How many sites do you run Adsense on?

Hi,

These questions are for all the "over 50" website owners.

I am curious, what is your daily routine?
How can you maintain 90/100 sites?

And your monthly "domain" bill must be astronomical.

Or do you only update them once in a while?

FFMG

 

Some subjects have a slow rate of change and lots of staying power so content doesn't have to be changed frequently.

It costs me about $12/yr to register a domain and host it for a year (reseller accounts). It dosn't take a lot of content to pull enough traffic to generate that much income. In the meantime, the domain is active so the search engines can find it. Even if it doesn't rank well, it is in their system and when I do find time to get serious about developing it, my additions are changes to an existing site rather than a new site.

You may have noticed threads on DP offering to buy old sites. There is a reason for that Think of it as a seed growing. You put a small seed in the ground, water it occasionally and wait. Eventually, it matures and is ready to harvest. Many of the SEO techniques are equivalent to forcing a plant to grow fast; lots of fertilizer etc. The reality is websites need time to mature.

 

From my own sites I can see that the potential is definitely there, but that’s because I add new contents everyday and so on.

My worry would be to go out and buy 20 sites and because I cannot spend the same time looking after them I will end-up with low/no achievers.

Yes, it is fairly cheap. Even here in the UK.

So how long do you wait to realize that you are flogging a dead horse?
Surely not all website work.

FFMG

 

It's true, htat not all websites work.
I work on various types of sites. Many are automated (ie affiliate type sites) with these, you create them, setup the scripts to pull in the datafeeds when they change and then forget about them. I monitor them through adsense channels. Drive some back links into them and simply leave them alone. Assuming you've set the layout up correctly, then you should see some income when the visitors come.
I'll start worrying about actively doing some work on them when they clear any sandbox that might exist.
As for when a site is no longer worth putting effort into, it depends on what niche it's in. If there aren't many searches for that niche, then it's not worth putting much effort in once you've hit the top ten for your keywords - you'll know by then whether it's going to make any money.

As for hosting, if you're talking about 100+ sites then you should be using your own servers. Virtual servers are cheap (<$50 per month), dedicated servers can also be found pretty cheaply. You know how much bandwidth your sites use so you can easily calculate (approximately) how much bandwidth 100 similar sites would use. Simply take this bandwidth and split it between how many servers you have. If you're running this as a business, NEVER put all your sites on one server - hardware problems do happen, and if very serious they can take kit down for days and you can guarantee that you're backups aren't current when servers go down. I pay out about 200GBP per month for various dedicated server s and colo costs, but I could host 1000's of sites on those machines if I wanted to.

 

Even when sites fail its worth it for the learning experience

Some of my sites fail becasue the competition is so stiff in a market, that return doesn't seem worth it,

Some sites just get banned form the search engines

Some sites seem to fail then 6 months later start earning a decent amount

 

I am interested in that avenue.
Not because I am lazy, but because I could set-up, (and launch with meaningful content), many site and let the search engines do their thing while I take care of each of them one at a time.

I could go and buy 10 sites tonight, but to get them up and ready for search engines would take a very long time.

Where could I find out more about automated sites and scripts? Can you PM me some sites/links to get me started?

FFMG

 

Another thing to remember is that things change. When I built my first site adsense didn't exist. Now Yahoo is getting into the contextual ad market and I assume MSN will be there too. So a site that does nothing today may suddenly gain value when the right product/environment become available.

Tools also get better. I have some niche antique/collectible domains where it would take to much effort to build an image rich, static site. However, I have been looking at the integration between Word Press and Gallery2 (WPG2) and that may no longer be true.

I remember reading long ago that hardware developers had to make sure they developed products for the market as it would exist three years in the future. Perhaps websites are like that too.

 

I have a reseller hosting account and run 120 sites for a grand total of 17.95/month , as far as the work is conserned I have special custom software that helps alot and I do a little each day plus I only refresh a site every 60 days.

 

Another point to not store them all on the same server is you lose weight pointing links between your sites.

I run about 12 sites which increases a couple every month.

 

Yep, I have 3 servers that are for my main sites. The sites are split into groups, the groups then link to other groups in such a way that there is never a reciprical link (or so my theory goes) all links should be a minumum of 4 way - and any site in any group can exist on any server.
For affiliate sites, check out shareasale and commission junction (can't be bothered finding my affiliate id's). When using datafeeds, you want to ensure that your sites are different to the others out there so personally I'd advise avoiding the 'canned' scripts. I write all my own scripts, technically they work but sometimes the layout isn't what is described as pretty - I keep meaning to hire a graphic designer to draw up a couple of layouts but never quite get around to it.

 

Hi Guys/Gals,

I run adsense on about 40 sites right now and have my own server (dedicated).

Some sites are higher maintenance than others. For instance, some of my blogging & directory sites get updated 2-3 times daily, while some tightly focused niche sites are updated once per week.

SEO, for me comes naturally. 1. I've been doing it for years, 2. Other sites are linking to mine all the time.

K

 

SEO in the main is just good html programming and good page layout.

 

I have two site's that I run Adsense.

 

i have 4 sites with adsense but i plan to grow and grow

 

Yes, there are lots of people that get the bug, and want to grow like me!