From $1,000 a month to over $10,000 in less than 3 months

[gurk]

I'd like to publicly thank Joel for helping to increase my adsense revenues from $1,000 a month to over $10,000 in less than 3 months (same traffic and everything)

He answered all of my emails and gave me great suggestions after I purchased his course. I'm now living a semi-retired lifestyle at the ripe old age of 29.

The main thing I've learned from him is TEST, TEST, and TEST some more.

thanks for changing my life.

[dsemeniuk]

Thats great! Good to hear success stories like that.

Well, I am currently sitting at 8 dollars a day..yippee. Not going to retire on that but working at it. My goal before Christmas is 50 dollars a day.

[Joel Comm]

thanks for changing my life.

Wow! That's what it is all about :-)

Joel

[genesis]

now so much for the testimonials on website-selling-adsense ebooks!

a real time chat/ forum like this, really proves that not only the Adsense Secret ebooks is REAL, but there is real OUTCOME after purchasing it!

:D :D :D Hope i got my copy soon! hehehe Daddy needs to get me one really sooooooooooooon!

*crossing fingers*

[munadi]

I'd like to publicly thank Joel for helping to increase my adsense revenues from $1,000 a month to over $10,000 in less than 3 months (same traffic and everything)


Hello,

Good news for adsense newbie like me :-)
I would like to see how is your website looks like. Would be great if
you can show us the URL link. Thanks

munadi

[gurk]

Hello,

Good news for adsense newbie like me :-)
I would like to see how is your website looks like. Would be great if
you can show us the URL link. Thanks

munadi

I would like to show the site to you guys, but many people have advised me not to reveal it due to the fact that someday, someone who doesn't like what I say in the message boards might want to get back and try to ban my site by clicking on the ads. I just don't want to take that chance.

I'm happy to share advice, but I can't share my URL.

[tumbarumba]

I would like to show the site to you guys, but many people have advised me not to reveal it due to the fact that someday, someone who doesn't like what I say in the message boards might want to get back and try to ban my site by clicking on the ads. I just don't want to take that chance.

I'm happy to share advice, but I can't share my URL.

I understand why you can't share your URL. But can you give us a rough idea of how many wep pages your site has to generate that type of income?

Rod

[aroonsak]

Hi gurk,

I just wonder how many sites do you have to achive like that?

Thanks,

-Aroonsak

[Mommy2GG]

I would like to show the site to you guys, but many people have advised me not to reveal it due to the fact that someday, someone who doesn't like what I say in the message boards might want to get back and try to ban my site by clicking on the ads. I just don't want to take that chance.

I'm happy to share advice, but I can't share my URL.

Thats true but it would be nice if we did not have to worry about that here. :cool:

[flyer]

I don't blame you for not posting your URL.

Is that income really just from one site? Your wording implies that. If so, how many pages are on the site? If not, how many Adsense sites do you have?

Just trying to get a feel for the size of an operation that makes that amount.

[pamz]

Congrats!!!

[Lisa1]

How much traffic do you need to go from $1000 to $10,000 in 3 months?

[posby]

Congratulations! As a total newbie with this AdSense stuff, I've got to say how inspiring your success is.

How many sites do you have?

[robinaraoz]

Hi,

could I acheive this kind of results with one page?

If so, how many visitors do you have a month/each day?

Best regards,

Robin Araoz

[cozam]

Yes, some feedback on the size of your site - how many pages would be helpful. Do you use page generation software or do you use a software program like Dreamweaver or Front Page and create pages one at a time. Do you have a linking process that you use?

I totally agree that it is not good to give your web site url - but some general info would be greatly appreciated.

[ocas]

I'd like to publicly thank Joel for helping to increase my adsense revenues from $1,000 a month to over $10,000 in less than 3 months (same traffic and everything)

He answered all of my emails and gave me great suggestions after I purchased his course. I'm now living a semi-retired lifestyle at the ripe old age of 29.

The main thing I've learned from him is TEST, TEST, and TEST some more.

thanks for changing my life.

That's great to here, congrats :) That just shows how important testing is...

[msadsense]

Thats great! Good to hear success stories like that.

Well, I am currently sitting at 8 dollars a day..yippee. Not going to retire on that but working at it. My goal before Christmas is 50 dollars a day.

I think that's a reasonable goal. How do you plan to attain it?

I've increased my Adsense income steadily. In the beginning, I was only making $3 per day. Now some days, I'm making almost $50. It's great to finally have a way to monetize the content I have worked so hard on.

[rowelle]

Hey, that's great that your income shot up so fast! I understand you don't want to share with us your URL, but I would like to see how you have implemented google adsense on your site. Would it be possible for you to take a screen cap of your site(s) and block your URL and upload it here so we can see how you're doing it?

Thanks,
Rowell

[dsemeniuk]

Thanks, well I think I am going to refocus on what I've done so far with my sites, as I see that my revenue is now slipping as I was warned it would do with Generated pages.

