I know that for some of the visitors to this blog, it may be confusing in regards to what I believe is the best way to make money online, and which methods we really use to make money online. I know that many visitors see the earnings reports that I have at the top of every page, and the first thing they wonder is;

“How is he making that much money, and he can’t be telling us the whole truth”.

Some will believe that it is all from using a pay per click model, and that there is no way we could be making any substantial money from natural traffic. I want to clear up, once and for all, any kind of confusion in this regard, because without clarity there is no way my readers will feel that they are being told the truth.

As of 2009, 30% of our income comes from natural organic traffic. 70% of our income comes from using the pay per click model. Most of these sites that earn our income are on private hosting accounts (or I should say private domains) so as to avoid what has happened in the past with people simply copying our ideas and our niche models.

When we first started I was an open book in regards to what my niche websites were, because I really didn’t believe people would waste so many hours of their time simply copying somebody else’s niche ideas. I was extremely naïve in this respect, and to be fair to myself I have seen this happen to too many of my mentors. One thing I can assure you, is that there is nothing fancy about our websites, and there are no big secrets on how we get our traffic.

One thing I want to clarify, in a crystal-clear fashion, is the use of black hat techniques. SEO is something that I talk about allot here, and all of my comments are simply my beliefs from my own testing, and of course you can take it for what it’s worth. One thing I firmly believe now; is that black hat search engine optimization is dying quickly, and it is not a very good way to secure your online income going forward. Now I would like to talk about some of the techniques I have tried in the past. Some of these techniques are what you would call “gray hat” techniques, such as the use of particular website builders which I will discuss.

HyperVRE Website Creation Software

HyperVRE has been very successful for us in the last few years, and we are still making money from the domains that are using HyperVRE mini-sites. Unfortunately, these mini-sites get hit by the search engines (Google) every so often, and it is like you have a few weeks (or a month) of downtime. Is that really the kind of business you want to have?

It is like the search engines (Google I mean) see this content as suspicious, and they de-index hundreds of pages every once in a while, just to have those pages return into the Google index, and search results again. Basically, Google can’t make up its mind what to do with these mini-sites. For those HyperVRE users, keep in mind that I use custom templates that nobody else is using on the Internet, and I use random descriptions and definitions (A TON!) to make my pages appear fresh and updated all the time. I create my content from other web pages, and I use macros and scripts that I have had coded for me (custom Perl applications) that parse down, cleanup, and organize the content in a neat fashion for use in the websites that I build with HyperVRE. It takes approximately 4 hours to build one of these mini sites, and yes, they make residual income for years. So why would I stop doing this? Because in the long run, I am not so sure about the health of these pages in Google and Bing.

So what I am saying, is that I don’t recommend going the route of website builders in 2010 and forward. This does not mean you should abandon the HyperVRE websites you have – because if they are making money, then great. Just update those domains every once in a while to keep them alive in the search engines so you can continue to make money with this model as long as it lasts.

This gray-hat model works very well in all search engines (right now) so I can’t completely dismiss it. We will continue to update our domains that are using this model, but; I will not be creating any more new sites using this method, and I am moving on to a more white-hat SEO models.

Extreme Black-Hat SEO Techniques – I.E., Xrumer

Using software applications like Xrumer is obviously the blackest form of SEO you can employ. You are simply spamming forums and blogs on a large scale, and it is very risky for your domains (and your business altogether). As I have mentioned before, and will mention again, this kind of optimization is extremely short-term. Your short-term gains, are always followed by a complete loss of traffic, and if you don’t know how to use a proxy (or proxies more like), you could really mess up your business. I purchased the Xrumer software, and as I have spoken here before, tested it thoroughly.

I have to say that it gave me an uneasy feeling using the Xrumer software application, subjecting other website owners to spam and being “one of those guys. I suppose the reason I did it is because I just had to know how well that worked. It works – like I said – temporarily, but it is not worthy of future consideration. So much for that $540 USD I flushed down the toilet.

