What does it take to be lucrative in the freesite game nowadays?

[anteyes]

I've just been kinda pondering this lately and I'm curious what everyone has to say about it.

Let's say someone was to start from scratch today and create freesites for a living.

How many freesites do you think they would need to create and submit to start making a decent living? Or are freesites just not enough?

How long do you think it'd take them to start making decent money if they submitted 1 freesite a day, everyday? 1 month, 2 month, 1 year? And what would you consider decent money (being modest)?

Also, would you do movie or picture freesites?

[anteyes]

btw: let's justsay the cost of bandwidth is not factored in and the person is also already skilled at making/submitting freesites and adult marketing.

basically...if you lost all of your websites today and had to start creating and submitting tomorrow.

[Bill]

To be honest, I have my doubts that it is possible these days. Very difficult unless you have enough of a cash reserve to start out with to allow you to spend a year at least pouring your profits back into your business.

A lot would depend on what your budget needs would be. Those living in areas with a low living cost would have the best chance of success.

[anteyes]

To be honest, I have my doubts that it is possible these days. Very difficult unless you have enough of a cash reserve to start out with to allow you to spend a year at least pouring your profits back into your business.

A lot would depend on what your budget needs would be. Those living in areas with a low living cost would have the best chance of success.
What avenue of adult would you take if you had to start from scratch?

[Useless]

What avenue of adult would you take if you had to start from scratch?Stunt cock :D

[anteyes]

Stunt cock :D
Hey Useless Warrior, could you see just submitting freesites as profitable enough after you have about 90 freesites out there (submitting 1 a day for three months)?

[Useless]

Hey Useless Warrior, could you see just submitting freesites as profitable enough after you have about 90 freesites out there (submitting 1 a day for three months)?I'm not really the one to ask about making money in this industry. You know how they call James Brown the hardest working man in show business? Well, they call me the laziest man in porn.

Would 90 free sites be profitable? Sure. Enough to live on? Not anywhere near it. I can tell you that months after I stopped submitting free sites, I make more off them now than I did while building them. I hardly ever see immediate sales from the burst of traffic given to a newly listed site. My sales almost always trickle in later after a long time of being listed. So, I couldn't tell you if the buyers are coming through link lists for if I've been lucky with the search engines. My earnings work like this: Some weeks my wife is happy with what I make. Other weeks she comes home from work and asks me if I have thought about getting a job.

In my mind, you shouldn't do just one thing. You need to burn your fingers in whatever fires you find. While you build free sites you need be building and tweaking hubs and search engine pages. I've begun to think that it's the shit we do in the background (SE content pages and the such) that will make the money, not those templated sites we build to get listed. They are still a very crucial part of your empire, but very few people make a living with them. Build sites. Link them to your hubs. Link your hubs to content pages within them. Link your hubs to other hubs and other content pages on other domains. Link your content pages to your free sites if they are of the same niche and use the same keywords. On and on and on.

[Bill]

A lot would depend on how much capital you have to get started.

And on what your skill set really was.

The quickest way to actually make a living income is probably still posting gallerys - BUT - this is also one of the quickest ways to lose all your money if you aren't skilled enough.

This involves having enough money to buy a bunch of posting accounts, buy a bunch of content, etc. Presumably one already has the computer, graphic programs, and so on.

The safest way is to try to bootstrap your way into business - but you have to be willing to live on $600 a month for a year.

If you can ally yourself with a sucessful operating webmaster, and get some paying work in the adult webmaster services industry - doing reviews or otherwise working for someone else doing grunt labor - well, that would be a huge help.

I would say picking the right niches and sponsors to promote would be one of the critical success factors.

I could say a lot more, but it's a complicated subject, and so much depends on factors like how much money you have, how much you need, and how desperate you are...

[anteyes]

Does anyone here make a living solely doing freesites?

Useless Warrior...I totally agree, I still make so many sales from freesites over a year old...and tons of sale from hubs as well.

[Magnoody]

So much info from UW and Bill |thumb

- How much you are willing to start with.
- Select the right niche.
- Find a good reputable sponsor (and try new ones every here and there)
- Trying new things
- Analyzing, analyzing and analyzing <<<< THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT Factor in my opinion.where u are getting the most traffic.which traffic converts best.which paid spots returns the best roy. etc etc etc

[BlackCrayon]

im sure those who have been submitting since day and actually kept doing it are making a living off it. just imagine if you've submitted for the past 7 years daily, that would be over 2500 sites.

i hope to be making a couple grand a month after a few months doing this but maybe that is too optimistic. i remember submitting a few free sites to greenguy back in 98 but things were different then. i was making 7-10k a month off just 2 big free sites that i kept working on, instead of making new ones daily.

i guess i'll see how it goes. its somewhat discouraging tho. freesites, galleries, mpgs: these are all things people say you can't make a living off of anymore. seo is lucrative but i've never been able to figure out google and when i did, it never lasted long until things changed again. what other areas of adult are there for long term income?

makes me wonder how many people really make money in this biz, or just talk like they do.

[ponygirl]

ok...I've been doing freesites for a year now, but only full time for about the last 5-6 months and not one a day, either. Right now, I make enough most weeks to pay for itself & my groceries (I have 2 boys, if that gives you any idea what my groceies cost lol). If this was the only source of family income, we'd be dumpster hopping :D

BUT...I see the potential. If I have just over 100 fs out there right now & I'm making $xxx, then double that, then triple it, you get the idea. I have my LL that I'm constantly tweaking, and as soon as I have some time I'll be buying more domains & doing more of the same. I sub galleries once in a while to a couple of high traffic places & get some quick sales off those, but as UW said, a lot of my fs sales are from older sites.

It is possible to make a living, for me, anyway. It takes a hell of a lot of time, patience, and learning, but it is possible imo.

Ponygirl

[anteyes]

ok...I've been doing freesites for a year now, but only full time for about the last 5-6 months and not one a day, either. Right now, I make enough most weeks to pay for itself & my groceries (I have 2 boys, if that gives you any idea what my groceies cost lol). If this was the only source of family income, we'd be dumpster hopping :D

BUT...I see the potential. If I have just over 100 fs out there right now & I'm making $xxx, then double that, then triple it, you get the idea. I have my LL that I'm constantly tweaking, and as soon as I have some time I'll be buying more domains & doing more of the same. I sub galleries once in a while to a couple of high traffic places & get some quick sales off those, but as UW said, a lot of my fs sales are from older sites.

It is possible to make a living, for me, anyway. It takes a hell of a lot of time, patience, and learning, but it is possible imo.

Ponygirl


Do you do anything other than freesites? How often do you actually submit?

[ponygirl]

I mainly do freesites, that is where I'm getting the sales. I get the odd gallery listed too, but the freesites are what I focus on. I also have my hub turned LL - this mainly sucks time & doesn't return anything yet :D but it's got good pr & it's for the long term, while the freesites are mainly to get some fast cash.

Up till March I was working ft outside the house, so 2 freesites/week was good for me. Now I try to do 5/wk, but mostly end up with 4.