I will try to attain my goal by researching and learning from this forum and other areas on how to increase my revenue.

I think it all comes down to having good content and building up a linking procedure to your sites, bottom line is, you need traffic. Its all a numbers game.

This is why my revenue has gone down, my traffic is basically disappeared.

[bokevoll]

I do not currently make a lot of ADSence income on my sites, but than again I have not realy tried yet :)

But, I guess a word of advice is to not build one page sites just for AdSence. It seems like theese kind of sites are dissapering faster from the search engine index than You can find them at the moment. At least from Google.

Build quality sites with more than one page, and do not use any of the page generators to do it.

[heinc]

I'd like to publicly thank Joel for helping to increase my adsense revenues from $1,000 a month to over $10,000 in less than 3 months (same traffic and everything)

He answered all of my emails and gave me great suggestions after I purchased his course. I'm now living a semi-retired lifestyle at the ripe old age of 29.

The main thing I've learned from him is TEST, TEST, and TEST some more.

thanks for changing my life.



Don't get too comfortable with that income... and don't get too dependent on Google AdSense for a living. At any time, as we've all (or most of us) have seen, Google can (and will) change the rules. One day you're there.. one day you might not be.

Biggest thing I would empasize is for everyone to build quality content sites and not try to fool Google or Yahoo. You won't like the end result if you do.

And don't put all your eggs in one basket (or web site - as it would be here) if you're trying to generate a steady income with AdSense.

[thorn]

Congrats on your achievement!

I'd be interested in knowing how much time you spend on this to achieve and sustain that kind of income. Roughly how many hours a week does it take?

[Flashni]

Everyone seems to appreciate that Gurk has done very well with AdSense.

We all want to see his/her site as if that will inspire us to re-create the success. Give Gurk a break and read Joel's manual. Then read it again.

If Gurk is getting a 20% click-thru, at an average of 40 cents per click then that equates to around 125,000 page impressions per month.

The easiest way to achieve that quickly is to do the horrible portal sites and produce 3 or 4 per day, every day.

Another way is to have a site full of great content that has been established for a few years and has respect, information, products, etc.

We are not going to all jump from $50 per day to $10k per month. Be patient. Build for the long term but follow Joel's advice to the letter.

It will happen but it may take a while. Once it does, those Google checks will be hitting your mat like clockwork and your bank manager will know your first name :)

Good luck to all AdSense U.P.S.ers

[jcincot]

Hi "gurk"....

Congrats on reaching the $1,000 level. However, to establish any type of credibility with this forum you need to establish some level of trust by revealing your site . Not to show us your url because of some possible future repercussions from some person to be named later leaves us with nothing more than just curiosity. In business, there are always risks. Joel revealed his site in his book and promotions....quite a risk! Please rethink your position, we would love to see your site....this is what this forum is all about....to learn from each other.......

John

[cmoore]

I read a headline the other day, something like: "Is the AdSense joyride over yet? Maybe... maybe not." This from a 'guru' most of you would recognize, but whose name I won't say. What are everyone's thoughts about how to keep it going, and why would Google want to hinder our web earnings anyway?

[pamz]

I can understand why you would not want to share your url, but you have only made 1 post total to this site.

Why no other posts? Not even to critique someone else's site or give tips.

Surely you have time to help others. :confused:

[flyer]

> However, to establish any type of credibility with this forum you need to establish some level of trust by revealing your site . Not to show us your url because of some possible future repercussions from some person to be named later leaves us with nothing more than just curiosity. In business, there are always risks. Joel revealed his site in his book and promotions....quite a risk!

Nice try there, but I couldn't disagree more. This person doesn't owe us anything- if you don't believe the earnings stated, that's your problem.

Of course Joel revealed sites in his book- it's hard to teach people about this stuff without showing examples. The difference is Joel makes money selling the book, while there is nothing to be gained financially here by revealing your sites. Plus you don't think the book reveals all his sites, do you? Some of them may be examples created for the book.

[jayu]

Hello All,

Gurk, can you just share, which main changes made you earning $,1000 to $10,000 in a month now. I think you can tell us what is your website's size etc...

[kronos]

I read a headline the other day, something like: "Is the AdSense joyride over yet? Maybe... maybe not." This from a 'guru' most of you would recognize, but whose name I won't say. What are everyone's thoughts about how to keep it going, and why would Google want to hinder our web earnings anyway?


There will likely be a shake out, knocking off the weak fruit. However, i don't see Adsense going away. Google makes alot of money from Adsense. Perhaps just the days of easy money are behind us.

[kennethg]

There will likely be a shake out, knocking off the weak fruit. However, i don't see Adsense going away. Google makes alot of money from Adsense. Perhaps just the days of easy money are behind us.

Making money was never easy. It has always been techniques. Just like the techniques in every trade - if you follow the technique, you get the results - here we're following Joel's guidelines / techniques and we should get similar results.

One of the point that Joel keeps reminding us is to create good content. This is equivalent to putting on the foundations in every bussiness or every building that has been built. For us webmasters, our content is our king. As long as we have content, preferably content with value, we should be able to generate some traffic.