Using Synonyms and Content Spinners

Using synonym generators, and content spinners is a complete waste of time as well. I have used some of these applications server-side and on my own machines. The time you spent spinning a small 500 word article, which has diminishing returns, you could have easily created over 5000 words of fresh content – if you were using speech recognition software like I am right now for this post. Once again, trying to cheat the search engines, and their users, takes a lot of hard work for short-term gains. Especially now with the new SE algorithms that are in play. These content spinners and synonym scripts cost money, and using them requires a lot of work to get an article to pass a Copyscape test. I also believe that the Copyscape bar is not good enough. I believe the search engine algorithms of today have a higher bar set for duplicate content. All conjecture, I know, but I believe this to be true from testing pages.

I know how tempting it is to try some of these techniques to improve your website traffic. I look back at the last five years now, and I will be in the next couple of posts, with regret that I didn’t just simply close my eyes and learn how to create a ton of compelling content for my readers. Why did I take the path that I took? Simple – I was desperate for success and wanted to work from home without ever having to have a job again. Plain and simple and for what it’s worth, this post IS entitled, “The Confessions of a Webmaster”.

If I knew then what I know now, I never would have dabbled on the dark side of SEO. Obviously, I was smart enough to make sure 80% of my work went into legitimate business models, and that is why we make a good earning online, but if I had spent that other 20% of my time working on proven techniques, we would be making much more money today.

The whole reason for this post is to present to the absolute beginners what not to do. All you want to do is choose one subject (or market), install a content management system (i.e., WordPress) and start writing fluidly.

When I look at the webmasters who did exactly that, it’s amazing to see how successful they have been. They have surpassed all of their expectations, and many of them have so much traffic (millions of unique visitors a month) that they remove the typical advertising links from there blogs and websites. They began selling their own products and end up making more money than they had ever made before. It is not unusual to have a successful blogger make more than $30,000 a month. When you hear a number that big it makes most people shake their heads in disbelief.

For all of you who have been gaming the system to some degree, try not to beat yourself up about it. Let’s face it – it’s just too tempting an idea to find some simple little bit of software that can create free money. Besides, I have to admit it has been a lot of fun playing with the search engines over the last five years. I guess I would have to say that it taught me a lot about how search engines work, and I guess this would be an education in understanding what to do, and what not to do.

SEO and The Cheating Husband Metaphor

I guess I could use a metaphor for the black-hat/white-hat SEO dilemma. How about the difference between a loyal middle-aged husband and the cheating middle-aged husband? One middle-aged man spends all of his 20s and 30s sowing his wild oats, and having many different sexual experiences, while the other man didn’t because he was married at a very young age. The experience of being single for that many years makes the single man realize that it’s a lonely existence, and finds out for himself that one night stands can leave you feeling empty, cold, and very alone. He makes a good choice in a woman, because he has lots of experience recognizing a good woman from a troublesome woman, and gets married – never to cheat because he knows what he is missing.

Meanwhile, the second middle-aged man, who gets married at 20 years of age never has these experiences of sowing his wild oats, and the rest of his life he wonders what it would have been like, and has fantasies of free-wheeling sexual escapades. He wonders what it would be like to meet that pretty stranger and sleep with her that same night.

The man who has experienced this will tell you that it is not what it is cracked up to be – the point is that sometimes it’s better to learn the hard way (from your mistakes). So webmasters can learn something from walking on the dark side for awhile – they can learn never to be tempted by the so-called easy and sexy fruit.

Black-Hat SEO Takes More Work Than White-Hat Seo (and the Organized Crime Metaphor)

I can say that when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization) I have certainly sowed my wild oats. I have used the software, gamed the system, and now realize how futile it is going to be in the future. The most glaring thing I have noticed with these black-hat techniques, is how much work it takes. Just because you get some fancy piece of software, written by some pretty clever people, doesn’t mean it’s easy. When you get right down to it, and involved in the actual details, it is a tremendous amount of work. If I could use another metaphor – we always hear the same thing said about organized crime.

With all of their smarts (SOME criminals) and all of their cleverness, along with their hard work, they could succeed in a legitimate business instead of being in the business of organized crime. They would be safer, and would feel better about their business in the long run.