As you get better & faster at it, you will start to see more traffic, then more sales. I'm sure what I'm doing and making is piddly shit to a lot of people in this biz - in fact, I know it is :D but I'm not necessarily looking for the big bucks, just to make a living, like I would anywhere else. If that's what you're aiming for then I think it's possible, even probable, unless you give up too soon, or just totally suck :D

Main thing I have learned is that you have to have LOTS of patience - just like any other business, the first year is going to be the worst, you'll lose money & think of bailing every day, but get over the hump & it gets better.

well, that's my story & I'm stickin to it :D

EDIT - oh ya, and TIME - your family will hate you & complain they never see you, you will not sleep, your eyes will go buggy and your hands will cramp - just be prepared :D

[Linkster]

I can tell you that there are two pitfalls a large percentage of people fall into when starting with freesites - they try to use sponsor content and they go with the cheapest lowest bandwidth host they can.
While these sound like good ideas they have caused more problems for free site makers in the last two years than any others.
First - the content(free hosted stuff that is) - while its free and readily available - it (in most of the larger programs out there) has been used so many times that its just not going to get approved at LLs - or at least the LLs that will send sales - they want quality content for their surfers and you should want quality surfers - so I would recommend spending the 5 or 6 bucks it costs these days for a set of content per site and it will pay for itself in the long run

Second - the host - every day I look at 404s and "exceeded bandwidth" pages when Im checking my links - and all because the submitter wanted to shave 5 bucks off the cost of the hosting a month - it is in your best interests to always check around (pretty easy to do here with the amount of posts on the subject in the past) and pick someone thats not going to go out on you in 2 months.

Last - do I think its possible to make a living from free sites alone - not a chance - but then my idea of a living is probably different than yours - if you want to be making $1000 a week in a year - yeah thats very possible with free sites as long as you learn traffic routing and filtering, listen and read everything you can on this board, and do some of the tricks already posted here where you set up hubs of your free sites and work towards your own network of sites that "captures" surfers and builds their traffic.

[MrYum]

What a great thread!

Nice contributions everyone |thumb

Got into free sites a couple years ago...as the previous model had stopped working entirely. Won't even go into the sordid details of that :D

As others have stated...frequently, free site sales come much later down the road. That said, if you can find something fresh that's not overexposed yet...new sites can generate nice sales too. Just ran across one of those site recently...nice to see those quick sales and low ratios again!

Again as others mentioned, it really depends on what you need to live. Unfortunately, because of how and where I choose to live...this biz doesn't pay my bills. Fortunately, I've made some other decisions that have kept things alive.

And I'm constantly adapting what I do to streamline processes...find new traffic streams....grow the business. Not really any 'easy' roads in the biz these days, but at least it's a fun journey...and it's not boring!

There's always something new to learn...something new to try...that's actually one of my favorite parts of the biz :)

[Surfn]

I agree with Linkster. Dedication and perseverance and you should be earning $1000.00 per week in a year.

Like any business the more you put into it the more you get out.

[ponygirl]

where I live, $1000/wk is a decent living indeed :)
that's pretty inspiring coming from a couple of very respected & experienced folks here

guess I'll get back to work :D

[Bill]

C'mon, guys, it's not nice to taunt people.

I'd agree it's just barely possible a skilled businessperson could start with nothing and be making a kay a week in one year. But even that person, if they couldn't call on contacts for help, would be hard pressed.

For most people, that's just not possible anymore.

It was possible from the early days to about 2002. Now - not so much.

And by just _submitting_ freesites? I just don't see it. Where are all these people, if it's so easy?

I don't think anybody could do it from freesites alone, not from scratch, today.

[Linkster]

Bill - with perseverence and using good content, researching niches that convert as opposed to just doing general teen submits, I truly believe - and have seen proof of - that someone who worked their ass off for one year should be able to make that at least.
Granted it takes getting into posting on boards like this to do the networking thingie and getting some free help along the way (which also happens with the networking aspect) and researching the heck out of a niche - Ive seen it happen in the last year for some people - so its a reality in my mind

Your question about where these people are - they are few and far between - cause most people starting out just dont have the dedication to stick to it

[2msacras]

I've been doing free sites off and on for the past few years - semi steady since April of this year - but most of my sales come from other methods but I think freesites are always there with steady sales.

[ponygirl]

Your question about where these people are - they are few and far between - cause most people starting out just dont have the dedication to stick to it

I think that's a very big part of it - people seem to think porn is easy money and it's quite discouraging when you have a terrible week or even longer. I didn't say I thought it was easy, I don't think I will be making 1k/wk anytime soon :D

What I do believe is that if you are persistent, determined and don't give up, you can make a living from any business that you put your mind and skills to, in this biz or any other.

At least that's what they taught us in business school :D

[Surfn]

I think that's a very big part of it - people seem to think porn is easy money and it's quite discouraging when you have a terrible week or even longer. I didn't say I thought it was easy, I don't think I will be making 1k/wk anytime soon :D

What I do believe is that if you are persistent, determined and don't give up, you can make a living from any business that you put your mind and skills to, in this biz or any other.

At least that's what they taught us in business school :DIf it was easy girls would be doing it :D

[ponygirl]

If it was easy girls would be doing it :D
oooooh....someone's feeling brave tonite :D

[Surfn]

oooooh....someone's feeling brave tonite :D
On a serious note, if you treat it like business, work at it everyday, learn to network, learn from your mistakes, ask questions. You will be there.

The only limits are the ones we place on ourselves. There is a ton of money to be made. Granted it isn't as easy as it once was, but then neither is life.

[juggernaut]

I submit free sites to promo my site, all I can tell you is I think this would be very hard if not impossible. I see at most 12 to 16 unique’s a day from the sites I have submitted to. I submit to good link lists, not the big boys here but that mainly cause of my niche and the content I can provide for it, so I don’t waste their time submitting to them when I know they won’t take the sites from posts i have placed here asking about it. Personally I feel if you were going to do this for a living, you would have to really bust your ass with a shit load of sites and a really really good plan. There are tuts around on how it can be done with building a submitting around 10 per day, but they are some what old and I really can’t say if they would work as I have not tried them personally. I used them to figure out what I had to do. But look at the numbers people post here in their sales stats and then start doing to math and you will see what it takes to make money on it. Now how much money are you talking? If you are living in a 3rd world country where a pack of smokes cost $1 then maybe yes you can, but if you are living in the USA, you better get a day job cause for the whole 90 days odds are you wont make enough to put food on your table.

[ponygirl]

If you're strictly going to do only freesites, then yes, volume is definitely the key. If you are generally getting even 1:800 with a sponsor & you send 800 uniques/day to them, statistically you should be getting a sale a day. I know there are ups and downs, but if you evened it out over a long enough period, it probably would work out. The only thing would be to work out how many sites you need to build to get to the level of traffic that you need to make the $ you want. Basically, set a goal and work towards it.

What I have found, though, is that building freesites leads to other things...galleries, LinkLists or TGPs, hubs, more and more 'web presence'. All these things are a potential source of income.

The main thing is time. If you have a family to feed, mortgage to pay etc, then yes, get a day job & do this on the side. If you have alternate sources of income & can devote a ton of time to it, it will pay off.