I just got Joel's book and I am keen to apply his techniques. I know I will succeed, but I dont know how high I will go or how low. But anywhere's better when you rock bottom.

Cheers.
Kenneth.

[nolnet]

I'm curious also. Are we talking 100,000 page views or 20 million. One site or 100 sites.

[Joel Comm]

Hey Gang,

Gurk's testimony and site is for real.

I think we need to respect whether or not other people want to reveal their sites. They are certainly entitled to their privacy. Seeing that the site is still open for everyone, some would rather take a cautious approach to protecting their AdSense income. Perhaps when we go to a paid site, some people would feel more comfortable revealing their sites.

As for now, please be respectful and take people at their word. If they say they are making big money, the odds are they are making big money. In Gurk's case, it is true.

Joel

[Power2Win]

The information in Joel's ebook is worth how much? That's the great part of Google AdSense and Joel's insightful information--combine the two, and you can take it as far as you want to!!! And based on some of the great feedback-- Joels' info is worth at least 10k "A Month!"...that's GREAT!!!

Thanks Everyone. :)

[dragonsage]

I just did a Google search for Gurk. Other than the foreign-language pages, there was a "Catholic Encyclopedia: Gurk" entry and a gamers site.

Hopefully Gurk's site isn't the latter, as it was shut down as over its bandwidth limit.

That would surely put a crimp in Adsense earnings! :D

[mails]

Hi gurk,

I just wonder how many sites do you have to achive like that?

Yes, that would be really nice and how much traffic do you get? And how do you attract the traffic itself? I'll be happy if you can answer at least these 3 questions... :)

Mails

[chatadsense]

Make adsense money from $1000 to $10,000 per month probably is NOT that difficult as you think. Some site is just having that potential. It all depends on the natural of you site, if your site is in the high pay keyword area then it's relatively easy to acheive that goal. :p

[Bob]

Congrats gurk on what you have achieved with your website(s) I do hope your using your time wisely to duplicate the concept you have found to work on your web site and you are placing other sites online.

Don't sit back and rest on your 10k laurels. G is fickle and what G gives today G can take back tomorrow.

I concentrate on having lots of sites. I am happy if they make 5.00 to 10.00 per day each. I expect the average one to make 5 bucks or so per day and the successful good ones to make 10.00 plus per day or more. I try to make them good original ideas that people will like and find useful. All original content and good G conduct. No adsense on the index page or the site map or other main pages. Adsense only on the content pages. Things like that plus everything else Joel has taught me.

I think of them as good medium to short stories with a minimum of 25 pages or so. After I get another 40 to 50 sites online I am going to shift into novel mode. I have some cool ideas for books. I think instead I'll just write them and publish them as websites and see what happens.

With adsense I started out with a business directory for a certain industry. It was 16k pages. At the time it was built just because I once worked in this particular industry and wanted to start my own company in this field but could not raise the funding needed. The site was my way of being involved with the industry of choice.

When I built the site I never thought it would really make any money just maybe pay for the cost to host it. It was done more for something to do and as a learning experience with website building then an idea to make money. There is a lot more to it then that with this site (testing a concept to turn a comma delimited list into real html web pages) but that is not the reason for this post so.. no more details about that.

When I found adsense and placed the code on the pages within 3 weeks I was at about $400.00 or so. This was after the site was online for 2 years already.

I was blown away by this adsense thing. With no optimization what so ever and doing lots of stuff very wrong I was doing what I thought was great with adsense.

This went on for about a year and a half. Then I started playing around with page design and color and within a few months had gone from about 2% to the 8% click through range. With more work I went from 8% to about 10 to 12%. The 8 to 12% range is where it has been for the last year.

All this time my traffic was going down with G. With my continuing optimization my income with this site and adsense was staying about even or rising a little. The best month this year was $1500.00 The problems and decreasing traffic was because I was doing a lot of things G did not like. I did not realize it at the time though.

I just thought G did not like me anymore due to their introducing G Local and my directory I was competition to that.

I now think the problems were because of all my violations of good G conduct. I am working now to fix all that and will see over the next year if my G traffic comes back up. I really hope it does.

G has been absolutely hammering my main directory site the last 2 weeks and especially the last 2 days. 25 gigs for G so far this month.

I hope its because of the updates I am making to fix all the spammy stuff I was doing. I once thought that site could maybe do 3 to 5 k per month (during certain months) before my G traffic tanked.

This next year will be interesting to see if my traffic will come back up with G for my large directory site. Even a little would be good.

Everyone make your websites with good useful content that is original. If you do this and follow Joel's recommendations you will do well. Adsense is never going away and nether is the concept of good information in the form of a website. Good website conduct is work though. You can't expect to make lots of shortcuts and not be caught out when G makes an algo update.