I would even go one step further for this example with search engine optimization. It is far easier to do it the right way! Far easier! If you just create a simple blog on one domain, and work it for two solid years, all you have to do is use your imagination and your typing skills. No complicated scripts to figure out and configure, or software to figure out. No question marks in the back of your head whether or not you are going to succeed making money. Once more, all of those years you spent trying to game the system with software, could have been years of learning how to produce a lot of good content. It takes time to learn the process, as far as creating oodles of content for your blog, and it takes practice.

What I Tell Beginners Now

I used to speak to beginners about the amazing world of online income, and how it was the ultimate income. I still believe with every ounce of my being that online income is the ultimate income, but what I don’t believe anymore is that it’s easy or even attainable for the light of heart. To many millions of people want this ultimate income, and this ultimate lifestyle, which my wife and I have become accustomed to. Because of this competition, there may be a day when we can’t do it either. Believe me, I will be working my backside off in an attempt to keep the lifestyle we have.

The reality is that if you are a beginner, and you have dreams of having the ultimate Internet income, get ready to work your ass off. Get ready to make critical decisions early, like whether or not to dabble on the dark side, or whether to do it the right way straight out of the gates. I hope you make the right decision.

What is relative in all of this, when I discuss the ultimate Internet income, is the question marks surrounding what is ultimate. I suppose the ultimate Internet income would be tens of thousands of dollars made every month without ever having to lift a finger again the rest of your life. That is not likely to happen my friend.

What is likely to happen is that with a lot of hard work you can create a wonderful income which is more than what you make as a employee right now, and you can maintain it the rest of your life with some smart work. If you have dreams of making over $30,000 a month for the rest of your life, get ready to work very very hard. I have said it many times before, the ultimate Internet income is a work at home job, and the key word in that phrase is work. But it doesn’t mean you should work hard and stupid. It means you have to work smartly (work smarter not harder).

Pace Yourself On Your Quest to Create The Ultimate Internet Income

One of the things that has struck my wife and I over the last five years is how hard we have worked. I have worked ridiculous hours (up to 16 hours a day) and many of those hours were a waste of time. If I knew then what I know now I would not have spent that many hours, and I would have learned to pace myself sooner. I am still having trouble learning how to pace myself, because I love the work so much, and I love the lifestyle so much.

You can learn to pace yourself very easily, and put yourself on the track towards making a fantastic income. This is what I would do if I was you (I am talking to the beginners right now).

Choose two different subjects (markets) and find two short domain names (no dashes in the address, and one for each of your markets). Create a WordPress blog on both of these domains, and begin your journey. Don’t worry about any fancy software to manipulate the search engines, or any linking schemes. As a matter of fact, completely disregard any linking schemes altogether. Simply research different ideas for articles on your two blogs, and write something substantial every couple of days. If you can’t type fast, then try speech recognition – or you can simply teach yourself to type quickly. Either way – find out a way of creating gobs of content quickly. You’ll figure this out, so don’t worry about it. You can do this!

Once you are up and going and adding content in the form of articles, posts, and pages, you are on your way. Don’t worry about keyword density and all of that crap. Just write compelling information that your eventual users will find useful. Everything else will come to you. Because you are using a WordPress blog, search engines are going to see your content, so don’t be worrying about that. Don’t bother with stat counters at first, because you won’t be seeing a lot of traffic in the early days. Just keep writing and watch what happens.

The reason I tell you you should create two blogs, is because you will be able to create enough content for both sites. As well as that, it is easy to get bored with one blog and it’s subject material, and you will need a change to keep yourself from getting bored.

Don’t worry about frequency (how many posts a day or week you publish). Just write when you have a good idea, that you know your visitors will appreciate, or at least find interesting. Save your breath in other words. Publishing a post just for the sake of publishing a post in an attempt to keep the search engines happy is no longer a valid strategy. If you don’t believe me, you can research this using Google (or your favorite search engine) to see this for yourself. The most successful bloggers and online money makers only post content that they know will have some sort of value for their visitors and readers.

On the 27th of this month I have a rather large post that discusses the different ways that linking is dead. I am sure that many will agree with some of these ideas, and many of you will disagree, but the fact remains that I am adding something of value to the ongoing conversation in regards to search engine optimization. It doesn’t mean that the post will have more people linking to it than other posts, because it’s really just a hit and miss thing if the truth be told.

