MSN is Easy to Impress with Affiliate Websites!
IF you are already within the In-Crowd at Google and getting hundreds of daily visitors from the google engine, this post is not for you. If you are building a site for long term growth and prosperity… this post is not for you! On the other hand… if you have deindexed BANS sites, low visitor volume from Google search on an established affiliate site, or just cant seem to get a site ranking in a very popular niche. Its worth the 5 minutes of reading.
Admit it… Affiliate websites are exactly like the most unpopular kids in school! The popular and good looking crowd will avoid them, look the other way when they come close to them, and literally do everything to avoid being seen with them! So why do we try so hard to get our unpopular affiliate websites, in with the most popular kids in school?
Google is no different than the most popular and hottest girl or boy back in high school! We all know the type… arrogant, snotty, holier than thou, sets the trends almost EVERYONE follows, etc… Yet everyone ALWAYS looked up to them and they were ALWAYS surrounded by, and promoted by, the best of everything the rest of the school had to offer! Lets face it… That IS Google! Affiliate sites… well, they are the unpopular kids that Google and everyone else look down upon.
Compare Google to the Popular Kids in School
- Google tries to surround itself with ONLY the best of the best!
- Google uses every resource available to make sure ONLY the best stay in their crowd!
- EVERYONE is trying to be “In the Loop” with Google!
- Google will only consider you into the group, if you were referred by someone already in the loop! (Inbound links)
- If someone tells Google not to pay attention to someone in their loop, they won’t!(No follow links)
- Google only gives you a short time to impress them, then they kick you out of the top crowd if you aren’t better than those in place for years!
- If anyone tells Google you suck, you are dropped from the group! (Google Spam Reporting tools)
- If you pay to get the chance to impress Google and they find out, you are kicked to the curb! (Google Paid links reports)
- If you try to fake it to be popular, Google figures out your game and drops you! (Over optimization penalties)
- You spend COUNTLESS HOURS trying to impress Google, rarely being recognized!
- You dress your website to look like all the popular ones Google likes!
- You make your site talk and act like one of the Popular ones Google likes!
- … add your own similarities in the comments field, but the list goes on and on!
Truly, just like the most popular kid in school… Google DOES excel at several things and it does so… very well. It finds the best of the best, or what it considers the best, and rewards them with all of the attention of its followers for as long as they see fit! Google search may be great… but they aren’t for unpopular kids, or affiliate websites! Tomorrow… if Google said it likes a black background on websites, I can guarantee you, +80% of the web would go to a black background within a few days! (and probably save tons of energy at the same time!)
That in mind… if Google is the most popular kid in school, MSN / Live, must be the Ugliest and most UNPOPULAR kid sitting in the corner all alone, who judges you much less, if at all, like the popular crowd!
Compare MSN to the Unpopular Crowd
Even though nobody talks about it… MSN is still the third most popular search engine on the web! MSN is still the default engine on all those computers that come with Windows… and to us, it means there are many millions of monthly search visitors we are not even paying attention to! Just like the unpopular, or ugly kids in the corner at school… it is MUCH easier to make them like you and your affiliate sites!
- MSN does not care if your site is ugly, they are happy to associate with you!
- MSN pays much less attention to the people who sent them to you! (A link from a golf site, to a flower site is fine)
- MSN is not as picky about who you associate with, they accept you for who you are!
- MSN cares less if you paid for a referral to them! They don’t do pagerank!
- There is rarely a line of people trying to get MSN’s attention! (Lower competition for specific terms)
- … add your own reasons in the comments.
Lets face it… for now, MSN is not in the popular crowd! They do however… have quite an influence on 12% or 700 MILLION+ users in the search population! Until they decide to shape up their algo, why not take advantage of it?!
From an affiliate website point of view, which makes more sense?
Spending many months and 100’s of hours building unique pages, getting thousands of relative links, etc… targeting 100,000 monthly searches in Google, that you may NEVER rank with in organic results anyway (Thin affiliate site, remember?) .
OR….
Spending 5-10 hours building a niche site, the links, the content, etc… and getting top 1-5 ranking in MSN!
Repeat after me….
- Google will never Love a thin Affiliate Site for long, So Why do I try SO HARD to Impress them?
- Google will never rank a thin site in the top 10, for longer than a week or two, or until the first person submits a spam report! (Which Google is aggressively asking people to do)
- Google is NOT the only Kid in School!
- Forget Google… I don’t need them anymore for my affiliate sites!