Hard work in any form will pay off as gurk has shown us. My main business is web hosting and that is how I expect to make my fortune but I do love this adsense thing and the idea that if you work hard and publish good useful interesting web sites you can make a nice income from them with adsense and other programs.

For me adsense has been the thin line between actually being able to hang on during the start up phase as a business and having to go back to work for somebody else. Well, That and my wife having an executive level income helped also.

I know the small level I am at now with adsense and my hosting business can only grow if I do things right in the future. As well as find great people such as Joel to get the best advice from. Thanks Joel. What you do is appreciated and helps many people live better lives. It's not just about money. It's all about improving your life and the life of your family. It's also about the viper I'm going to buy but that is another story. ;)

###

[derrickp]

Bob,

Great job and some great advice in your post. I too have been setting $5 per day for a smaller decent site and $10 per day as a pretty good site.

Derrick

[rolista.com]

it's really great to know... congrats to you :)

[betty]

Congrats!!!

It's amazing!

[bloodwrath]

Congrats!!!!
It awsome to see other succeeded.

And the rest of u who are wondering what gurk did
its simple, yes very simple

Do what joel says in his book and forum
THATS IT...
along with some decent traffic you all have the potential to make big bucks
with adsence
but spending all day asking wont make you anymore money :eek:
take action and do what joel says ;)

sorry if this is harsh its getting late.. :D

[gurk]

Hey everyone,

Sorry I haven't responded to your questions. I've been offline for the past few days visiting the parents. Just logged back on and saw that my post generated a lot of interest.

For those wondering how many sites I run, the answer is 2. I just finished August with record earnings of $12,500. I also earned an additional $4,000 on affiliate programs and other advertising programs from the same sites.

My intention is not to brag about the money I'm making. I'm truly in shock that this is happening. When I started my first site about 3 years ago, I was hoping to make a couple of hundred dollars a month as extra income.

It wasn't really until about 3-4 months ago that I started making serious revenue. Much of the success came from implementing and testing the adsense techniques Joel writes about.

Of course, that's not to say that traffic to your site isn't just as important. You have to spend a good portion of your time marketing and thinking of new ways to attract traffic to your site. I've grown my sites slowly by adding lots of content over a long period of time. I stay away from auto-generated content and have never tried any "black hat" search engine optimization techniques or related things. Everything has been done organically and I've been rewarded by the search engines. I've got some #1 keyword rankings for pretty competitive searches.

One of the keys to my success was building an email list early on. That's golden. Whenever I update my sites, I send an email out to my lists, which total over 125,000 susbcribers. If I didn't have this list, I would probably be earning less than half of what I am now.

Like I said before, one of the most important things is to keep on testing. You'll be surprised to find out what works and what doesn't.

Gurk

[capp]

It's hard for me to imagine that just 2 sites can make more than $10,000.

Curt

[bloodwrath]

Now make that with 1 site...
thats very sweet

[gurk]

It's hard for me to imagine that just 2 sites can make more than $10,000.

Curt

Actually, most of the revenue comes from 1 site. The majority of the traffic for my 2nd site comes directly from my first site. They are both targeting the same category. (and sorry, I'd rather not reveal what that category is)

[Mr. Tech]

Do you have a link to those sites so it can give us an idea on how to improve our Adsense earnings?

I'd love to see what you put in place to improve your earnings by such a huge number!

Cheers

[amax]

Did you miss something Mr. Tech? Gurk DOESN'T want to reveal the websites.

[Mr. Tech]

From a quick read through the five pages I must of missed it.

It's funny how he doesn't want to share but I suppose it his website :( I just don't see what's so secretive.

[bloodwrath]

Do you have a link to those sites so it can give us an idea on how to improve our Adsense earnings?

I'd love to see what you put in place to improve your earnings by such a huge number!

Cheers

here's a few steps
1. read joels book
2. do what joels book says
3. read info in this forum
4. implement what you read about in the forum

[Stuart]

It's funny how he doesn't want to share but I suppose it his website :( I just don't see what's so secretive.

Why do you expect him to give away his marketing advantage? There's nothing funny about it at all and being secretive makes good business sense.

Would you expect to be able to walk into Coke and have them give you their drink recipe?

[Joel Comm]

What a great discussion!

By the way, did you folks know you can upload your own Avatar now so that a picture shows with your name?

Click the USER CP link on the toolbar at the top and you'll see a place to select an avatar.

Joel

[ukjim]

What a great and inspiring thread.

It doesn't surprise me the jump that was made.
If I think about my own site, I earned $1 in my first month, just before I got Joels book. Now I have just done 5 months (gradually implementing the tips/advice), and I was pleased to earn $91 in August alone.

Yes small potatoes I know but thats almost $100, not a bad ratio from $1 at the start!!!

By Joel'ing my site I've added two zeroes to whatever I was on in the beginning, so if a site with basic Adsense and no tips is currently earning $1000/month due to its size and traffic volume, maybe you could expect it to go to $100,000/month? Although I expect there is dropoff to what is possible in reality.