[BlackCrayon]

so how does everyone pay their bills? not that i want answers to that but if the people submitting can't make a living off it, are most people here besides the linklist owners part timers? seems to be a bit much to expect people to used paid content when they won't even be able to make a living off it. i'll never forgive myself for not starting a linklist or tgp when i first got into the biz in 98. all those yummy backlinks i would of aquired over the years...no point in making myself depressed over it though. i make enough to keep doing this full time but i really miss making 10-20k a month. seems there are still lots of people making this, or they make it look like they do. i guess the traditional methods just don't work like they used to. the big money is in seo, creating new ways to spam and drive traffic direct from the source. the question is, how the hell do you do that when things are more restrictive than ever. working your ass off to make 4k/month a year down the road just doesn't seem worth it.

[th3g4me]

I plan on making a living from this stuff in the next 4 to 10 months (I been in again for 2 months) from... Free sites, galleries, some hubs, maybe a fake TGP, or LL, a blog, SE doorways, submit to some link dumps, and forums. I might pick up some google listings on the way?

I don't see it happening from free sites alone though...

I don't see making all these sites and etc as working my ass off. I call working my ass off, working in the mines, factory/plant, welding, being a mechanic, and doing construction, logging, or working on a farm. This... What people do online is... Kind of like being an artist. Set on your ass all day thinking creatively and getting paid for it.

I don't want to be impolite to any one, but when some one says that the new comers can not make it... It would be like the Duryea brothers saying no need for any one else to build a car we have one that works!

[ponygirl]

I don't see making all these sites and etc as working my ass off. I call working my ass off, working in the mines, factory/plant, welding, being a mechanic, and doing construction, logging, or working on a farm. This... What people do online is... Kind of like being an artist. Set on your ass all day thinking creatively and getting paid for it.

exactly. It's a matter of perspective. I definitely made a lot more money working in a 'cushy office job' but...was it fun? did I enjoy myself? did I meet interesting people? well it had it's moments :D but I'd rather make 4k a month doing this than doing that. I don't need 250k/yr to call it a living, or to be successful.

although there's always those goals :D

[juggernaut]

so how does everyone pay their bills? not that i want answers to that but if the people submitting can't make a living off it, are most people here besides the linklist owners part timers? seems to be a bit much to expect people to used paid content when they won't even be able to make a living off it. i'll never forgive myself for not starting a linklist or tgp when i first got into the biz in 98. all those yummy backlinks i would of aquired over the years...no point in making myself depressed over it though. i make enough to keep doing this full time but i really miss making 10-20k a month. seems there are still lots of people making this, or they make it look like they do. i guess the traditional methods just don't work like they used to. the big money is in seo, creating new ways to spam and drive traffic direct from the source. the question is, how the hell do you do that when things are more restrictive than ever. working your ass off to make 4k/month a year down the road just doesn't seem worth it.You can always do what I did. Marry a hot chick who works on cam. Then you can sit home and work on sites. She pulls in 5k a month easy. And we pay our bills by check. But seriously its like anything else, work work work. Know the business enough to keep your head above water. But I do think that some if not most have other means of income. IE advertising spots on sites can cost you 1k per month. I don't know why you dont put up a LL? I would think if done correctly in a short period of time you would have some great backlinks. This is just like any other business. Thats why they call it the adult business. There is no way of getting rich quick, but just like opening up a store front it will take time and hard work. I think to many people get into this thinking they will just wake up at 11am, work on their site to 2pm and then call it a day and watch the money roll in. If it was that easy everyone would be doing it. The good thing about this business unlike others, is it will still pay off if you work hard and dont give up. You just have to be willing to pick yourself up when you make a mistake and drive on. Other industries are not that forgiving. As far as your 4k a month dont seem worth it comment. I have to disagree. Thats 50k a year. And thats a good living. Not great but good enough to live off of.

[Halfdeck]

I made my first sale on October 10 of last year off my first free site I made I subbed to LOR and 2 other places.

Looking back, most of my sales aren't free sites related, so I wish I could say free sites are lucrative but I really don't know. The last free site I built a few weeks ago made 4 sales in 2 weeks, but that's from pouring on my own traffic besides submitting it to 6 LLs.

Some of my mini sites turn 400 clickthrus into 4-5 sales a period, and others do 1:1000 but I just hammer it with traffic...the bottom line is more pages out there, the better your chances are, but to make it easier on yourself, link to a good tour, offer bookmarkers a good product that sells themselves (do a little research on what you're actually selling), and avoid "selling shoes to people looking for boots." Usually, when I run into a site that makes me want to enter my credit card info, that's the site I promote and usually it'll make money for me.

I'm working on a bookmarkable site now... Although the site isn't getting anywhere near what I want in terms of uniques/day, and its indexed but not placing at all in the SEs, I am seeing a few sales with ratios like 1:2 and 1:60s off inside pages and it sells sites I hardly promote, so it has potential, just a pain in the ass to work on it every day.. :)

One thing I've found about ratios like 1:800 is when it's that bad, I need to filter it and make it harder to get to the paysite. Send surfers who REALLY want to go to the tour to the paysite, keep the rest of the traffic and sell them something else.

[tickler]

...researching niches that convert as opposed to just doing general teen submits, .... and researching the heck out of a niche
I would highly recommend checking out some of the TV shoes like Kink, if you can get access to it.

I found out more about latex and all the related products after watching a half hour show, then months of surfing SEs would have provided. Another one recently explained the difference between balloon fetish "players" and "poppers". And they really don't get along with each other.

I even started researching a couple of niches after seeing them on CSI. One show had Plushies & Furries, another episode had a Biting fetish character.

[Surfn]

I can tell by how often a person submits their level of commitment to making this a full time biz. And I can tell by the quality of their submits if they are going in the right direction to succeed.

This isn't rocket science. It's just plain hard work.

[Simon]

I would highly recommend checking out some of the TV shoes like Kink, if you can get access to it.

I found out more about latex and all the related products after watching a half hour show, then months of surfing SEs would have provided. Another one recently explained the difference between balloon fetish "players" and "poppers". And they really don't get along with each other.

I even started researching a couple of niches after seeing them on CSI. One show had Plushies & Furries, another episode had a Biting fetish character.
This is most excellent advice for anyone looking to promote fetishes that they're not personally into.

Niche markets are one thing, fetish niches are something else. When you're selling to a need instead of a want/desire, then the whole platform you build your copy on is different. Having at least a basic understanding of what the fetish is, what drives people to it, how they explore and exploit their fetish, how it's portrayed publicly versus in private... all those things can be important if you want to have your marketing speak to the actual fetishists too and not just the curious newbies.

And yeah, you don't want the balloon players and poppers at the same party. Almost as bad as a group of weekend/bedroom-only bdsm players talking to a bunch of Gorean lifestylers. :D

Simon

[selena]

~ears perk at the mention of Gorean~

[neveremail]

After some work you should be able make a freesite and submit it in 2 hours (3 hours max) and I'm sure some ppl can do it quicker. If you expect to make a living off 2 hours work a day then you would have to be crazy.

