth it for the small prices you get per click.

Yep, totally agree with this.

I've refrained from mentioning this before but I actually have a bit of a moral dilemma with this site since it was developed in partnership with another company who takes the revenue from the product feeds which are placed on the site leaving me with the revenue from the adsense ads, in exchange they provide me with free access to their link management system (which is damn good). Perhaps some of you know who I'm talking about.

Rather than remove their product feeds I was going to place affiliate links within my website copy which appears before the product feeds. Do links within copy generally convert better than product feeds, I remember reading that somewhere?

**tbp** · 25-03-08

Rather than remove their product feeds I was going to place affiliate links within my website copy which appears before the product feeds.

I`m really not sure about this i`m afraid, on my own sites I have a big button with a clear call to action, and this has worked best out of all the things i`ve tried. I suppose the answer would be just to try it and see!

Can I ask, what exactly does the link management system that you get provided with offer you? Maybe it's something you could replicate yourself, but im not exactly sure what it does, as I always create my own software and sites.

**Stavros** · 25-03-08

It's a web based control panel that allows you to search for relevant sites and solicit link exchanges with them. Everything is administered through the control panel which automatically searches the site for an email address and generates suitable anchor link text and a description from the website's meta tags. It also generates a link request email which is sent out to the web admin.
The system also allows you to keep track of which sites you've sent requests to and how long ago the request was sent.
It sounds simple but I think it has benefited workflow although I guess a spreadsheet/database would achieve some of this.

**shirtstyle** · 28-03-08

Originally Posted by Affi Liate

I have had sites #1 Google in 16 hours from creation, with over £100 in comms within 7 days, and I know others on here have done similar.

Affi - I have had sites getting good rankings (and respectable traffic) in Google within a few days for relevant keywords, but the problem I ALWAYS seem to get is that the site very quickly drops down the rankings for the same keywords some days or weeks later - and traffic follows suit. Ever had any experience of this and thoughts on way to combat it? It seems like Google first evaluates the content and ranks (quite highly) on this, but then has a second round and drops it down the rankings based on other factors (age, affiliate links, others????)

Shirty