RevenueQuest

If you have ever done some browsing on Alexa’s traffic rankings, you’ll notice Yahoo! is ahead of Google as the #1 most visited site in the world. For myself, I was a little shocked the first time I saw this. I rarely use Yahoo! anymore. Yahoo! used to have a big advantage of Google with services like Yahoo! Mail, but Gmail and the rest of Google Labs (Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Docs, etc.) are among the most popular internet services out there today.

How could Yahoo! still be ranked ahead of Google?

While looking at Alexa’s top-500 list, I noticed that in addition to Google.com, the list includes Google Brazil, Google Germany, Google UK and others. I took a look at the Yahoo! equivalents of these country-specific sites. Yahoo.com.br sends you to br.Yahoo.com. Yahoo.de sends you to de.Yahoo.com.

This redirect Yahoo! has set up sends most of their international traffic to a sub-domain on Yahoo.com. The Alexa ranking system does not have different rankings for each sub-domain. Alexa counts all of the redirected traffic on the Yahoo.com domain. Considering that less than 20% of internet users are in the US, that could be enough traffic to put Yahoo! over Google.

That’s better than my idea to raise Alexa rankings.

Can Google’s US traffic overcome Yahoo!?

If you take a look at Alexa’s graph of Yahoo! vs Google, Google is closing in on Yahoo!. In fact, Google recently passed MSN as the #2 site in the world. That accomplishment becomes even more impressive when you consider that nearly every PC running Windows has MSN set as the default home page on Internet Explorer.

My prediction is that we will see Google finally (and perhaps rightfully) take over Yahoo! in 2008. When do you think it will happen?

Take Advantage of Google’s Ever-Growing Popularity

Don’t miss out on Google’s eventual total-domination of the internet. There are programs out there that will help you get rich banking on Google’s success. This one offers a free trial that only requires a shipping and handling charge. You might want to give it a try.

Popularity: 3% [?]

If you are thinking about giving up on AuctionAds, read this post at EarnersBlog. Like everyone complaining about AuctionAds lately, he saw a dramatic decrease in revenue and CTR after the first couple of months.

1. Revenue was great in June (< $1,000)
2. Half of June’s numbers in July (> $1,000)
3. Half of that again in August (> $200)
4. September beat July’s number & things started improving again ( > $1,000)
5. October, well this month isn’t quite over yet but I thought I’d post a quick screenshot:

The screenshot shows that Stuart has made nearly $2000 thus far in October.

I have run AuctionAds very little and the only money I have made with it has been through referrals. (Don’t you love residual income?) After reading Stuart’s post, I think I will continue to run AuctionAds.

Stuart also makes a good point that eBay uses a 30-day cookie which means any winning bid or BIN a user makes in the next 30-days you will get credit for. With the holiday season coming around, this could prove to be very profitable. All you have to do is refer someone that plans on doing all of their holiday shopping on eBay this Winter.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I have finally jumped on the bandwagon and will be utilizing PayPerPost Direct. Currently, I am only charging $5. I will likely bump that up after I get a few requests, so make sure you are one of the first to buy one.

Why would a post about your site on RevenueQuest?

Currently, RevenueQuest is a PR 2 blog. I am not one to post more than once a day, so your paid review would be on the front page for over one week. This means Google will have no trouble finding the link to your site on my front page.

A paid review pretty much guarantees you that every person that reads the post will take a peak at your site. RevenueQuest doesn’t currently receive an overabundance of traffic, but it is on the rise (my Alexa is now up to 732,826 with the weekly numbers hovering around 300k).

Plus, what’s $5, right?

Popularity: 6% [?]

I am sure many of you have heard of John Chow’s “new” ad network TTZ Media by now. The ad units show price comparisons from several different online stores for different products using the Shopping.com’s API.

Here is an example of a TTZ Media ad of a Western Digital 320gb External hard drive:

As you can see, it lists prices from a few different stores and has an image of the product. It should have some nice CTR. TTZ Media gives $.15 per click.

Over the last few months, I myself have been doing some work with Shopping.com’s API. Unfortunately, I haven’t been working as hard or as fast on the project as I would have liked because school and running are taking up most of my time these days.

Anyways, I have made a similar ad unit to TTZ Media’s that I have been using for a month or two on a product review site. My CTR has been pretty good (much higher than I get with Yahoo! Publisher Network) and the price per click tends to hover around $.30, but sometimes as low as $.20 and sometimes as high as $.39.

Take a look at mine for the same product:

As you can see, they are pretty similar. Too bad John Chow beat me to the market. Maybe I can make mine a little better and then release it to the public?

Time will tell.

Popularity: 3% [?]

A couple days ago, Stuart from Earners Blog made a good point about posts that are a step-by-step guide to affiliate marketing.

If a technique or campaign is posted it’ll become saturated within days (or weeks). Which will probably end up costing you money & have you thinking that you suck at Affiliate Marketing (I don’t want that).

I myself get a little annoyed when a blogger makes a post with a title that leads me to believe he is going to show me exactly how he makes hundreds a day, only to see there are a couple key details missing. But Stuart’s point is a good one and reminds me that bloggers are not writing to give free handouts. If the affiliate marketing business was easy, there wouldn’t be countless blogs telling you how to do it.

I have to say thanks to Stuart for making me feel better about “leading on” my readers in my recent post about how I am using zip submits to get 200% return on my investment.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I checked my Alexa ranking yesterday and I was happy to notice I am now in the top-1 million sites. Maybe my little trick to easily raise my Alexa ranking actually worked.

I now stand strong at #864,526. My 1 week average is up to 356,799.

Alexa ranking are a good measure of how popular your site is. If you see a raise in them, you know you are getting more visits. It can be important because sites like Text-Link-Ads and PayPerPost use it to determine the value of your blog, among other things. So I higher Alexa ranking can mean more $$$.

I would like to one day get this blog into the top-100,000 over at Alexa. If I keep up the more frequent blogging, sure it can happen.

Popularity: 3% [?]