Christmas Stats Update

December Adsense = $286.47
December Amazon = $7.78
Other Affiliate $$ = $79.87

Total AIS = $374.12

I don't think I'm going to hit my goal of $500 from adsense, but it has been a great month so far. I'm way up from last month.

I few people have my article script. Hopefully I'll get some good feedback.

Article Script

I guess if I can't even give it away, theres no chance on me selling it. :( No one commented that they would like to check out the RSSG Article Script. I've added it to all of my sites and will see how they do.

Article Miner

Inspired by a recent post on Burt's Blog (http://osworld.blogspot.com/2005/12/ais-sites-need-articles-get-article.html), I decided to write a quick article miner. It was actually a lot easier then I thought, and works great. I only have it setup to get 10 articles per keyword, but I believe that will be plenty.

I made mine to work with RSSG and findarticles.com. Other article sites could be added fairly easily, but I didn't take the time to do so.

I'm not sure what Article Miner does to the HTML or to the text in the articles. Does it change words, or redesign HTML so that the article appears to be original? I'm thinking about adding this functionality, but I doubt changing the article text would be allowed due to copyrights.

Let me know if you use RSSG and want to BETA test the script (its really rough). I'll only allow an AIS regular (I have to recognize your name) to test the script. I think I'll sell the download for a few bucks once I refine it.

RSSG and more.

The RSSG site that I experimented with a few posts ago got indexed by Google and made $2.25 today. I am suprised by this, because as I stated in my first post about this site, I spent only a few minutes gathering keywords for an old domain that wasn't doing anything. Who knows if it will make that type of money consistantly, but I think I'll try to find a true niche, research keywords extensively, and see what type of difference that makes. I've also found a way to use my 'questionable' techniques described below in an 'unquestionable' way that I feel good about. It hasn't made quite as big a splash as last weekend, but I've made $8.36 today using that technique. Overall I've made $11.69 from adsense today.

My goal is to make $500 on adsense this month, which is a stretch, but still possible. I'll need to average about $20 per day on adsense for the rest of the month.

I didn't join Burt's challenge because I didn't feel that I had anything to contribute. I'll be following closely though, and will hopefully be able to learn a lot from the other contestants.

I'm also looking forward to the release of Chemo's new shopping cart. His blog has been a little stale recently, but you can read about his project here: http://oscommerce-chemo.blogspot.com/

I made $89 today from adsense.

Is it ethical to create a page offering services or products that you are not actually able to provide, if you never actually sell those products? For example, someone could setup a page saying that they have this year’s hottest Christmas toy, an apartment in a great location, or can provide eye surgery, etc. Then provide no way to check out, an email address that will never be responded to, and no contact information. Monetize the page using adsense. Frustrated shoppers will click on familiar Google ads with hopes of finding the product or services they desire.

Pages like this work, see my last few posts. However, I’ve decided not to proceed any further with those types of pages because I didn’t feel good about them. I received a ton of emails from users who were excited about the services/products that I was falsely offering. Reading these emails is what made me reconsider this type of marketing. Its not like I scammed anyone out of any money, just a few moments of their time.

So I ask you the question, is providing false hope to a consumer unethical?

Busted!

I made $82.54 on the new website in the last two days ($17.24 today), before being taken off of the website I was advertising on. At this point I'm unsure if I've been banned, or if I can advertise again on this site. If I can keep the ad up on the site for a day or two at a time, I should be okay. Otherwise this good fortune was short lived....

Adsense Explosion

The new site ended up making $65.27 yesterday (all from adsense) in just half a day of existence. And its made $10.66 in adsense today.

Best Day Ever

I had a new idea, registered a domain this afternoon, and setup a few pages with adsense ads. My new idea produced $43.91 in adsense revenue in the last 8 hours. With a few hours left in the day I hope to top $50. I'm not sure how long it will last like this, but I've tried to multiply my immediate results by 10x (10 versions of the same thing). The domain cost me less than $3, no cost for advertising or software.

Burt's Challenge

Burt is running an AIS challenge, with a $100 cash prize. The challenge starts on 12/16, so check out the rules and enter here: http://osworld.blogspot.com/2005/12/burts-challenge-will-you-accept.html

RSSG Site

Taking a lead from Baldy, I decided to try to setup a RSSG site. I downloaded a general free template from the web and changed it to work with RSSG. This Automotive Tools domain name was purchased on a whim a while back, and I haven't done anything with it. This is the first keyword list generated site that I've attempted, and I think you can probably tell that I'm not very good at putting together a good list. I used Web CEO to get some keywords (remember I'm only using free tools), but only spent a few minutes on the keywords. If it seems like Google eats this site up quickly, I'll then start worrying about good keyword lists. Let me know if you like the layout of the site, or if you think it sucks.