Being an entrepreneur means accepting a certain amount of risk, we do our best to limit risk, however nothing is ever guaranteed. Yesterday I posted about my issues with Google (deindexing) and Adsense and how I am now moving forward in a new direction. This post is to clear up any questions that you may have had after reading, please understand that while I would like to be able to respond to comment individually that is not possible with more than 60+ comments in less than 24 hours (and more coming in all the time), thus I will do my best in addressing most of your questions, concerns and general statements in this post.
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Before we move on, I want to stress a few points.
Most important is that I have always been an open book, I have shared real life stories both positive and negative along the way. I have never claimed to be an expert or guru per say, however many have put me in that position. My goal when setting out to create info products was simple, to have fun sharing about a topic that I am very passionate about (online marketing), help people along the way and make some great money without sacrificing my integrity. I feel as if I am achieving my goal, I know I have helped many, I have a great time creating courses, studying strategies and tactics and so on.
I will also mention that I posted a video to youtube earlier in the summer, I also mailed my entire list sharing the experience, however many people were not away of what happened so I will share it once more. But, this will be the last time, as I really want to move forward with my own marketing, I hope this post helps you to make solid decisions as you also move forward as well.
What Happened …
1) The Prelaunch of Halloween Super Affiliate, 6000+ Accessed My 2009 Case Study.
2) Other Sales Pages, Reports and Videos Circulating.
3) Google Webmaster Guidelines – Thin Affiliate Sites
4) All Sites Were Hosted on 1 I.P. Address
5) Individually, My Sites Were Ok / Passable
6) When Looked At As A Whole, Affiliate Factory
How To Protect Yourself
Above all else, focus on creating the highest quality websites you possibly can. This is exactly what I am doing and it is what I recommenced you do as well.
1) Diverse Niche Markets
2) Use Different Themes
3) Create High Quality Site That Only You Can Create
4) Use Only Affiliate Links (and cloak the links as always) Or .. Use Only Adsense, Do Not Combine The Two
5) Again, Focus on Quality As You Move Forward
I hope you find this post and video to be of help, as mentioned over the last several days I am rebuilding and seeing results already. I will continue to share my new ideas with you as I move forward and I hope you will also continue to move forward.
Best,
Great tips, Brian. I’ll keep following you as to learn and master some of your technique’s in generating income from the Internet. Thanks.
Thanks, Brian for sharing quality information once more.
I appreciate you helping us keep up to date with the ever-changing internet frontier!
I owe all of my success to you Brian. Ever since I bought your Commission Ritual course, I started to make real money on the internet.
I admire the way you cope with current problems, but then again, this is the only way to deal with them.
Don’t let a few problems beat you and steal your success. If we fall, we get up again and start climbing that ladder again, all the way to the top.
I just wanted to thank you for all the things you do for us, and I will always follow you and your methods.
Thanks,
Romy
Romy,
You are more than welcome, I am not going anywhere
I am glad to hear that your doing well with my methods.
Best,
thank again Q. how many site for Hosted on 1 I.P. Address 50 web site on one hosted account is to much or not thanks again for you videos and you time.
Hard to really say what number would be the tipping point, if you focus on quality as mentioned you will be fine.
Best,
Thanks for sharing your experiences Brian – really value your advice.
Hi Brian,
Great explanation video and thanks for taking the time to make the video. It was important to mention how busy you were over the past months with moving plus a big product launch, so were unavailable. As for losing the Adsense account, what I suspect happened is that when you gave the Spock costume site URL many people visited in a too short a time AND too many clicked on the Adsense that was there (for Google, it is irrelevant whether all the clicks were real, they just saw too many clicks too quickly and it triggered an alarm).
I have an idea about demonstration websites. Host them on a very cheap hosting account that contains NONE of your money sites, do not use Adsense or affiliate codes and set the robot.txt file to “NOT index” the site. People can just type in the URL into their browser to find the site when you are giving out the URL during webinars or courses. In a sense, you end up with an exclusive teaching website that does not need a password.
Keep up the great work,
Keith
G’day from Australia
Thanks for your open attitude Brian. I’m sure many people appreciate it.
Hiding sites from Google is a bit pointless though. After all, Google just needs to look into your Adsense account to follow every site you have?
They know more about my sites than I do
Dave
Hey Brian,
As always, great post and video – I’m sure a lot of people will find this very useful.
Its such a shame that your openness has resulted in lost sites and earnings, I know youll get the earnings back – I look forward to hearing more about what youre working on in the future…
Aidan
Brian,
Glad to see that you are still going to fight the good fight man..
I have been following your teachings for a few years now and can honestly say that your techniques work…at least for myself because I put time and effort into my online business and give Google want they want.