According to Nielsen ratings, Google held 61% of the search market share in October 08. MSN, only about 12%. That means that when you use the Google sandbox tool and see that 100,000 people searched for “your target phrase”, its pretty safe to assume that approximately 12% or 12,000, searched for the same thing on MSN. The math is not perfect, but somewhat plausible, right? MSN also has tools you can use to see the phrase volume going through their engine at: http://adlab.microsoft.com/
What I am Doing to Impress the Other Engines
Keep in mind as you read this, just like all of you, I have a few sites that were dropped by Google or just don’t deliver more than 25-30 daily visitors on high volume terms from the engine. Whether that is because I chose not to update the site, not to write unique content, whatever… they are just not the type of sites I plan on making a long term career with, and they were worth the risk. Its THOSE sites, the kind that are never going to make a difference in Google search, the kind that I can afford to do without, that I am going to use to impress the others!
I want to repeat one more time, just for the sake of importance… I would NOT use this method on a site I wanted to become a long term authority!
1 – Building your Landing Pages
We all know Google hates landing pages and specifically advises against it! Low and behold.. MSN doesn’t mind! These are pages with mediocre content, targeting specific high volume words. Build a Niche Store is the perfect solution to build a high number of landing pages in a short amount of time! A landing page is a page that contains one offer. This could be many listings of one type of shoe, one type of pool table, one type of whatever. As long as it is specific to your target phrase.
2 – Getting as MANY inbound Links as Possible!
Even though Google tells us to let links grow naturally and they penalize sites for buying links, using link schemes, linking from bad neighborhoods, etc… MSN doesn’t seem to mind at all! Build your links using a 5 to 1 ratio. That means for every 5 links to your homepage, you also get 1 link to an inner page. (called a deep link) Don’t stop getting those links until EVERY page of your site has at least one link! Remember, buying links is not bad, as long as you don’t mind being dropped by Google! I used TNX to get more than 250 links over a period 30-45 days, for less than $20! Why so cheap? I got links from pages indexed with high backlinks in Yahoo, versus looking at links from pages with higher pagerank!
3 – MSN Loves Varying Anchor Text
Change your anchor text on every link, but make sure you have a high volume phrase in it!
4 – Stop Targeting the Long Tail ONLY
Have no doubt, landing visitors for long tail phrases is by far the easiest visitor from any search engine. BUT… they tend to bring lower volumes due to the nature of the long tail. Sure, you want to continue to build long tail pages as they are great at converting, but don’t forget about the high volume terms that could drive thousands of daily visits as well!
5 – Tell Googlebot to Stay Out!
Since Google does not want to have pages like these thin affiliate sites in the index anyway, why not tell them they wont like the site, right at the front door! Add the following to your robots.txt file! If Googlebot comes, its their own fault!
User-agent: Googlebot Disallow: /
The Results
If you recall, I stopped posting links to my own sites a while ago. I also avoid posting specific earnings and the same holds true here! :-) The site in question however is more than 9 months old, already has a good bit of content and is 100% BANS 3.0. It was never deindexed in Google but I assume it may be soon… and you know what, I don’t care! I don’t need Google traffic for this one anymore!
Traffic from search in November 2008
Google: 624 visits
Yahoo: 260 visits
MSN/Live combined: 91 visits
Traffic from search in December 2008
Google: 519 visits
Yahoo: 633 visits
MSN/Live: 2210 visits
Although the site experienced a 20% or so drop in Google referred traffic, it gained more than 250% from Yahoo and 2300+% increase from MSN/Live! Earnings on the site in December alone, exceeded the previous 3 months combined! This was achieved with almost no onsite changes… aside from adding a few more pages, or changing the target of a few existing pages. The MAIN difference in the traffic came from building links… the kind Google hates, but are very easy to get!
Do YOU have a site that does nothing in Google, regardless of your efforts? It may be time to kick Google to the curb!
Previously Published Articles You May Like to Read:
- SEO for Affiliate Websites – Don’t Get Links from a Cemetary!
- Thin Affiliate Websites are Dead
- Do you Blog about Building Niche Websites?
- Learn to Buy or Sell Websites on Flippa
- Reminder that We Need to Secure Our Websites!
- When to Turn a Weak Affiliate Site into an Authority Site
- How to Become a Successful eBay Affiliate
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I have been doing my part to "Build the Internet" since 1994, when I built my first website! Since then, I have built hundreds of niche websites for myself and many others, focused on design, applications, ecommerce, search optimization and internet marketing.
Mark-
Fantastic post. I always wondered about getting more traffic from MSN!
Thanks for Sharing!
Hi Mark-
That’s the way to do it. Google has not excisted for me the last month.