That leaves you atleast 5 hours to do something else and get your hands in many pies!

[Toby]

Some very excellent advice in this discussion. The fetish niche comments in particular caught my attention.

The premise of the question is strictly building and submitting free sites, but there are some other things that go along with that which aren't strictly building and submitting that also need to be done in order to maximize that effort. Namely a hub site or sites and all that goes with it, such as link trades, traffic filtering, etc.

[emmanuelle]

I would highly recommend checking out some of the TV shoes like Kink, if you can get access to it.

I found out more about latex and all the related products after watching a half hour show, then months of surfing SEs would have provided. Another one recently explained the difference between balloon fetish "players" and "poppers". And they really don't get along with each other.

I even started researching a couple of niches after seeing them on CSI. One show had Plushies & Furries, another episode had a Biting fetish character.


Tickler, I apologize in advance for this.
The producers of Kink, (who I know personally) have no f&$%ing clue. I have never met anyone with their head shoved so high up their rectum.
summary: caveat emptor

If you are looking for a decent fetish reference, I would recommend Deviant Desires, written by Katherine Gates

http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?id=3293051233439&isbn=1890451037

It will really give you a good idea of what is going on inside the heads of your target market.
Television programs thrive on exploitation and drama to make themselves interesting rather than credible

[anteyes]

Just out of curiosity, with the bigger freesite submitters (people who have submitted over 300 or 400 freesites), how many sites do you actually have out there? Are they still bringing in substantial revenue?

[Bill]

I'm not trying to discourage anybody from anything. I just think there's a ton of bullshit that flies around in this business, and like I said, I don't think it's nice to taunt people.

If it's so easy to make 50k a year just from freesites, where are the people here in this community, here at GG&Js, that are doing it? All I ever hear is talk about how little money most people are making.

I guess all the 50k from freesites guys only post at gfy.

If you make 360 freesites a year, and get an average of 4 $35 sales per freesite, you can gross 50k. Both of those are unrealistic numbers.

I'm not saying you can't make 50k a year in this biz, absolutely you can.

But, 50k a year from freesites? After a year? Starting from scratch? I don't believe it.

People have a tendency to exaggerate how much money they are making.

How do you think this makes the folks who are only able to make 15k or 20k a year from freesites feel?

[sue-fl]

Thanks for the great thread everyone! I make money off of my free sites. Not a 1000 a week but make money. I don't ever expect to make 50k a year it would be nice but I don't have my expectations near that high.

What I have done in the year and a half since I started is spend money. Mostly in content so far. I invested in content and housing before I was making a dime. I have a fake tgp with galleries that I link to on all my free sites. I also have a link list which has all my free sites and my sponsors free sites, plus submits. I have noticed that I'm getting sales now from my tgp, not my link list yet.

So I have invested the money and certainly the time, as I feel like I live on my pc! I usually make four free sites a week, on average. My next step is to invest in some better programs for my pc to make better sites, logos etc.

So can you make a living off of free sites that I don't know. My husband is the income maker this is more or less spending money, and unexpected expensive money for us. So I'm happy with what I'm making a month at this point. Do I want to make more money? Shit yeah and I can tell you I would not be sitting here an average of a least 8 hours a day every day if I didn't.

I hope I'm on the right track with how I'm doing things and it will continue to pay off for me. The first week if ever I make 1000 dollars you'll all hear me celebrating from here..... |thumb

Great advice everyone and good luck to all of us!

[Surfn]

Life is about choices. Each of us make them every day. You can listen to positive people that try to help or you can listen to negative people who have a hidden agenda.

Most of the posters on this board need help and there are some willing to help them. Others want to shut you out to keep more of the pie for themselves.

The people that are making good money usually help people that are trying and appreciate their help. It's your life and your choice who to listen to.

Good Luck :)

[Linkster]

Bill - please reread what I said - after 1 year with the use of all the tools (hubs etc) along with those 360 free sites (and hopefully people still submit to places like DMOZ and other SEs with a made for SE copy of their free sites) starting that second year $1k a week should be average - to break it down to a certain # of sales per free site is not realistic as you will get sales from your "mousetrap" sites, traffic pumps and hubs that you have built along with these free sites (hopefully) although realistically at the one year point you would really only need 2 sales per free site out there if you were still building as after one year you have 360 plus the sites you are building today.
To those making 15-20k a year from submitting free sites I would only say that you could increase your income quite a bit - its not an easy biz and unfortunately that is why so few actually stay in the free site end of it - that compounded with the fear generation that has plagued this industry for the last year has dropped the number of submitters drastically. To me that just means there are even more opportunities out there :)

[BlackCrayon]

You can always do what I did. Marry a hot chick who works on cam. Then you can sit home and work on sites. She pulls in 5k a month easy. And we pay our bills by check. But seriously its like anything else, work work work. Know the business enough to keep your head above water. But I do think that some if not most have other means of income. IE advertising spots on sites can cost you 1k per month. I don't know why you dont put up a LL? I would think if done correctly in a short period of time you would have some great backlinks. This is just like any other business. Thats why they call it the adult business. There is no way of getting rich quick, but just like opening up a store front it will take time and hard work. I think to many people get into this thinking they will just wake up at 11am, work on their site to 2pm and then call it a day and watch the money roll in. If it was that easy everyone would be doing it. The good thing about this business unlike others, is it will still pay off if you work hard and dont give up. You just have to be willing to pick yourself up when you make a mistake and drive on. Other industries are not that forgiving. As far as your 4k a month dont seem worth it comment. I have to disagree. Thats 50k a year. And thats a good living. Not great but good enough to live off of.

yeah, 4k a month is a decent living but it taking one year of work just to achieve it is what i think isn't worth it. i'd imagine there are other more lucrative things you could work at for one year straight and make much more.

i know the online adult industry isn't get rich quick but it used to be, for me at least. when i first started doing this i was making 10k a month within 6 months. i spent years waking up at noon working for a couple hours a day and partying the rest still pulling in good money. i guess all of that has spoiled me because now all i can think of is how much better it was back then.

as for the reason i don't start a linklist now, its too late to be a greenguy, or a tommy, or xxxjays. no one is gonna submit to a site that doesn't have hundreds of thousands of hits per day.

i've just got to face the fact that things are very different now and will never return to the days of old but if i can't make 50k a year working 8 hours a day at whatever in the online adult world, i think i'll have to find another area of work but i can't for the life of me imagine working for someone else now, after all these years of freedom.

[Bill]

Linkster, I feel I know exactly what you mean. Working a whole system, taking advantage of all the traffic oppurtunities out there, tapping search engine money (which is a lot _slower_ these days than it used to be, remember, if you are starting from scratch), I agree, a skilled person could do it.

I believe I could probably do it, for instance. But I sure as hell would hate to have to try.

But that's not from freesites alone. The traffic coming from linklists alone is just not that lucrative these days.

I understand the point you are trying to make - but, I think you are splitting hairs here, and going fairly far outside the original scope of the question.

I don't want people to feel bad because they aren't seeing that 50k a year you are suggesting should be "fairly easy to make".

