Getting organized.. Mixing tgps/blogs/galleries, need opinions :)
 

I've been mostly lurking and rarely posting on this board for a very long time, decided to change this and make a bit longer post :) all kinds of serious input appreciated.
Short intro - I've been making designs (pay/tgp/free/avs) for a long time and I noticed that it's more profitable to make sites for myself than for clients (a small ongoing % is more than one time fee). Now I have well over a hundred BYOT/paysites, premiumAVS (now AEN) video/dvd sites spread around several networks, with 2-3 thousands of (free)hosted galleries. Over 90% of earnings that these sites make are actually siteowners' cut from other webmasters traffic. I am familiar with blogs/tgps, but I never had the time to actually sit down and make my own network and traffic source. In a few days I'm off for a vacation, and when I get back I'll start this project.
To make use of all those hosted galls, I'm planning to make a fake-tgp network (TGP rotator is now unavailable but there's a more powerful replacement script), I'll be buying some feeder traffic, gall spots for galleries hosted on those domains, the part I'm unsure about are the domains themselves. Is it ok & advisable to use expired adult domains, or is there a possibility of buying some blocked/blacklisted domains bringing "bad karma"? instead of some free traffic :) is there another good list of expiring names except exxxpired.com ?

I also want to make a network of blogs (writers come pretty cheap nowadays), should I use a different set of domains, or can I simply put them in a /blog/ subdirectory? First I thought of making each blog a default index, and keeping the tgps in a /tgp/ folder, but that would drive dirty tgp traffic to blogs (404s and ppl who check out the index page). I'm not sure about mixing these two types of sites on same domains, and SE penalties). How would you organize this? Over time TGP network should be on autopilot so to say, and I'll work on blog updates. Depending on my remaining free time and tgp growth, I might open submissions for other wms later on (sites will be relatively narrow-niched), if visits grow to a number worthy of submitting to..

I know this won't grow and make 1000s over night and I don't expect it to, I just want to make a goal and get it done instead of crazy jumping from project to project for various clients :) , and I want to make a better use of my sites because I believe there's a good potential in them. It's very late & I'm tired, sorry if I mentioned something twice and skipped something else |crazy| anyway - I'd like to hear opinions - is the general idea ok, am I missing something, what should I stay away from etc. Hopefully this thread will become a nice tutorial for everyone else who's out of focus.

Of course that's a possibility - there's not a lot of domains out there expiring because they are performing too well for the owner :D

I'd look into using your existing domains, registering new ones or buying domains from people that I know & trust (assuming they are selling their domains for some reason)

A few nights ago, I couldn't get to sleep. I tossed and turned until I gave up around 3am and came over to the computer to sit here and stare at my sites. You've no idea how close I came to shutting them all down. In all honesty - that was exactly what I was thinking of doing. Just kill them all. I was depressed, despondent and ready to give it all up. Why? Earlier that same evening, while looking at my stats, I came to the dramatic realization that after 5+ years of doing this, I know absolutely nothing about traffic generation.

So, this is my advice: don't quit your day job.

Now... that's not the proper attitude Useless. :D

I am thinking you are probably being a bit modest here, and I know you can generate traffic. As many friends and such as you have here, you should be able to get links without trying. Get enough good links and enough quality submitters and watch it grow. |headbang|

Hehe I thought I felt some irony/sarcasm in UW's post, I find it hard to believe that you have such problems since I picked up some useful tips from your older posts..
Can't quit my dayjob, this is my dayjob |bananna|
& generally I'm doing fine but I believe that small traffic generating efforts could make a big difference in profit.

Lets just focus on how to interlink the network and whether I should mix blogs and tgps on same domains or not? What to set as default on domain root, and what to keep inside a subfolder?
(building the sites shouldn't be a problem, I just haven't made a focused larger-scale go at this yet :)

GG thanx for reply, now we have one vote for new domains, I believe that's the safe way to go, not sure if expired names are worth the potential risk..

Ok, just a quick update, delayed start but I've started on the idea mentioned ealier (considering it a side project because other stuff pays the bills but hopefully this will grow and pay off over time : ))
2 months ago:
I got 12 fresh domains (different niches, one "general"), all on topic, some KW rich, some just funny but still in the niche..
Opened a new hosting account at a host recommended by JMBsoft, bought a tgpX license, entered about 14k galleries into the database, spent a looooot of time correcting and fixing autocropped thumbs, made my 12 tgp site designs, connected everything together, made sure it works etc..
About to drop a fair amount of feeder traffic to (hopefully) get the tgps off the ground (already paid, didn't start the feed yet), but I've already noticed some (small amounts but it's there) flow of incoming SE traffic, probably cause all thumbs on tgp pages have alt tag descriptions, and I didn't do anything else special, my SEO skills = common sense.
Next step - made a /blog/ folder (didn't link it from the .com root index) on each site, installed wordpress & customized the look (header/colors etc) to somewhat reflect the tgp design.. Made first couple of posts but didn't submit those anywhere or made any link exchanges yet.
earnings so far, lol, 2 revshare signups, but hopefully traffic will pick up, and if ratios stay the same I think this will be worth the hassle..
I don't want to post the urls (yet), not sure if there's any interest about this among experienced wm's but I guess some beginners might find this useful as a draft/outline for their projects, so I'll be posting more updates later on :)

Why do you people let me post shit like that? I should make bumper stickers. I don't suffer from depression, but the people around me do. :D

Glad to hear that you're sticking with it Calavera. It's really about hard work and experimentation. As long as you're willing to do both, there is money to be made. Just don't become like me and you'll be fine. |thumb

|thumb

It is amazing how many people have trouble grasping that concept.

Hey Calavera, the small traffic with doing nothing, if you're using TGPX, check out your awstats and see where it's coming from...it's probably coming from http://www.jmbsoft.com/software/tgpx/sites/

I have six licenses and I get a lot of traffic from this referral...it's amazing...it's a good script...

2 revshare signups are better than 0 at this stage! Your TGPs that you're buying feeder traffic for, will you have a trade script installed on each one? What are your plans for utilizing that traffic? Sounds like you have your stuff together and I look forward to your next update.

Thanks for the positive comments :)
easymama - checked but that's not it, webalizer shows a part of the referrers as google.com/search (not entire string) but I see some keywords, various terms..
Steve - already installed atl3 (but I left hardlink tables interlinking my sites), I'm still not sure if I should have waited more before buying any traffic (to see what blogs/404/galleries) will do, since everyone says the tgp/feed/skim traffic is bad, and I might have been better off with low se traffic than with alot of crap feeder traffic.. Imho worst case it will be a poor investment, can't do harm ;) later on I'll add some trades and put atl3 driven toplists as an addition to hardlink tables..
I'm in no hurry, spending just free/extra time on this, so next update will probably be around mid feb..