Also - just for fun - has anyone tried doing exactly the reverse of the best advice. What I mean is taking their optimised site and trying to de-optimise it to see what effect it has? :confused:

Like suddenly putting borders and naff colours on your ads. :eek:

I bet not - once you've tasted the money! :)

[thamisgith]

Congratulations Gurk. That sort of money from 2 sites is amazing.

I do note that you were clearly building on a solid foundation with a site that you must have taken a lot of time and effort to build up. I guess the message is build good quality sites and follow Joel's advice to the letter.

Inspirational stuff!

[benc007]

Gurk,

What is your average daily impressions and CTR?

I'm amazed at what you've managed to acheive in a short period of time! Congratulations!

[Chuck Brown]

What is your average daily impressions and CTR?


I believe you'll find that sharing of CTR is still banned by the Adense TOS.

I can understand everyone's eagerness to benefit from the success that Gurk has had...and he has offered to share some advice. But I have to say that I'm not sure that the info would be all that helpful to any of you without knowing what Gurk's sites are about...which he's said that he's not going to reveal. Such numbers are ALL relative to his price per click.

What we clearly can glean from what he's said (that can profit everyone) is that, in addition to the need for good quality content, which needs to be updated...and the need to work for traffic where possible...ad formats and placement are critical (see Joel's book, and then test and re-test for the specific application on your site)...AND the importance of a mailing list to bringing people back.

I also have to say that what passes for "good content" these days is very questionable in my mind. Most of it appears somewhere else...on more established and better-executed sites. You can only take a single topic and repurpose it so many times to any effect.

For example, how many sites does it take to tell people how to make money with Adsense...or to track overall trends in contextual advertising? There are a few sites generating good original content on those topics (talking to insiders, doing research, unearthing new tools, etc)...but everyone else just spends their time quoting them and pretends that they are offering new value. Is that value? How many ways can you tell people how to make money selling ebooks or as an ebay "power seller", anyway? How many sites does the world need that sell MP3 players or diet pills?

Methinks that the biggest deficiency out there is in original thinking.

As far as numbers go...some will be able to accomplish with 500 visitors a day what it takes someone else 20,000 visitors to accomplish (some clicks pay just 3 cents...but there are a good number that pay $1.25 as well). Thus... such comparisons are relatively little value.

Sorry...not trying to rain on anyone's parade. But watching these threads can sometimes be a bit like watching a feeding frenzy when someone shares their success. ("why so secretive?" "show us the goods" "you have no credibility unless you prove it" "share your numbers" "TELL US HOW TO DO IT!!!")

c-

[Chuck Brown]

Telling a fisherman that there is fish in the lake, but not telling them "where" exactly the fishes gather helps no one.

What use is it if one says that he makes $25K a month with Adsense but doesn't share his expertise as Joel has?

I agree with you that there isn't enough "original content" out there. Just like Google, marketers are generally content aggregators and distributors, not originators.

Most ebook sales are made to "new" people who happen to pick up your material instead of someone else's. What I am saying is, what's saturation and lack of originality for people who've been around and have already figured things out, it's new stuff for others. If it weren't so, Internet Gurus would have nothing to sell to newcomers.

How many books are there on "how to make money with adsense?" free and otherwise? The way I see it, Internet marketing is like a movie played in a big theather. After you've seen it, millions of people all over the country will pile up in the same theaters and watch the same movie that you've already seen and then millions more will buy the DVDs and either watch the movie for the first time or all over again.

People are bored. Do you recall the "jerk" ebook that's making rounds online? How bored would you have to be to buy something like that? Hundreds of bored people have paid money for not so new revelations. Then they tell you that they picked up 10% "of real good information"... See, regorgitated information sells.


I can agree with some of your points...at least that they are accurate representations of what's happening....but not necessarily that that should be the way things are.

I know why people are here. The same reason I am. We want to learn to refine our knowledge of using this tool called Adsense...and stay up on the latest developments. And there's a large enough spread of experience here that I think we can all benefit from each other's experience. I'm not claiming expertise...believe me. I'm just sharing my experience and observations.

But I will challenge the premise upon which you're building. This isn't just about repackaging what others are doing. Of course, there's a place for that. Many of those who do research or have access to inside knowledge are lousy "explainers"...and there's a place for people who are better at "unpacking" that info in an understandable way to do so. But...not many of them. Where I believe you're mistaken is that, in suggesting that because "Internet marketing is like a movie played in a big theather. "...therefore, continuing to build upon a foundation like that is somehow justified. I'm not saying that's not accurate...just that it's not a REASON to continue to do so.

There is a point of saturation happening. In fact, I think we've passed it...unless someone has something truly unique to offer. It's not just me getting tired. You just can only a beat a dead horse for so long before there's absolutely no value in striking one more blow. Again...I'm not standing outside saying, "You're wrong...you're all wrong!" I've done it, too. But just joining a bunch of affiliate programs and flogging the search engines for position is not a way to make money. The search engines are getting smarter. It's going to become more and more difficult for folks to "get found" unless they have something special to say. We're human beings...not a species of "borrowers".