I keep coming back to one essential point - if it's so easy, where are the people doing it?

Because the only people I see doing it are the oldtimers with established networks and a wealth of contacts and skill and resources.

[neveremail]

Linkster, I feel I know exactly what you mean. Working a whole system, taking advantage of all the traffic oppurtunities out there, tapping search engine money (which is a lot _slower_ these days than it used to be, remember, if you are starting from scratch), I agree, a skilled person could do it.

I believe I could probably do it, for instance. But I sure as hell would hate to have to try.

But that's not from freesites alone. The traffic coming from linklists alone is just not that lucrative these days.

I understand the point you are trying to make - but, I think you are splitting hairs here, and going fairly far outside the original scope of the question.

I don't want people to feel bad because they aren't seeing that 50k a year you are suggesting should be "fairly easy to make".

I keep coming back to one essential point - if it's so easy, where are the people doing it?

Because the only people I see doing it are the oldtimers with established networks and a wealth of contacts and skill and resources.

I think Linkster is trying to say if someone who is prepared to work really really hard at it can achive it. But I'd agree with you on saying dont get your hopes up.

I have read a few tutorials of experienced webmasters pretending they were newbies staring from scratch to show you can make money (LB did one on netpond) and they make it look much easier than it actually is.

[ArtWilliams]

If you make 360 freesites a year, and get an average of 4 $35 sales per freesite, you can gross 50k. Both of those are unrealistic numbers.


But is the relationship straight line, as you suggest, or exponential? I don't know and maybe some of the more successful people can straighten me out but is there a threshold of sites and links at which you make more money than just a 1:1 ratio?

---art

[tickler]

Tickler, I apologize in advance for this.

Not required E. I was just trying to point out that there are other places besides the net to explore. And many other TV shows also.

[Linkster]

artwilliams - it is pretty much exponential if you are using the things I suggest like hubs and other traffic filtering devices. Which is why I stick to the basic notion that anyone that is willing to put the 12-14 hours a day that this would require into actually doing it - I know for a fact that those levels of money can be made - Ive seen it done first-hand, however Im kinda reluctant to point out any names without their permission.

Bill - as far as having to be an old-timer or not - I dont believe that has anything to do with it - the people I have watched do this exact thing have taken it upon themselves to network on this and other boards, go to the shows and build those relationships over that first year that get them a few extra bennies with LLs and other traffic sources. Im sorry but maybe this whole "plan" I am talking about is outside your definition of just making free sites - and you are correct - if someone just wants to spend 2 hours a day making and submitting free sites every day - they are going to be limited to the 10-15k or so a year. I have always considered making free sites a part of a complete free site package which is what I kinda base my thoughts on :)

[mrenaud]

I just got into doing Free sites full time about 4 weeks ago. I'm not up to building one a day yet, I'm getting about 5-6 a week done. I quit my job to do this full time also. I saw the 1000/week # tossed around in this thread, and that's actually my goal. A year from now I hope to be making 1K a week. I would be extremely happy with that result. 1K a week USD is not bad at all when you live in Canada and are 25 years old. That's just my goal though.

I should add that I'm going to be doing 2 galleries a day on top of my free site. I've been told by some very knowlegable people in this biz that's the formula too follow.

So hopefully I'll be here in a year saying "Fuck yeah, I'm finally making 1K a week!". Not that a year is a long time! Buidling a business, any business takes extreme hardwork and dedication and it takes many years for people to get where thay are today.

[PR_Tom]

It can be a tough business. There's people making money from free sites, the link pages of their own where they list them, the extra ads on such pages.. Their whole network of sites. I can see it in their stats, so I'm sure.
It's not just getting a free site to a link list though, it's building up from there.

There has to be a willingness to learn also, and attend the chats even if you think you know what you're doing and can do no wrong :) The old "80/20/10" rule is in full force at all times. You can tell 10 people exactly what to do to make money, 8 wont do it for whatever reason (too hard, too much work, dont understand etc), 2 will try to apply it, and only 1 will succeed with it. So you have to be that 1 in 10 person and sprinkle on a little luck.

Try new things. Here's something that is a truism I guess.
"If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten.".

So if you submit 10 freesites a week and get 1 sale a week and never change anything, then you'll get 1 sale a week for the rest of your life.

Try a new format, try a new sponsor, try a new site at your sponsor, try a new niche you've never tried before. Try a different content provider, try making your pics bigger. Try asking a link list owner what category gets the most raw hits. Try submitting to new link lists, try old link lists you never really tried. Try finding link lists with search engines. *ANYTHING* new!! Ever open photoshop to make a custom banner? Try it!!

You can most definitely make money from "just free sites" as long as that doesnt mean index, main, 2 galleries and submit. It's alot more than that.

[plateman]

great read guys and I got a little bummed out reading what bill said, but I see what I am doing now and know what needs to be done to go to the next level, I remember what linkster said a long time ago - it takes a min 1 year just to get the hang of this and a good buddy of mine who is making well over 50k a year didnt make hardly anything there first year.. I am going on my 3 year and started a LL just after 10 free sites built..

Is the LL doing as good as I want it to be - NO but that isnt no problem, start another one and target a specific SE,

dont waste a lot of time in a LL early on - build and build and you will soon see that free sites just dont generate a lot of traffic, so go to galleries...

IMO you need a 100k a day of traffic coming into a domain root all filtered out to your free sites and galleries to make a good income... you got to see those big traffic numbers to make bank..

the older LL owners by 5-10 years have the traffic that makes them decent money and with free sites and galleries they can make killer cash..

heck some people have 2 or 3 LL a bunch of smaller hubs and been subbing galleries everyday for years and know wich ones convert the best..

the question was just free sites, I know for a fact that you can make 8 to 9 hundred a month steady off of 100 SE friendly that gets se traffic - so do the math..

yes this biz is a lot of work and when you work for your self it is a lot of work..

[Linkster]

"If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten.".


Tom - thats gotta be one of my favorite quotes of all time - and so very true! And it applies to everything in life - not just this biz - I used to have that and one other quote hanging on my wall of my office at the corporate job I worked for some time - and finally I "got it" and took the step getting into this full time :)

BTW - my other favorite quote was "you are either part of the steam roller or part of the road"

[Bill]

Funny thing, I started this debate thinking it would cheer people up, apparently it had the opposite effect.

So I reverse my position. Making a k a week is fairly easy in this business.

Me, I have to make a k a week just to make my nut. ("making the nut" means to cover business expenses, taxes, and basic living expenses - it's an old business expression) If I can do it, anyone should be able to do it, because, frankly, I don't work that hard.

So, everthing I was saying, I was just kidding. If you're not making 50k in a year, I'm sure you will be soon.

As I've always said, this is the best home-based business ever invented. I truly believe that.

So, like I said, I was just kidding.