This is why it is so important to have a passion for what you are writing about. Even if you aren’t making any money off of the blog, but you are passionately involved in the subject matter, it won’t be long before you ARE making money. The Google algorithm has been designed in such a way (in an ingenious way) so that the truly passionate people with the ideas succeed. I know that my old friends in the black-hat world would scoff at such a notion, and they like to think that they can outsmart the search engine algorithms, but you can see examples of successful bloggers for yourself, and it is painfully obvious who is right and who is wrong on this matter.

Example of a Old Niche Site That is Really Really Ugly (but successful)

I am going to give you one example of a particular niche site that has always succeeded (we have hundreds of these) over the long run. It is a nasty, ugly little website with about 20 pages of 500 word articles in the site map. It is called http://www.bridesmaid-dress-only.com and I don’t mind giving up this little niche, because it generally only makes about $30 a month, and these days it’s not so easy to copy something. The funny thing is that I just checked out the site and the home page index file is not even there!!! I have no idea how long it’s been broken, but it still gets traffic every day on the other pages.

This simple little website makes about a dollar a day, and there is nothing fancy about it as you can tell. It was built with a chaotic old website builder that I haven’t used for years. What is good about this little website though, is that all of the content was written by me, and it is not using any content from any other source on the Internet. Because it is just fresh unique content, the search engines have rewarded it with it with traffic and an average of a dollar a day for over four years. I used some link machine software to do a little bit of reciprocal linking in the beginning, but that is not why it is where it’s at. The search engines are able to see fresh unique content for what it is, and whether or not you do any aggressive linking isn’t coming into play as much. If you create a simple little niche website, with 100% original content, you are going to make something. You have a choice – build hundreds of these little niche websites with 100% original content, or build two major blogs with tons of content. I suggest to you that the latter is the most prudent way to build your business.

Closing Up

Well, I have been talking into this little digital voice recorder for 58 minutes and 20 seconds, not that anybody’s counting. I think I have made my point as far as the confessions of this webmaster. From this day forward, things will be different with our business model. No longer will I be wasting one precious moment trying to gain the search engines. My focus will be only on content, and lots of it, going forward. I don’t really care how long it takes for my new blogs and ideas to take off, because at least I know that they will indeed make money one day. Like my first mentor told me a long time ago (James Martell) – “we are in the business of creating content”.

It’s not over! The dream of the ultimate income is still very much alive, and there are many different ways to create an online income. As you can see, all of my income methods are built on search engine optimization. That is the only pony your humble narrator knows how to ride. There are many, many, MANY different ways to make an online income, and I hope that you find the one that works best for you.

As one webmaster to another webmaster, I encourage you to take the same path going forward in 2010 and furthermore. I encourage you to stop wasting money on short-term gains, and wasting time on futile efforts. If you are using the HyperVRE software, I would encourage you to leave those websites alone and maybe just update them once in a while if they are still creating a profit. I believe that it won’t be long before they stop working altogether. Spend your time and money putting up original content on your niche websites and blogs, and you will be much further ahead in the long run.

Sincerely,

Terry

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Organic Traffic Only Profit - Click To Enlarge

Well that week went by really fast as usual. So I spent most of Saturday working hard creating blogs for some friends of mine – as sometimes I love helping someone get started and not have to deal with the same four year learning curve I had. Now it’s time to talk about something I find REALLY fascinating.

Last weekend I was talking about my dabbling with Blackhat SEO, and we looked at turning a WordPress blog into an RRS splog, and how I was not happy with any of the results I got. The reason being that the content is regurgitated, stolen, and presented in a hapless way. I like my blogs to look good and I can’t settle for re-hashed content. So what is the answer to creating 100% original content (as far as the Internet is concerned), and creating an enormous amount of it fast? Well I think I’ve finally found an answer to that question, and it works better than ANY system I’ve ever used. There is no other system that works as well as this if you are like me and don’t want to spend all your time having to “network” all day long, and get accepted into powerful a powerful blog club. I know that some of you reading this want to grow your online wealth with total control, and go it alone. I know that for some this seems ridiculous, and that no one is an island, but I know some bloggers who don’t join “clubs” and like to work on the fringes too.