Great info Mark. As far as TNX — would you mind sending some invites? I’d like to give them a try.
Regards
Joe
Great metaphor! A new site with Google is like a one night stand. They don’t call the next day.
I have several BANS sites that were deindexed by Google. Looks like it’s time to saturate them with backlinks. I’m not clear, however, on whether you attribute the MSN and Yahoo traffic jumps to the links generated by TNX? ie. What factors turned the tide?
Hi Mark,
I had a site de-indexed by Google about a year ago. It was getting about 150 uniques a day. Suddenly I’m out of Google and I’m down to 40 or so.
However, over the past year MSN and Yahoo have picked up the slack and I am back up to 150-200 uniques a day. Yesterday I had 220 uniques. It just keeps growing.
And I haven’t even touched the site for about a year.
I think there is a great deal of opportunity with MSN and Yahoo that many are ignoring. Fine with me.
Doug
Hi Mark,
Google has left me in the dust. However, I too have had some luck with MSN, but it is not universal. I have one site where I am list number 1, but others where I am not in their sites. Don’t know why.
My best performing BANS was deindexed by Google. I get a ton of traffic from Yahoo and a goodly amount from MSN.
Great post! I’ve never gotten a lot of love from Google, although I’ve never been de-indexed either. This was in spite of doing everything I thought they wanted to see. Yahoo and MSN were always my best friends when it came to sending traffic, although everything has slowed down terribly in the last 3-4 months.
This gives me some ideas on boosting my sites’ appeal to Y & MSN. You hear so much about Google, that its great to finally get some specific recommendations on kissing up to the others!
And lets not forget the “also-rans” like Ask.com. For some reason many of my sites were getting tons of visitors from them, and the others which aren’t in the top 3 search engines. I think its time to devote some more effort to optimizing for non-google search engines, and I’ve got a couple of sites I want to hang the No Trespassing Google sign on!
I’m glad to hear someone else say what I have been thinking. Yeah they gave me the boot and I don’t even know why. They don’t even tell you what to correct to get back in their good graces, so I’m not worrying about Google anymore. Now I can promote my sites the way I want without fear or a checklist of things I can and can’t do. Not much, but I at least made $104 on that site in November.
Whoah! Such heresy!!!
No, it’s a refreshing look at the whole SE situation that puts things in a bit more perspective for the average affiliate.
Nice post, Mark. Maybe there’s room for another 12 Step program here – GoogAnon?
Well Google finally got around to deindexing my BANS pages. I thought they had let me slip through the cracks but I get there aren’t any cracks. :)
I have been looking at MSN as the way to go for some of my sites for about a month now.
Thanks again Mark.
Great post Mark!
Don’t forget to expand on these methods in the near future.
A typical day’s work on your project site notebook would be great!
Jeff
Hey Mark
Great post. I’ve been trying to figure out how to rank in live for ages. Many of my sites only have a couple of pages indexed. Is that because I lack links to the inner pages? That is, Live only indexes pages which have links pointing to them?
I am currently making a good chunk of cash from Yahoo and nothing from Google or Live. If I could turn on the live tap like Yahoo I’d probably increase earnings 50% which is a very nice thought.
Mike
I appreciate the tip but I do have to wonder how much of the difference might be from holiday shoppers? Maybe you could follow up in Jan and Feb and let us know if it maintains the same percentages? Thanks!
Dennis
@ PotentMix – I think the volume of links to inner pages helped more than anything.
@ Makka – I cant say I was surprised that MSN was easy to target, everyone ignores them almost completely! Even short, high volume phrases, are almost too easy!
@ Jeff Jones – I hope to have a refined methodology in place and begin posting about it next week. I decided to run several side-by-side tests, just to see which method make the most difference.
@ Mike – again, the only real thing I have done any differently, is in the linking arena. Content links seem to get the fastest return on them. IE: A link to your site within content on another blog, article, etc. Sure this is no different than building links for Google… but G expects to find an authority site at the other end… many of the other engines don’t care about the other end, as long as their is topical content.
@ Dennis –
Holiday shopping may have had some influence, but the site in question is very much not an impulse buy type niche, or anything people would buy as a gift. More in line with home improvements…
Mark
I have to say my initial thoughts are….you’re nuts….not that there is anything wroooong with that. :-)
I’d say that if you are consistently getting sites de-indexed then build better sites. If you are advocating this for those that did get dumped but you don’t want to flush….I would wholeheartedly agree with you….which is (after rereading your opening paragraph) what you are advocating.