[Useless]

I like the much more realistic approach to business than the motivational speaker approach. Most of us don't have the "if I can dream it, I can do it attitude" because we are realists. Being a realist doesn't mean were necesarily pessimistic either. We're just willing to acknowledge the known hurdles and toss in normal human behaviour. Most people aren't going to build 5-6 free sites per week and submit them. Why? It's bloody boring, that's why. Most of the shit we do is really fucking mundane. When I say that someone can't come along and make a living off of free sites, I'm not saying that it's entirely impossible. I'm saying that the average person couldn't. You'd need to be a mix of highly motivated and skilled. Most aren't.

[ponygirl]

nothing anyone else can say will discourage me. If I need to feel discouraged, I can do a fine job all by myself, thank you :D

the point to me is not 'can I get rich' doing this, it's can I make enough money to keep doing it ft, pay my personal bills & still have enough money left to put some back into it. So far, the answer has been yes, because to be honest, I really don't invest that much cash in it right now. Content & bandwidth is cheap, and I can see that freesites will provide me with enough to do what I want to do. A year from now, I will have more domains, more hubs, maybe get into more gallery posts, etc. whatever, but I won't be doing just freesites & expecting to be making 50k.
Most people here know that, I think.

It's a business. I didn't get into porn just cuz I like looking at naked people ya know :D

Being mean is not helpful, being realistic is. This discussion has been very helpful imo. |thumb

[Halfdeck]

As long as I see more sales the harder I work, I'll be happy in this biz. And no, I won't build free sites every damn day because that'll drive me crazy. Maybe I need to sit myself down and set up a well-oiled system where i can build free sites a day in 30 min flat, but that's another story.

Unlike working for a boss, there's no one in this biz telling you you're only gonna get paid X dollars an hour after working there for 20 years or you gotta come into work at Y am or get fired because you messed something up.

Realistic is good, but no one really knows what real is. 50 years ago, there was no Ebay or ipod or HDTV. You can either accept that, or change it.

Hmm... that all sounded like a motivational speaker approach:D

Here's a dose of reality: "Many are called, few are chosen."

[MrYum]

Very true...I've done the 'cranking out free sites' approach. Frankly, I pretty much burned myself out on it. It does get boring and tedious as hell after a while.

So, now I'm still lauching new free sites, but not on the 3/day scale I was doing for a while.

Yes, there is certainly money to be made in the business. The thing that keeps me going at it is I really figure as long as there are men on the planet...there will be porn :D

As has been alluded to already, it takes a wider approach than just free sites. It's actually one of the very cool things about this biz...there are lots of ways to generate traffic/revenue. And exploring some of those other avenues beyond just free sites also helps keep the burnout at bay to some extent.

The kinds of hours we work are certainly prime for burnout. I've been stuck in that mindset for the past few weeks, but think I've finally shaken it off and am ready to get jiggy with things again :D

[mrenaud]

It comes down to how motivated and driven one is. Either you do the things needed to be successful or you don't.

Of all the people I know who own successful businesses (there are a lot) not one of them got to where they are without a plan and working hard to execute that plan. There are no short cuts to success!

With that in mind I need to build some sites |thumb

[Surfn]

nothing anyone else can say will discourage me. If I need to feel discouraged, I can do a fine job all by myself, thank you :D

the point to me is not 'can I get rich' doing this, it's can I make enough money to keep doing it ft, pay my personal bills & still have enough money left to put some back into it. So far, the answer has been yes, because to be honest, I really don't invest that much cash in it right now. Content & bandwidth is cheap, and I can see that freesites will provide me with enough to do what I want to do. A year from now, I will have more domains, more hubs, maybe get into more gallery posts, etc. whatever, but I won't be doing just freesites & expecting to be making 50k.
Most people here know that, I think.

It's a business. I didn't get into porn just cuz I like looking at naked people ya know :D

Being mean is not helpful, being realistic is. This discussion has been very helpful imo. |thumbYou are on your way keep it up |thumb

[ponygirl]

You are on your way keep it up |thumb

Thank you, Surfn - that's very encouraging
|blowkiss|

this board has some of the best porn slingers around, you guys are such a wealth of information, anyone who hangs around here on a regular basis is bound to learn a thing or two ;)

[Jel]

I was going to post quite a long post, but it turned into a garbled mish-mash of shit, so instead:

Yes, I think you can make 50k a year from freesites. In your first year, starting from absolute scratch with no knowledge, no sales expertise, like many of us (myself for sure) started? Nope. In your second year? Yep.

[BlackCrayon]

i find writing down a schedule for yourself can help, or chop things up into days. make 7 free sites one day, use the galleries from the free sites to make galleries to submit the next. dedicate one day for SE work and another day for various other projects. its hard to keep up without someone on your ass but thats how it goes when you're self employed. i just gotta get used to working 8 hour days again. it still pisses me off how as the years pass we have to work harder for less income.

[Bill]

But is the relationship straight line, as you suggest, or exponential? I don't know and maybe some of the more successful people can straighten me out but is there a threshold of sites and links at which you make more money than just a 1:1 ratio?

---art

Well, this is a little complicated.

With the submit and forget strategy, it's pretty much a straight line decline. Over time fewer and fewer links will bring traffic to the site, and even if you are using unique keywords the SE traffic will also collapse.

If you support freesites within your own complete network, the length of time that the site draws in signups is much longer. This is what I do, and it's what Linkster is talking about, or rather, a part of what linkster is talking about.

But, when you analyze a freeites performance over a year, you will see for yourself that, on the average, it's possible to asign a value, a number of signups, for each freesite you make.

My measurements suggest a good free site builder can expect to get about 3 full value signups per freesite.

Why is this so low? Because you have to constantly vary niche, site type, and sale stechnique in order to get your 5 sites accepted to the big guys each week.

You can't always use the best content, the best sales method, the best banner, in the best positions. One does one's best, but some percentage of freesites are going to have dissapointing sales. For the freesite that makes ten sales there are two freesites that make a half sale each, or no sales.

You get an average.

Over on GFY blue_spade suggested that figure should be about $60, two $30 signups.

I think for me the average works out to about 3.25 sales per freesite built. I prefer $35 sponsors but you have to factor in the lower value signups. So lets be generous and average it out to $105 per freesite.

(edit: I need to amend this, it was that figure for me at the beginning of 2003. Now, that figure is much lower, but I haven't done the math. I estimate it at about $80-90. But, blue_spade's 2 signups could be closer to my current figure than I like to think.)

Now, with good overall strategy you leverage that out over time, so the freesite maybe makes 3 sales the next year, two the following year, and four the year after that.

Over time, that means we folks with older networks start making pretty decent money.

[anteyes]

With the submit and forget strategy, it's pretty much a straight line decline. Over time fewer and fewer links will bring traffic to the site, and even if you are using unique keywords the SE traffic will also collapse.
Sure, it is a decline per individual freesite, but your overall traffic network is at a constant increase. Let's just say as an example that you submit one freesite every day and maintain about 3000 hits to your sites overall. After awhile, every single one of those sites is going to be picked up by search engines and add a little extra traffic. So, you will have the 3000 hits daily + lets just say 10 hits per day per each freesite, so you could almost say that as each day goes by, your overall traffic network increases by x (search engine traffic or whatever else) so there is an increase over time. Link sites, hubs, and otherwise will definetely increase that network and your bottom line as well.