Blog Farm System Background

I am going to document my complete system for creating a white hat blog farm and explain how to do it properly. This is a system that evolved from my first intention to experiment with a blackhat style method of creating and managing splogs. I first started by trying all of the Blogger (Blogspot) creation software packages like Easy Blogger Creator and the like. Just like my other efforts, I hated the results and I knew that Google would eventually disallow these systems from working and all your efforts would be mute. Once again, the content was ugly, and it was re-hashed, etc.

Actually I found it easier to create all my splogs manually, and I found a much better way to create the content. 100% pure original content that reads well, readers enjoy and get something out of, and the the search engines treat with great respect. In fact, once I was done creating my so-called splog farm in Blogger, it could no longer be considered a splog farm – they were just blogs – white hats on ladies and gentlemen. Below I explain how to create these blogs, the timing of events, how the content is created, and what technologies I use.

Powerful System For Creating Blog Farms

First the Tools and Technologies

• Blog platforms: WordPress [1] and Blogger (blogspot) [2]
• Software: Dupefree [3] and Dragon Naturally Speaking [4]
• Computer: Laptop or Desktop computer (ya think?)

Design Your Whitehat Blog Farm

The Niche

I’m going to assume you have enough experience to know how important choosing a niche target for creating profit from is. Make sure you choose a topic that is consumer driven where people are seriously looking for a product or service. Don’t go for niche that people will just fly through your blogs to look at pictures, or simply read. You want them coming to look for a specific product or service. And don’t choose a niche where the advertisers spend very little per click. Here is a tip – Water Softeners or Breast Surgery pays well and you can compete. OK, this is boring stuff because we’ve been talking about niche targeting for years now – it’s a no-brainer so if you want to read further go see Jonathan’s post entitled, “How to choose a profitable niche“. In my opinion, you can make money off any subject, but you want to optimize your possibility for larger profits.

There is one catch to the niche material. You have to make sure that your niche subject has a lot of books written on it – and here is a subtle hint, there should be plenty of old books in print on the subject. I’ll explain why this is so important later, but take the time to go down to your nearest used book store and look for books that are related to a lucrative niche such as one identified using the criteria above, and on Jonathan’s page.

The Design Model of The Blog Farm

Now for the fun stuff. When I started experimenting with the idea of blog farming, I took a big piece of cardboard and drew it out in a diagram. Below is an image I created for my blog farm system.

Basic Structure of White Hat Blog Farm

First thing you want to do is create your owned domains using the WordPress blogging platform. I use 7 as a rule of thumb, but you can create more or less. I have 7 different unlimited hosting accounts so that is why I use 7. You want to have your primary blogs on different servers for future linking, but as you will read, linking these primary blogs is avoided until much later and in moderation.

Second thing you want to do is create your Blogger farm, and I would not go more than 45 blogs. Remember these will not be splogs. These will be the real deal and they will not get shut down. These are long-term blogs that will stand the test of time because you are not playing any dirty tricks as far as the search engines see. As a matter of fact, these will be highly respected blogs. I know – I know – I know you’re wondering how on earth we can keep high quality content on these blogs all by ourselves, without a team of professional writers. Read on.

On these Blogger blogs you need to setup 5 different accounts (MANUALLY) with five different Gmail accounts. For each account never create more than 9 blogs, because I’ve noticed there seems to be a trigger on the creation of a tenth blogger blog. Google thinks you’re splogger sometimes, but I have never had a problem creating 9 blogs. Of course all of these blogs are about your chosen niche.  Stay away from desktop software designed to manage all your blogs – it’s just as easy to post manually and the posts are clean and pretty.

In the image above you can see the link structure that will eventually be employed, but you need to link slowly, and carefully. Over-linking is a trap that too many eager webmasters and “blog masters” tend to fall into. You are not going to be so careless. We will get into more detail on linking below.

Now We Create The Content – This Is The Fun Part!