At the end of the day Google dominates the search market and is showing no signs of weakening, in fact they appear to be getting stronger…..err….maybe it’s Yahoo getting weaker…who knows.
To quote the great Ringo Starr….Peace and Love….Peace and Love.
@ Bill –
I completely understand where you are coming from with it. I have only got a few deindexed sites, but nonetheless, they are not going to do anything in the big G. This led me to look for other ways to monetize the sites, knowing they would never get in good with the BIG engine…
What I actually used as a comparison, was site-flipping! In order to truly see good profit from flipping, you need to get away with -10 hours worth of work, and flip it quickly for a few hundred dollars.
With OTG (Other than Google) targeting, you can actually do the same thing, since you never minded losing the domain in the first place.
Again, as mentioned in the post MANY times… this is NOTHING I would do on a site I wanted to stand the test of time and become an authority site.
But… for the quick buck… yup.
We need to talk sometime about site flipping….remind me the next time I wimpering about php.
:-)
Mark-
I signed up for an TNX account right after reading this post and read that they don’t allow link building from deindexed sites.
Is there any tutorial videos on how to use TNX properly?
Maybe you can put up a video on how to use TNX with BANS?
That would have been great!
Thanks!
I can’t say for sure but they probably mean that you cannot use your site to SELL links. I think you can BUY links for a deindexed site..after all what do they care.
Mark,
Good deal!
I’m already tearing apart two of my crappy Google performers, excluding Google and rewriting content and posting high volume keyword content.
Wish me luck!
Jeff
Bill-
Thanks, that’s probably what they mean.
Hey Mark I was wondering if you could make a video on how to use the TNX.net site? Thanks
Also Mark what does the invitation code mean and how does a person get one?
It may have just been the holidays, but my BANS earnings have been going up steadily for the past 4-5 months … even after most of my sites were deindexed by Google. Fortunately, I’m sitting on the first page of Yahoo for a couple of good “buying terms” … and it’s odd, but I think Yahoo searchers are more likely to buy.
Also, I did a quick search on google for those same terms … I don’t think I’d want to be on the front page … ebay itself is buying adwords for that term … I’d rather be deindexed by google than risk ebay kicking me out of the program all together.
Todd
Awesome post Mark! Time to start buying up all these deindexed sites for a little mfMSN sites =)
I must admit to have enjoyed your posting and have found it extremely helpful. I would like to see more traffic from Yahoo. I certainly like getting traffic from all three. Great info :)
What happened to
Converting WordPress Templates to work with BANS
09. Build a Niche Store Styles.css
10. Testing your Work in different Browsers
11. Publishing your Work
12. Preserving your Template
Hey Mark
Great post – I’ve been out of the loop for a while and although my sites have been growing steadily (and are already surpassing what I set them up to do) I’ve been wanting to get back to them for a while. This post has really spurred me on!
Those are nice results
I stayed away from affiliate sites for a long time because I knew Google hated them, but actually never thought to just target MSN (I know they’re easy, just get lots of links) :p
Does anyone know of REPUTABLE experts on MSN & Yahoo SEO that have websites with info? There’s so much written on G and how to game it, that I can find much on the others. And there are so many bogus “experts” out there that I don’t want to waste my time with them.
A number of my sites are BANS only, and I’m going to keep them that way. If we’re supposed to blog about things we’re passionate about then I’m going to focus on those areas, even though ceiling fans and others are money-making niches… I just refuse to get passionate about those areas!!
Yahoo seems to love my sites, but I’m not sure why. MSN is the one I’d like to get more attention from – I’m not sure why they haven’t liked some of my sites and I’d like to optimize more for their attention.
and of course anything on getting backlinks!! That’s my stumbling block. I’m trying TNX and it seems you already have to have a decent PR to get links. But if I did, then why would I need them??
@ Alice –
IF MSN is your target – get links. Period.
Make sure the links are followed… and have a variation of anchor text.
MSN likes links… with different anchor text, on different websites, across different hosting accounts. (class c ip addresses)
You are working the WRONG side of TNX – you are an advertiser, not a publisher. Create an advertising campaign, order up your links, and give it a few months to work.
Mark
Thanks Mark! Guess it’s obvious why I’m having trouble getting backlinks… LOL!
[...] just read Marks post over at his blog, the Niche Store Builder, where he discusses how easy it is to impress MSN. He mentions in his post that he would not reveal the website in question or his earnings. This [...]
[...] Check out the original post here –> http://www.thenichestorebuilder.com/msn-is-easy-to-impress-with-affiliate-websites.htm [...]
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