I was going to save this for my
Montreal SEO blog, but it's something I thought was short and sweet so I could drop it in the forums.
Basically, the secret to earning a TrustRank 0 in the engines (try selling that site!) is to implement adsense ads or affiliate ads within days of its start. After reading Jon's suggestions as to niches over on the Wickedfire forum, I decided to launch a fly fishing blog. I did my keyword research, then set up my blog.
I got the on-page optimization done in a couple of hours, white-hat and all.
In all honesty, I have little to no clue about fly fishing, so almost all my content came from article directories. I wrote a bit on my own, but it was really boring.
Then, I went off and started link-trading. It has some links.
But the site isn't even indexed. And it's a blogger blog, so you know the googlebot showed up a few hours after creation.
So there you have it. Try and turn a quick buck, and you can be sure your site's going to be a waste of time. I understand why Lee waited a while before posting the TLA ads here.
Astute minds will notice that I mentioned my content was largely (50-60%) duplicate. It could be that that contributed to not even being indexed, but another google blog of mine is entirely original, optimized and all, and its not ranking either. Though it is indexed. The point being that the absence of rankings and trust is evidently not the result of the dupe content.
Incidentally, both triggered Google's splog warning, which made me type in stupid verification codes everytime I wanted to post. I think the fact I tried to monetize them so quick is what set Google off.
To summarize
1) I tried to monetize fast.
2) Google's splog alarm went off.
3) Duplicate content was used.
4) The dupe content site isn't even indexed, though it's been neatly seo-d. And I've been given to understand that duplicate content doesn't result in a penalty, just it won't give the bonus alloted to fresh content.
5) I wasn't very patient. Perhaps with more links, I'd have gotten somewhere with the fly fishing blog. Though the absence of indexation for a google blog suggests otherwise.
Which is partly why I'm here. I need to learn to monetize properly, without having the engines flip at me. Arguably, the fishing blog didn't add much value (though I got a kickass interview with some bigshot that was 100% original content; if you're going to run an affiliate blog, set up 100 interviews and wait a month or two before monetizing, all the while building up your links and seo). But my other blog that triggered the splog warning is 100% legit, offers great advice, and has me totally mystified as to the non-ranking.
Well that was my braindump. Probably a bit incoherent. If so, let me know and I'll edit tomorrow. I hope this helps fellow earners avoid having their blogs wasted.