Go down to that book store I mentioned earlier and buy up 5-10 books on the niche subject you are working for. Then make sure you have Dragon Naturally Speaking installed and working on your PC. You will have to train Dragon to understand your diction and the tones of your voice. This takes some time to master, because you need to paraphrase the content one section at a time in your own words with your own speaking rhythm, but Dragon will keep getting smarter and smarter the more you use it. I can dictate an article over 2500 words long and only tweak or change a dozen words in it – it’s that accurate.

Before you even consider using the content in these old books, you need to do some checks. Take one of the books and dictate a page into Dragonpad, or a simple text editor (.txt). Copy/paste that chunk of content into one of your blogger blogs and publish it. Once the article is published (does not have to perfect or complete because we’re just going to delete it anyway) copy the URL of the blog page you created and go to the Copyscape website. Paste in your Blogger blog’s page URL and click go. You will know now if the content from this used book is online somewhere. If you don’t see any use of this text online, then the search engine will see it as pure Grade-A golden content, and 100% original. I know that I mentioned we are paraphrasing in our own words to avoid plagiarism, but the content will still be similar to the book’s content, so you want to make sure the book’s content is not already online in Google Books or something like that.

Once you have made sure all your used books are not online anywhere you are ready to create your content. Now, you likely screaming foul on this because it is pure plagiarism …… right? Well, sort of is the right answer, but since you are writing it all in your own words I would say not. You should give credit to the writer(s) on a separate credit page somewhere on your blog.

You would be surprised (or maybe not) at some of the big players on the Internet who are doing exactly what I’m showing you here, except they are going word for word. You would also be shocked at how many books I move this way for Amazon commissions. So now you given credit to the writer(s) and you have created a way for them to sell more books.

In a 7-8 hour period I create over 10,000 words of excellent content that has never been on the Internet. This kind of content is like crack cocaine to the search engines, the readers love it, and people link these pages due to the quality of the article.

Load The Content – About 4-5 Hours To Do

I create at least 30 articles between 750 – 1500 words using the dictation software as above, and this way you never use the same article more than twice. From my experience having the same article published word for word a couple of time does not hurt your blog(s). Even three times seems to be OK as long as it is nowhere on the Internet yet. Of course we know this content is 100% fresh and NOT on the Internet yet – right?

Now manually load your articles into all of your blogs, and this includes your primarly WordPress profit blogs, but they get the best articles, and these article are NOT used anywhere else. 100% pure fresh golden content for these blogs.

Manually log into your blogger accounts and post an article in all of your blogs. This does not take as long as you thing. 2-3 hours and ALL of my blogs have been fed their ration of High-Grade content. You can do this twice a week on all of your blogs with no problem once you get into the swing of things. Your frequency of posting is up to you but I would start very slow, and build up. The searchies like molasses and turtles, not rabbits an hawks

That’s it. Don’t do any linking yet – I will discuss linking below.

How To Link Your Blog Farm

This is critically important and must be read. Don’t believe what most of the so-called experts tell you about having as many possible inbound links as possible. The search engines are now wary of rapid linking to brand new domains. Why? Because it makes no sense at all to have a new web site or domain receive hundreds of links within the first day of launch. So what do I do? Very little for a full year.

For this pure whitehat blog farm project as pictured in the image above, I don’t even bother with ANY linking for at least 3 months, and even then I only add one inbound link per blog per month until the first year anniversary of the blog(s). I bet you have not heard that one before. This is a very natural looking progression to the search engines, and you will be surprised how well it works.

Link Structure of Your Blog Farm

When it is time to start linking I link carefully and make sure the anchor text is perfect. In other words the link(s) will be in the middle of a beautiful piece of content on one blog, with the all-important keywords for anchor text, and linking to an article about the same keyword(s).

At first I only link to the Blogger farm from Article directories. These are my favorite 6 below:

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Yes - that is really me at 18 years old getting ready for a typical Halloween night. This was my favorite way to go. This was taken in 1980 in Victoria, British Columbia. Get "painted and polluted".

I’ve started a new category on my old Zulit blog (the one you are reading right now) called Blackhat Weekends. Why? Because during the week I work at home on numerous web sites, and blogs, and make a pretty darn good living doing it. My wife and I both work on the week days on our pure white hat projects and we take home an average of $6,000 a month. We have slowly moved up the income ladder over the past 5 years, and it’s been allot of fun to be free.