[Bill]

In that quote I specified _submit and forget_. That will produce a fairly straight line decline of profitability. Test it. See if I'm wrong.

In the lines you didn't quote I described some of the numbers that could be seen, that I have seen personally, in a complete system. So, I already talked about what you just suggested as an alternative to my comment about the straight decline.

I said this, "Now, with good overall strategy you leverage that out over time, so the freesite maybe makes 3 sales the next year, two the following year, and four the year after that.

Over time, that means we folks with older networks start making pretty decent money."

Traffic doesn't increase endlessly. It tends to reach a average level, and, if you are good at what you do, stay roughly at that level. This level is based on how much work you are doing, and on your traffic strategies, and also on the seasonal and stochastic distribution of traffic generally on any given day or month.

Traffic isn't infinite, and adult traffic has in general been slowly declining and slowly becoming less profitable.

Search engine traffic has also declined, in general, altho some types of pages are doing better now than, say, two years ago. But, the little freesite has much less chance of a listing that will actually bring hits now than ever before.

(I'm simplifying the factors involved in average levels of traffic, for the sake of simplifying this discussion.)

The bottom line is that everyone has to do the measurements for themselves. Some niches and sales strategies might give a better average number of sales per freesite - shemale has that reputation.

So, I invite you to work the numbers. Count how mnay sites per week you can realistically submit, and average out how many sales you get.

[anteyes]

In that quote I specified _submit and forget_. That will produce a fairly straight line decline of profitability. Test it. See if I'm wrong.

In the lines you didn't quote I described some of the numbers that could be seen, that I have seen personally, in a complete system. So, I already talked about what you just suggested as an alternative to my comment about the straight decline.

I said this, "Now, with good overall strategy you leverage that out over time, so the freesite maybe makes 3 sales the next year, two the following year, and four the year after that.

Over time, that means we folks with older networks start making pretty decent money."

Traffic doesn't increase endlessly. It tends to reach a average level, and, if you are good at what you do, stay roughly at that level. This level is based on how much work you are doing, and on your traffic strategies, and also on the seasonal and stochastic distribution of traffic generally on any given day or month.

Traffic isn't infinite, and adult traffic has in general been slowly declining and slowly becoming less profitable.

Search engine traffic has also declined, in general, altho some types of pages are doing better now than, say, two years ago. But, the little freesite has much less chance of a listing that will actually bring hits now than ever before.

(I'm simplifying the factors involved in average levels of traffic, for the sake of simplifying this discussion.)

The bottom line is that everyone has to do the measurements for themselves. Some niches and sales strategies might give a better average number of sales per freesite - shemale has that reputation.

So, I invite you to work the numbers. Count how mnay sites per week you can realistically submit, and average out how many sales you get.

So, if a person was to take many niches and target the SE's for several varying keywords (shemale sex, shemales fucking, shemale ass, etc and when they run out do bbw sex, bbw ass, bbw tits, etc and on and on) and achieves them to an extent (not necessarily first page, but getting some traffic) and they do this for every niche and as many keywords as possible, you say that the profitability will decline? Why is that?

At what point do you think the decline starts happening? 100 freesites? 1000?

I would just think that if targeting many niches with different kw's for the SE's, traffic would slowly increase over time, and not really plateau.

I guess there could be the eventual deindexing of old old sites that could most definetely cause a plateau. What do you think?

Oh, and sorry if this post doesn't make sense, heh...just trying to put my thoughts into text :)

[Bill]

Ahhh, I think we might be having some confusion about terms that I'm using.

When I say "a straight line of decline" for certain type of freesites, that is, build and forget freesites, what I mean is that a certain type of freesite is most likely to make sales when it is first listed, and is getting the most traffic it will ever get from new listings. Then, as time goes on, it's probability of making sales drops in roughly a straight line. It becomes stale, all the biggest linklists drop the listing after a certain number of months, and surfers have seen the site before.

Such a site is likely to make a total average of, lets say, two and a half sales during it's active lifetime. So, lets say it's worth 30+30+15=$75.

Lots of niches are lucky to see a sale per site. Lots of niches only make a sale every two sites. Some niches make 6-8 sales per site. But you get an average.

If you put that site into a complete system, where you link to it again and again from new hub pages, and use it as a listing in a fake linklist, and so on, you can extend it's value. But even in that case sites tend to go slowly stale. Sponsors get overused, content gets seen too many times.

This is another type of decline, but it's not what I meant when I talked about a straight line decline. A straight line decline happens with _unsupported_ freesites and galleries.

People will tell you about "That old site I built years ago just made another sale...", and that is a very real phenomenon, but this is a type of selective perception - they forget about the dozens and hundreds of other old sites that are making fewer sale sthan they used to make.

In the search engines, pages are constantly being forced further and further back in the serps, and you have to work steadily to keep your pages alive. Unless you are using a centralized strategy - basically, unless you have a sucessful linklist or tgp with a steady flow of thousands of incoming links, your freesites will tend to dissappear. This isn't an absolute for every site, but it is pretty much an absolute for your 'average' site. On the average , all pages are falling out of the serps.

A hard worker, who is constantly exploring and exploiting new traffic sources, can slowly increase their average traffic pretty consistently - but this is substantially harder that it sounds in theory, becuase everyone else is also trying to hold and increase their pool of traffic.

[anteyes]

Ahhh, I think we might be having some confusion about terms that I'm using.

When I say "a straight line of decline" for certain type of freesites, that is, build and forget freesites, what I mean is that a certain type of freesite is most likely to make sales when it is first listed, and is getting the most traffic it will ever get from new listings. Then, as time goes on, it's probability of making sales drops in roughly a straight line. It becomes stale, all the biggest linklists drop the listing after a certain number of months, and surfers have seen the site before.

Such a site is likely to make a total average of, lets say, two and a half sales during it's active lifetime. So, lets say it's worth 30+30+15=$75.

Lots of niches are lucky to see a sale per site. Lots of niches only make a sale every two sites. Some niches make 6-8 sales per site. But you get an average.

If you put that site into a complete system, where you link to it again and again from new hub pages, and use it as a listing in a fake linklist, and so on, you can extend it's value. But even in that case sites tend to go slowly stale. Sponsors get overused, content gets seen too many times.

This is another type of decline, but it's not what I meant when I talked about a straight line decline. A straight line decline happens with _unsupported_ freesites and galleries.

People will tell you about "That old site I built years ago just made another sale...", and that is a very real phenomenon, but this is a type of selective perception - they forget about the dozens and hundreds of other old sites that are making fewer sale sthan they used to make.

In the search engines, pages are constantly being forced further and further back in the serps, and you have to work steadily to keep your pages alive. Unless you are using a centralized strategy - basically, unless you have a sucessful linklist or tgp with a steady flow of thousands of incoming links, your freesites will tend to dissappear. This isn't an absolute for every site, but it is pretty much an absolute for your 'average' site. On the average , all pages are falling out of the serps.

A hard worker, who is constantly exploring and exploiting new traffic sources, can slowly increase their average traffic pretty consistently - but this is substantially harder that it sounds in theory, becuase everyone else is also trying to hold and increase their pool of traffic.