My point is: Why focus all your ("you" in the larger sense) energy on Internet Marketing as a topic? If there's one more saturated topic on the planet, I don't know what it is. Doesn't anyone else have any other interests or anything to talk about? The point of internet marketing is not to teach people how to make money teaching others how to make money....it's to teach others to make money doing whatever they do already.

THAT's what frustrates me. Everyone gloms onto the same tired ideas...and there's just nothing new to say. It's not that I'm no longer interested in the topic...just that there's really nothing new to say most of the time. Result: more clutter and frustration for everyone.

Rather, I recommend that people consider doing what they love and focusing on how they can take that online instead....creating new software resources, news outlets, communities, blogs, forums, directories, etc...and use THAT as a platform to make money. THAT is a strategy with the potential for long-term success! And there are people on here doing that already. I just want to encourage more of that kind of thinking.

And, yes...I was stupid and bought the Rich Jerk ebook. Once I saw it and knew that it had no application to me, I got my money back. It might be OK for others...but did nothing for me. (and THAT"s my guilty confession for the day! :rolleyes: )

The sad thing is: The guy's sales pitch was different. He did well at getting people's attention. It may have been rude, but it was compelling in a twisted sort of way. But...how much better if he had offered actual value so that the people who bought it didn't become more disillusioned and bitter? He'll never be able to sell them anything again.

And I still say that Gurk has no obligation to share any great detail about his site. No one wants to risk their bottom line...and that risk most certainly exists when one exposes themselves here...whether we want to believe so or not. There are a lot of very hungry and even desperate people out there (and even on here). As Joel said...once this converts to a paid site and everyone knows each other a little better...there may be a higher comfort level. But, while I don't mind sharing my site URLs, I'm not telling anyone how much I make or my click-thru rates or which of my sites are the most profitable. Such info is what makes me unique in terms of my online presence. Even though I have a rather unique approach to things, and am much less likely than others to have my efforts duplicated...I still won't endanger my family's financial well-being by tipping my hand in public.

And yes...I believe I've been accused of being long-winded on many occasions. And...well...I have no defense! :)

c-

[DomeBase]

Why do you expect him to give away his marketing advantage? There's nothing funny about it at all and being secretive makes good business sense.


here's a few steps
1. read joels book
2. do what joels book says
3. read info in this forum
4. implement what you read about in the forum

I'm confused. How do steps #3 and #4 work?

[Chuck Brown]

Good points. But I think we will have a hard time developing originality. The Internet is more about "aggregation" than originality. Most of the articles you read online have been in printed books for decades!

Sad but true: people buy into sameness all the time. Same foods, same movies, same cars, same music, same restaurants, same vacation spots, same, same, same. Consumers find uniqueness and benefits in sameness...how else would you explain so many millions of people buying the same type of car, a Honda for example? To the guy driving his Honda, he thinks he's unique when he adds a coffee can to his exhaust and creates more environmental noise, yet the car is still a Honda. In his mind, he maybe be thinking he's driving a 400-hp Dodge Viper, but in reality,it's still a Honda.

My point is, sameness sells all day long. There is something else that sells all the time. John Reese, the famous Internet marketer, made a surprising statement in one of his articles: "Crap Sells!"

I bet you the pages making the most money with Adsense are not unique. What's unique is the dollar value per keyword, the traffic and the niche markets those pages are catering to. The rest is, ahem, all the same.

Well, my friend...it seems that we are simply going to disagree on this main point. Because...just because something "works" for the moment does not make it a wise long-term strategy...and just because crap sells does not mean that I can sleep well at night if that's what I'm shoveling.

I will agree with you to a point in this regard. There IS a degree of aggregation involved in almost everything on the net. But to use it as your sole philosophy, as you seem to be arguing...I can't go there. It's just my personal life philosophy. I can't take pride in just re-publishing someone else's words any more than I can take pride in writing a song that's little more than someone else's warmed-over musical ideas. It says nothing about me as a human being if I do that, and I don't want my name on it.

There's an old Biblical expression that says, "There is nothing new under the sun." And I agree with that. I am not claiming that I'm unearthing new truth that's never been seen before. Just that I want to be about offering real value to my site visitors whenever possible. I don't believe I'm doing that by creating just one more place that's reprinting the same tired old truths that everyone else is pushing.

But...I return again to my dead horse analogy. I made my case...and it either works for someone or it doesn't. It's unwise to continue to beat that poor carcass any longer. :p

c-

[RemodelingGuy]

I would like to show the site to you guys, but many people have advised me not to reveal it due to the fact that someday, someone who doesn't like what I say in the message boards might want to get back and try to ban my site by clicking on the ads. I just don't want to take that chance.

I'm happy to share advice, but I can't share my URL.

Did someone step in something?