It’s also been allot of work. Why? Because creating domains that have longevity and make steady money takes a stupid amount of time. Like I always said about the old “Work at Home” programs, the key word is WORK – actually, to be successful, and quit your day job, it’s WORK, WORK, WORK and more WORK.

But like any online entrepreneur I’m fascinated by blackhat methods. I’ve dabbled in the blackhat world from time to time and I’ve played with many many different scripts in an attempt to create a constant stream of content to my blogs. I’ve tried re-writers, RSS feed aggregation, including WordPress plugins that do RSS feed aggregation (Wp-O-Matic and RSS to WordPress). Both do what they say, to some degree, but if you’re like me, and fussy about how your pages are displayed, you won’t be satisfied. There are some big problems with the use of these scripts – I go into some of these problems below.

Problem #1 – A Pain to Setup?

These RSS feed aggregate scripts are often a pain to setup properly, and can take many hours of frustrating labor to get them to function – all depends on the hosting account you have and the level of technical knowledge you have. One of the big problems with Wp-O-Matic is that it often double or triple posts, which makes for a stupid and ugly blog. RSS to WordPress has issues too and I’ve long forgotten what they were.  Keep in mind that I do have a fair amount of technical knowledge.

Problem #2 – Summarized RSS Feeds

Because of the Splog problem, almost all decent RSS feeds are set in summary mode. Many good RSS feeds these days only provide a link and no description whatsoever. You might find some bloggers who punt out full feeds, but they’re far and few between – AND you are robbing from the little people – the bloggers like you and me who have put allot of work into their content. I get into the moral issue next.

My point here is that the content you end up with on your sblogs is usually garbage. The smart RSS bandits create niche blogs with the WordPress platform, and then use the RSS feeds from bloggers who have full feeds. These guys will create their sblogs backwards. They’ll scour the Internet (manually) looking for some good blogs, with frequent posts, and that are all in a common niche. THEN they buy a domain name using the keyword of the said niche, install WordPress, install their favorite RSS aggregator, configure the good niche blog feeds, and walk away. Oh yes – they put on their advertising scripts such as Adsense and YPN before they leave (that is the whole point)

Problem #3 – Your Conscious Bubba

So after configuring a few splogs in the manner described directly above, I was actually getting good search engine results, and actually making some money. Then I got some frustrated emails from bloggers. They, for some strange reason had a problem with me robbing their hard work. Imagine that! How dare them accuse me of being an affiliate pirate with no conscious or scrap of decency. I mean the nerve of these folks.

After receiving 3 real emails from these real bloggers, I had to agree with them. I shut down the splogs, and moved on to my real online work. Some of you reading this may not care. The moral issue might not bother you like it bothered me. If you are one of those people, remember that you ARE actually hurting these bloggers and writers. It’s not fair, it’s not right, and it’s not good for any parties involved. That includes the advertising companies you sponsor on your splog.

Problem #4 – The Rewrite Issue

So with all of this said – me coming to my senses and being a good little boy again, I thought that maybe I could rewrite all of the RSS feeds coming so much so that it’s not plagiarism, and therefore not hurting anyone at all. This could be sort of grey hat (or gray hat if you prefer). Well this was a real pain technically. I even went to the effort and expense to Rent a Coder to rework the Wp O Matic plugin so it would rewrite the RSS feeds feeding splogs. I spent $300 getting the script re-worked, and configuring it in WordPress. However, the content sucked. I wanted to rewrite the content to pass the duplicate content filters of the searchies, AND read well. Good luck. Every tried to do a rewrite with software so that it still makes perfect grammatical sense, and be over 50% unique – it’s quicker to just write fresh articles. If you can type at good clip, then you should. This whole process didn’t work out. Maybe it would for you.

This whole process took up way more time than one weekend, but I learned allot about search engines in the process, learned allot about PHP scripts, aggregators, and the like. It was allot of fun too. However, I have recently been spending my weekends researching blackhat techniques in the hope that I can create some more good blog farms for monetizing and link feeding. I have a method now using specific software (mostly free) that works like gangbusters. Very excited about it and I will reveal the whole process top to bottom next week for another installement of BlackHat Weekends.

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