My weekend History Lesson

[Jace]

Originally Posted by gonzo

Only 1:100 or less conversions Ive seen in the past 2 years have been from SE traffic.

hell, with the amount of spam in the SE's these days, 1:100 is fucking great for SE

i remember 2-3 years ago when I would get 1:20 off SE traffic, now I am lucky if I get 1:200

[Mike AI]

Traffic is only one element of conversions. AI can still convert better then 1 in 100 with the right site. It not only takes a great site, with a hot girl, but solid processing.

Quality traffic has all been bastardized, and the large SEs are squeezing pennies out of the industry every day.

How many free site webmasters make good livings in 2006 compared to 3 years ago, or even 5.

[gonzo]

Originally Posted by Mike AI

Traffic is only one element of conversions. AI can still convert better then 1 in 100 with the right site. It not only takes a great site, with a hot girl, but solid processing.

Quality traffic has all been bastardized, and the large SEs are squeezing pennies out of the industry every day.

How many free site webmasters make good livings in 2006 compared to 3 years ago, or even 5.

Those that have learned to research and adapt. Its a lot tougher than it ever used to be.

[Hell Puppy]

Originally Posted by Mike AI

Traffic is only one element of conversions. AI can still convert better then 1 in 100 with the right site. It not only takes a great site, with a hot girl, but solid processing.

Quality traffic has all been bastardized, and the large SEs are squeezing pennies out of the industry every day.

How many free site webmasters make good livings in 2006 compared to 3 years ago, or even 5.

I would love to see some real numbers. My own observations suggest that less than 2% of those active in the business today make more than $50K without having their own paysite(s).

[Peaches]

Originally Posted by Hell Puppy

I would love to see some real numbers. My own observations suggest that less than 2% of those active in the business today make more than $50K without having their own paysite(s).

I think you're wrong. Let me think about it and I'll come up with a number that I think's closer, but it's at least 20X the 2% you think.

[Hell Puppy]

Originally Posted by Peaches

I think you're wrong. Let me think about it and I'll come up with a number that I think's closer, but it's at least 20X the 2% you think.

So you think 40% are making $50K or more?

I call bullshit.

My number may be low, but your's is WAY WAY WAY too high.

I'm defining "active" as anyone who is out there trying to figure out a way to rustle up a hit to send to a sponsor to make a buck. I'll guestimate there's around 15,000 of those at any given time....it could be much higher especially when college is in session.

And when I say $50K, I'm talking solely what they derive off of adult. No day jobbers.

[Peaches]

Originally Posted by Hell Puppy

So you think 40% are making $50K or more?

I call bullshit.

My number may be low, but your's is WAY WAY WAY too high.

I'm defining "active" as anyone who is out there trying to figure out a way to rustle up a hit to send to a sponsor to make a buck. I'll guestimate there's around 15,000 of those at any given time....it could be much higher especially when college is in session.

And when I say $50K, I'm talking solely what they derive off of adult. No day jobbers.

Yes, I do think it's closer to 40% IF you take away those that have dayjobs. I know what *I* was making with free sites and even in the worst of times was making more than $50K and I'm not the sharpest pencil in the box

[Hell Puppy]

Originally Posted by Peaches

Yes, I do think it's closer to 40% IF you take away those that have dayjobs. I know what *I* was making with free sites and even in the worst of times was making more than $50K and I'm not the sharpest pencil in the box

Try it now.

It's a function of traffic.

"Back in the day", get a yahoo or dmoz listing while they were doing AOL and you see 10,000 primo hits a day to a tiny free site, fling traffic to appropriate paysite and watch the checks roll in.

After that, started taking a lot of work to build even a good looking site that was unique up to 3000 or so a day.

Now, on purely organic traffic, you can bust ass to get a true "free site" to even 100 or so hits a day. Wanna try to make $50K off a bunch of those? Look for long hours.

Everyone floods to TGP's because there's traffic there. But the content is more and more saturated and as we're discussing in other threads, the conversion rates are absolutely insane unless you OWN the TGP and can thus filter off the cream. Your margins get awfully small after you pay the hosting bill for a month's worth of feeding The Hun's surfers a bunch of movie galleries.

Search engines? You can pay your way in, tricky tricky margins there. The SE game is not for the meek these days. Gotta bust your ass to stay a move or two ahead of them.

Even spam, malware and other dark hat type stuff isn't doing what it used to. Not sure the juice is worth the squeeze there unless you're a principle in whatever you're sending it to.

There are some pockets out there, review sites, blogs, etc. And the big TGPs and linklists will always do just fine for themselves. Bottom line though is these days you actually have to produce something compelling to get that free traffic.