It stinks in here! :D

[trader]

Did someone step in something? It stinks in here! :D

Then why does Joel Comm and others show their url's? For example, as a public figure Joel would likely have a much greater risk of an enemy attacking his sites vs a site run by Gurk. Also, what about the members here who are so busy heavily promoting their ebooks and page generator programs, again, their risk I am sure would be quite high vs Gurk, yet they do not fear everyone knowing their url's.

I am sorry to say I am disappointed in this turn of events what with joining this board thinking it was small, extra helpful and a more personal one vs the big players so we could get more inside knowledge.

But going from $1K to more than $10K virtually overnight and without having perhaps tens of thousands of doorway pages would simply seem to be extrenely tough to do? Where did all that much needed quality targeted high traffic suddenly come from? How could the CTR be so amazingly high? What industry is it in to get such a high PPC?

Gurk will not even reveal the industry his site is in, why? How could revealing its category hurt him? Let us assume it is say gambling or mortgages, or whatever, since there are so many sites already in the category why would it matter if a few members of this small forum also made sites in the same industry?

If it's instead a small niche market and not a broad based market like gambling and loans etc it would seem extremely tough to so quickly generate sufficient quality traffic to be earning 10K plus so fast regardless of how good Joel's ebook may be.

Revealing the site category and domain industry would seem to be quite insignificant of a privacy issue yet Gurk will not give us a clue about the kind of website involved, and I really have to seriously wonder why?

[Overallbeauty]

I reading through here trying to decide what to comment on...
If he doesn't want to share his url..thats his business not everyone is as open as others are. Its up to that person..Some of us are more open
about things than others can be. That is just the way the world is. I don't really care what is site is about cause I am really sure its not about the same
niche I am.

But the only problem with keeping things to yourself it just gets others wondering what you have to hide. :cool:

On internet marketing...You are so right! I have a site that is beauty products and its can be a over-worked area as well..
I carry all natural products as well as cosmetics.
It comes down to Doing what you love! and follow what you feel will work for your niche... I am doing what I love and working on building my site
up without just depending on just all natural products, nail polish is what is bring me most of my traffic!
Not enough information is out for everyone else who doesn't have
sites about internet marketing . I am so sick of reading the same thing just
rewritten a little different.
Its very hard to figure out what traffic ideas work for a niche that has
nothing to do with marketing.

How much is my site making in adsense...I haven't cleared 100 dollars yet and if it wasn't so hard to update
and change things around I would try testing the adsense ads more.

I write articles and I put one on the front where my adsense is so the ads are not always about the same thing.
If there is someone who using oscommerce shopping cart and has adsense..
I would love to talk with you!
My site is http://overallbeauty.com/catalog/index.php and look
at your hearts content, I could use a few ideas on replacement ;) of the
adsense.

We can't get all our information without thinking some for ourselfs. So do what I just did, I read every one of the posts on this subject
before saying something,
1-I am going to reread Joel's book again
2-See what I might of missed,
3-Write more articles
4-Get more links
5-Improved my site.

After doing all that if I am lucky and the google god smiles on me I might
finally clear $100. dollars in my adsense .
Ahh life in a small city. :eek:

[trader]

[LEFT]... reading through here trying to decide what to comment on...If he doesn't want to share his url..thats his business....

That is correct of course but still, don't you find it simply amazing in view of the fact he actually did better than referred to. In post #42 Gurk say's he actually made $16,500 in Aug. that's even more than the $10K we have been talking about, that's apparently coming from a base of *only* 1K about 3 mos ago according to his posts!

If Gurk learned how to do that from an ebook that incredibkly valuable ebook should be selling for many thousands of dollars per copy and would be worth it too. I know If I could be assured I could just as easily increase my income by 16 fold in a few mos (from only 2 websites) in all likelihhod I would be willing to pay one months income of at least $16,000 to buy that ebook :D

[Chuck Brown]

That is correct of course but still, don't you find it simply amazing in view of the fact he actually did better than referred to. In post #42 Gurk say's he actually made $16,500 in Aug. that's even more than the $10K we have been talking about, that's apparently coming from a base of *only* 1K about 3 mos ago according to his posts!

16x is a lot. But dramatic gains are not at all unusual.

In the last 6 months, I have tripled what I was making, with less traffic and fewer ads. In anyone's world, those are impressive numbers.

But none of these specifics matter. It's not a reason to step outside your world and try to emulate someone else. Learn to take what IS relevant about Adsense (ad formats, colors, placement) as well as the stuff that all of us continue to learn about bringing in targeted traffic (inbound-only links, reciprocal links, advertising, press releases, writing articles for our own sites and others, press releases) and take that back into your own world... whatever you have to offer that's of value...and use it to profit there.

That's a strategy worth building on. Chasing amazing numbers is truly meaningless in the long run.

c-

[gurk]

I know you guys are curious to know what my site is, but revealing it will really do you no good. There are no secret methods, no bells and whistles. My site is all plain HTML, there are no scripts being used to generate pages or directories. It's as organic and simple as you can get. I have original content that I update frequently and I've used Joel's methods to maximize revenues.