Ok, yeah, I think I did misunderstand ya at first. I always thought of the submit and forget principle a little differently, which included adding the sites to hubs/etc. I guess that is not really forgetting :)

I totally agree that if just creating generic freesites that after a certain period, they would go bye bye...just like galleries to an extent.

I know what you mean though about the eventual decline in All sites from the search engines over time. I think that once you reach that point though (if you submit constantly and support those sites) you should be doing pretty well though, so the decline won't affect you too hard.

[stfuvt]

great info here :)

[jds]

Noob question : Could I see an exemple of a hub please ?

[Surfn]

Here ya go (http://www.fj40.us/hubpics.html) ;)

[jds]

Here ya go (http://www.fj40.us/hubpics.html) ;)

It's not funny .... well actually it is |jester|

I was more waiting for this (http://www.usbfirewire.com/Parts/rr-fw-hub-6portbig.jpg) in fact but anyway |huh

[KG Gary]

You folks are insane!
:D

Noob question : Could I see an exemple of a hub please ?
There's a few examples of what people consider to be hubs in this thread from a while back:
(I think it's still relevant two years on)
http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/showthread.php?t=3130

Hope that helps.
:)

[Bill]

Hubs can take a thousand different forms, from highly niched to very general, from a single full page ad to a thousand page fully developed search engine content site.

Here's an example of one of my hubs, which looks like a small linklist.

http://www.2freeporno.com/

I have a few dozen hubs of various types. When you are starting out, one will do perfectly fine.

It's basically a page or site on which you list your own domains, pages, freesites, gallerys, and whatever else you want. It can include reviews, full page ads, link exchanges with your friends, listings of your friends freesites (friends who list your freesites on their hub), articles you write, jokes, images to attract google images traffic, and whatever else you like.

The example I gave is a clean hub, no popups or tricks, but some people swear by dirty hubs that pop chains and are filled with blind links and traps.

The common practice is to include links to your hub on your freesites as part of your allowed links.

[jds]

Ok I get it, thanks bill that's appreciated

[jds]

You folks are insane!
:D


There's a few examples of what people consider to be hubs in this thread from a while back:
(I think it's still relevant two years on)
http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/showthread.php?t=3130

Hope that helps.
:)

Thanks for the link too. I'll read all that carefully

[juggernaut]

yeah, 4k a month is a decent living but it taking one year of work just to achieve it is what i think isn't worth it. i'd imagine there are other more lucrative things you could work at for one year straight and make much more.
I have to disagree with you here man. Sorry I did not reply to this sooner but I dont get alot of the posts in my email and I guess thats a good thing as it would drive me crazy. But look at what you just said here. Honestly I know people that went to college for 4 years, became lawyers, finanical consultants for huge fortune 500 companies out of NYC and it took them at a minium 3 years to even make that type of money. Hell my one friend thought he would leave law school and start out with a 6 figure gig. HE was shocked and very depressed for a long time when he looked over his bill from school and then saw his 35k a year paycheck.
Sure there are more things someone could do for 1 year and maybe make more money,but are they legal? But I'm going to go out on a limb here and think you are somewhat young and have no idea. Cause if you did you would either be making more money or not saying that comment. When I was in 11th grade some came into my school and asked us what we thought we would be making or expected to make right out of school in a job. I said 50k and he laughed. I thought he was wrong, be he was right. Dude 50k is not something easy to come by in any job. Look in the papers, internet or where ever and tell me what jobs you think someone can pull in that money with 1 years worth of exp or less.

[ponygirl]

I have to disagree with you here man. Sorry I did not reply to this sooner but I dont get alot of the posts in my email and I guess thats a good thing as it would drive me crazy. But look at what you just said here. Honestly I know people that went to college for 4 years, became lawyers, finanical consultants for huge fortune 500 companies out of NYC and it took them at a minium 3 years to even make that type of money. Hell my one friend thought he would leave law school and start out with a 6 figure gig. HE was shocked and very depressed for a long time when he looked over his bill from school and then saw his 35k a year paycheck.
Sure there are more things someone could do for 1 year and maybe make more money,but are they legal? But I'm going to go out on a limb here and think you are somewhat young and have no idea. Cause if you did you would either be making more money or not saying that comment. When I was in 11th grade some came into my school and asked us what we thought we would be making or expected to make right out of school in a job. I said 50k and he laughed. I thought he was wrong, be he was right. Dude 50k is not something easy to come by in any job. Look in the papers, internet or where ever and tell me what jobs you think someone can pull in that money with 1 years worth of exp or less.

wow, juggernaut - I have never responded to one of your posts before but I gotta say this was excellent. You are right - I had a govt job that would be considered 'cushy' and it would've taken me probably another 2-3 yrs to make that kind of $ (in comparable CAD of course :))

the thing here is that I WAS making 35k, which is not too shoddy, now |pokefun| me - I consider myself lucky to get a cheque each week :D

but I know that it's coming along. It's getting there that hurts lol, and a lot of folks can't wait that long, that's all.

Ponygirl

[juggernaut]

(LB did one on netpond) and they make it look much easier than it actually is.Not to mention the starter tut they have there is out of date. I went back the other day to re-read it and was glad I stayed here. That darn thing tells people to make a free site and put all the recips on the main page, not the index and after my count from that tut, shows 5 pages not 4. I have nothing against that place but just stay away as there seems to be to many chiefs and not enough indians, but everyone seems to know how to get it done. I think that place did me more harm then good, once I stayed away and just read here I got the idea how its done, but just a small idea.

[juggernaut]

wow, juggernaut - I have never responded to one of your posts before but I gotta say this was excellent. You are right - I had a govt job that would be considered 'cushy' and it would've taken me probably another 2-3 yrs to make that kind of $ (in comparable CAD of course :))

the thing here is that I WAS making 35k, which is not too shoddy, now |pokefun| me - I consider myself lucky to get a cheque each week :D

but I know that it's coming along. It's getting there that hurts lol, and a lot of folks can't wait that long, that's all.

PonygirlWell I have to commend you for leaving. I worked in the gov for 8 years and was pulling in some nice cash, gs-11 in the tech sector with an extra 10k and of course the local pay. In the end it was around 65k but I left back in April, stress was killing me and my marrage. But just to prove my point with this guy, guess what? I went back, not to the same place but once and old friend found out I left they pretty much begged me to come work for them on the contractor side, which I will say is a lot less stressful. The reason I went back for for a few. 1) I got tired of sitting in the house. 2) I got tired of sitting home and having my wife make all the money doing what she is doing (I just felt it was unfair) 3) the money was such a large increase I would have to been a moron to turn it down. But this type of money I'm making now only came after years of EXP.
Real nice thing is this, I love my site and so does my wife. I really enjoy working on it and now we have the funds to do what ever we want with it. It has now turned back into a fun hobby that with hard work we hope will turn into a profitible business. But if not, then we can at least say we tried and had fun along the way.. Cause for us in the end thats all that matters. Ok I wont post on me any more, I dont want to take over this topic. I think it's a very good one and should stay on point..