I'm curious if anyone is earning via niche blogs or mini-sites set up on free hosts. I know they're often frowned upon for SERP reasons and whatnot, but let's assume you're not trying to dominate a niche. It seems like this could be something worth doing if you build around mid-value keywords and estimate conservative returns. Is anyone out there making this work, even on a small scale?
I have generated some Adsense revenue from free blog such as Blogger, Wordpress.com. However, I would recommend you to go with your own domain for a long term. Free blogs has some limited and has no advantage on seo like it used to be before. I would also recommend you target low to medium competitive keywords but targeted instead of high paying with high competitive. Most of high competitive keywords has at least two players dominated search results and hard to break them through.
Yes i believe that people with niche blogs on blogger are earning handsomely - people have started blogging on blogger and when successful they have shifted their blogs to dedicated domain name...
I had several so called minisites. They advertised a brilliant product which was free, but over 2 years I only made about £15. From commissions and adsense put together. They do work for some people though.
Its really hard to generate income from shared blogs hosts. I usually just buy a domain and work with it, its a better use of time I would say.
While Blogger is easy to use and very SEO-friendly, they are also Google's property. I've been hearing stories lately of people's money-making Bloggers blogs being deleted either for suspected "spam" or Google is trying to clean up the make money online content. Whatever the reason, it's always better to have a blog on a hosted server with your own domain. Worst case scenario is that Google would bury your blog for a few months, but it can't completely delete it like with Blogger. So proceed with caution. If you're going to stick with Blogger, make sure you build your links very naturally, but I'm telling you I've seen blogs just disappear, even one blog that I use to advertise on. This guy had awesome responsive traffic. One day: Poof! Gone. It gave me good return on investment, too. Fortunately, it got restored!
Great for startup. But in long term it's ALWAYS better having your own domain and hosting. If you can afford $10 for domain just go with it. -minanu
For people who are not familiar with building blog, Blogger is a good choice for them to start their blogging times. Of course, as a whole free service, people can also make money by blogging there. In fact, I have met many bloggers who have earn extra cash through writing paid reviews on Blogger platform.
I was earning money from my adsense on blogger. With the recent discontinue of FTP support, am trying to host an independent blog.
I've made good money using Blogger blogs. Just make sure you only post quality, non-spammy content and you won't have problems with blogs being blocked or deleted. Of course for "big" sites and blogs (that you plan on putting a lot of effort into) you should get your own domain.
I have a set of Blogger blogs and they usually draw enough attention and ad revenue so that they pay for a very nice dinner each month. Put them up years ago and has just changed the ad code a bit, traffic is amazingly stable and generating clicks. So I just don't touch them, since they are working so well and just let them sit there producing some cash out of nowhere.
I absolutely agree. Having your own domain will better help you optimize its pages better and that would also credit more on your earnings. You should therefore start creating your "value" online through that blogger blog and when you have got enough lists, readers, etc. Have your own and I'm sure they'll be more staying with your whole new website.
I've been blogging since dec 2009 and starting to see hope. My earning are as follow: First month: $1.53 Second Month: $4.36 3rd month: $7.40 4th month: $15.96 5th month: $35 ...totaling about $60+ Is this any good???