Live and learn my friend…live and learn…
Keep it real,
Sam England
Hi Brian,
I remember you sending the initial email out and I could tell that you wanted all of us to know how to avoid this thing I now call “The Google Rob”.
At least Dick Turpin wore a mask! Anyway thanks again for the reminder and lets move on.
I’ll finish with a comment Howie Schwartz continues to drill home, ” if you don’t show love for your sites, how do you expect Google to”.
Stay focused (%)
Rick Ellwood
Hi Brian,
Either cloaked affiliate link or Adsense Ads, but not bith within the same site is a valuable tip.
Would just like to ask you however, (which ahs always been bugging me, btw) if ever our sites incur Google’s wrath, like say – sites getting de-indexed or sandboxed, or adsense or adwords accounts getting canceled, if we want to appeal to G for a reconsideration, just who is it that we write to?
I am asking because whatever mail I receive from Google has a no-reply mail ID?
Quite keen to know, if you may.
Thanks
Vijay
Brian,
Super tips and thanks for bearing all. I will take your advice to heart and hopefully, success will be on the not too far horizon.
Hi Brian, thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. I would like to let you know that I always open your emails, as I know that there will be some usefull information in them. too many marketers are always pushing thier offers down at us, and these now get unsubscribed.
Hi Brian
Thanks for sharing this. I remember your horror email from summer and it really made me think then and is making me think now.
How do you cloak links and would you advise beefing up a WordPress blog with more pages or more posts?
I really appreciate your honesty and gleaned so much from HSA.
All the BEST
Woody,
I covered the linking cloaking stuff in the course (HSA).
Bottom-line is that I use and recommend the plugin found here:
http://w-shadow.com/blog/2007/07/28/link-cloaking-plugin-for-wordpress/
Best,
Brian
Nice post Brian.
I am also in a much smaller way in your shoes right now. I run an article directory and i have been struggling to make some money with it. This year though I have turned the corner a bit and am making about $40 a month with adsense. Of course now that i have some traffic and success I am now faced with a complaint of copy-write infringement. Some jerk copied an authors article word for word and I didn’t catch it. Anyway i deleted the article but that wasn’t enough for this person and she filed a complaint against me with google adsense….. here we go
Joseph,
Some people are simply hell bent, try to keep your chin up!
Best,
Brian
Hi Brian,
Thanks for the integrity. I will keep watching and reading.
Welcome to Colorado. Are you living in the Denver area? I live in Gunnison and ski in Crested Butte. You have an open invite to come ski with me anytime, I even have a free lift ticket for you.
Hey David,
I am in Colorado Springs, I have never had a chance to ski Crested Butt myself but would love to
give it a try sometime! My wife and I are heading to Beaver Creek for the Thanksgiving day weekend, should
be awesome with all the snow the mountains have been getting.
Glad you like the content here
Best,
Brian J
I’m unclear why you recommend “Use Only Affiliate Links (and cloak the links as always) Or .. Use Only Adsense, Do Not Combine The Two.”
If you use only adsense, you are in danger of your site being interpreted by Google as a MFA (made for adsense) site, which I believe is “forbidden.”
Google does say it is ok to have other advertisements on a page with Adsense, so long as they are not formatted to possibly be confused with the Adsense ads.
Is there something I am not thinking of?
Garth,
You have a valid point, at the same time it is very clear that Google does not
like affiliate programs, I will also mention that so many people use adsense that would
never even think about affiliate marketing, thus I think it is a safer path.
In the end, if you create quality that is the best safeguard.
Best,
Brian
Brian
Thanks for the info and video.
I am not sure google adsense is worth it anymore. Kind of like the google slap for adwords accounts.judge,jury,executioner.they didnt need any reason.
What i have started doing is using cpa offers.for example on a baby site put the free diaper offer.Makes $2.30 for email submit which is more than adsense.
On computer sites put gamefly.$15 for signup.
when i hear what happened to you by google should be criminal.they should bow down to you for making them so much money.they throw you a crumb and keep the loaf.
Thanks for everything
Hey Brian,
What WP plug in do you recommend now for cloaking affiliate links? I’m totally OK with an affiliate link.
Am loving getting free SE traffic, but not selling.. will go back & make sure I Am really following SEOPress & Commission Ritual formula.
Brian,
Thanks for the info. I have also had the “pleasure” of being banned from Google AdWords. You have to play by “the rules” (Google’s rules) if you want to get their goodies. BUT – there are a lot of other alternatives to Google.
BTW – I wrote a (somewhat) funny article comparing Google AdWords to the “Soup Nazi”. You can find it on my site.