I don't feel comfortable revealing the site because I don't have hundreds of web sites. This one site is my entire business so I'll go overboard to protect it.

That being said, most of you are still wondering how I'm making so much revenue from Adsense. The answer is - I get A LOT of traffic. We're talking 10+ million pageviews per month.

So it's not that I've got some awesome Adsense secrets up my sleeve, I've just been able to maximize revenues by optimizing Adsense using Joel's methods. My original post was simply to thank Joel for writing the ebook which led me to figure out how to do this.

Yes, it's true that I went from $1,000 to over $10,000 in a very short period, but it's mainly because I was doing really stupid things with my traffic. I wasn't optimizing the ads in any way. All the methods I used to increase revenues are in Joel's book. I just did a lot of testing like he says to and discovered the best ways to maximize my revenues.

Optimizing adsense is absolutely crucial. But getting traffic to your site is even more crucial.

BTW - I read one time in a forum that when you make over $10,000 with Adsense, that Google overnights your check via Fedex. I just received my first $10K+ check today and I can tell you that at least in my case, this is a myth. The check arrived as usual in a plain white envelope.

[fiveDigits]

How do you get that traffic?

[gurk]

How do you get that traffic?

Half the traffic comes from search engine optimization and the other half from word-of-mouth. The site has been up and running for 3 years with new content added often.

I've got #1 rankings in Google on some pretty competitive keywords and I've never had to resort to any "black hat" techniques.

Here is a site where I learned most of my SEO:
http://www.highrankings.com

[fiveDigits]

Half the traffic comes from search engine optimization and the other half from word-of-mouth. The site has been up and running for 3 years with new content added often.

I've got #1 rankings in Google on some pretty competitive keywords and I've never had to resort to any "black hat" techniques.

Here is a site where I learned most of my SEO:
http://www.highrankings.com

Thanks, you probably knew I was gonna ask that next. :D If you have more tips on traffic (white hat SEO) please share it. I'm only doing PPC right now and really loving it.

[mdcom]

I'd like to publicly thank Joel for helping to increase my adsense revenues from $1,000 a month to over $10,000 in less than 3 months (same traffic and everything)

He answered all of my emails and gave me great suggestions after I purchased his course.

Success should always be celebrated -- and knowledge is only good when it is shared.

Google does allow you to publish your stats. as Joel Comm, and Darren of Pro Blogger (to name a couple) and others who earn a decent living with Adsense have done.

Are you able to quantify your claims like Darren has, and perhaps be kind enough to share with others the simple placement and ad block choices you made to earn this kind of income?

Have you used automated tools to make up a number of websites? This income cannot be from one single website -- unless it is considerably large.

Roseanne van Langenberg

[trader]

Hi Gurk, First let me say I apologize for questioning your amazing sounding story. After learning you are getting 10 million+ pageviews/mo I am NOT at all surprised you can earn $16,500 from your 2 websites, if you are using good adsense techniques.

With that said I also am assuming your traffc is "good and valuable traffic" and not with a high percentage of visits from Asia, and also is a good paying and good CTR/EPC kind of website (not something like say most forums, free games, free coupons, etc)?

In fact, I believe you could (without too much more effort) get your total PPC and affiliate programs income up to $60,000-mo eventually based on 10 million/mo. That estimate is based on my own experience and stats but I am no where near it because my traffic is lower vs your traffic.

You said this earlier "...I started my first site about 3 years ago....it wasn't really until about 3-4 months ago that I started making serious revenue....much of the success came from implementing and testing the adsense techniques Joel writes about...Of course, that's not to say that traffic to your site isn't just as important...

Because of you saying that and the way it was worded (with the afterthought sounding bit about traffic being important) I assumed (wrongly) that you likely did not have too much traffic since high traffic is incredibly difficult to get, especially in such a relatively short time frame like 3 yrs.

For example, I have domains and sites for 9 yrs., one of them with lots of unique content like your site, but it gets a fraction of your traffic (and much lower income), even though it is also well ranked in the SE, has lots of links and is considered an industry resource, and also uses good advertsing methods and complies with Adsense TOS.

When you say "Pageviews" I imagine you are referring to Adsense Page Impressions, right? Do you know what your actual Unique Visitors are from your server stats? I believe that number would normally be even greater than Pageviews reported by Adsense (perhaps double the pageviews, again based on my own stats)? If that is correct it would move your traffic up to approx 20 million/month, which I think would place it at the top tier vs all websites.

Your domain name must be incredibly good and I imagine is likely a popular keyword or keyword phrase. Congatulations and let us know when you get that income up 6 fold greater! Once again, please accept my apology and not understanding your immense traffic numbers. Thanks for sharing with us.

P.S. You will be surprised to hear that I actually think *only* $16,500-mo revenue is actually not that great and is on the low side vs 10+ million/page impressions! However, it's obviously good vs only $1K-mo you were getting 3 or 4 mos ago, which was extremely low at the time what with your amazingly high traffic.