Introductions Thread

Hi all. I found this forum after an SEO friend of mine referred me to the SUPERB Avalanche SEO thread by CCarter. WOW, truly mind-blowing!

I have been in (and out) of SEO for what must be 15+ years now. I had a successful site about ecigs (now called vaping!) when they first came out. I knew it would be big. So I set about learning some naughty hat (forget black, this is WAAAY worse :D) tactics and in 6 months I had a page 1 ranking site for a few ecig brand keywords.

I bagged $20k in 6 months, then got totally screwed over by one of the ecig makers (who I helped grow very fast along with some other affiliates). Their "lifetime commissions", apparently meant sweet F.A.

I threatened a class action law suit, got some other affiliates involved, found a lawyer, and after warning the arrogant 'affiliate manage' I was really gonna do it, he finally took me seriously. I had already had a long law suit (10 years) and wasn't up for another decade of that stress. So I bartered and eventually agreed 5k to walk away and sign an agreement not to have any part in any class action. I hated myself for doing it, but we were in desperate times financially and I needed the money.

That left a bad taste in my mouth so I wandered off to other things. Several kids later, I am now getting back into it as we are living in a hut in the woods and I have to be home all the time due to caring for a disabled relative. So SEO it is, again!

This time I like the avalanche/topical authority approach, and desperately need to make something pay in next 6-12 months. A tall order maybe, but it's *hit or bust for my family now, so here goes nothing! Looks like this board will be a regular spot for me now, so I am rolling out my beach towel and hoping for some sunny weather :smile:

Joey
 
Not sure if anyone can help. I want to post a reply on another thread and it keeps saying "insufficient priveleges". I read the rules, and it looks like I have enough Likes. Why can't I post still? Thanks
 
Hi everyone, long-time BuSo lurker finally taking the time to post and get involved.

I’ve been in and out of the SEO/online space for two decades. Built my first e-commerce site in 2003 and like a lot of folks here I’ve dabbled in ads, affiliate, memberships, and info products. My current focus is on info and memberships in two unrelated YMYL niches.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I recently took one of my sites that had an 85% traffic hit after three subsequent Google updates and increased the traffic ~6.5x following CCarter’s Avalanche SEO strategy. The whole process took about 10 months, with 8 months of content creation resulting in over 1k new articles.

In this case, Avalanche wasn’t the only strategy used but I have no doubt that this contributed the vast majority of the gains. If anyone’s interested, I also completely restructured the internal linking, did a complete overhaul for E-A-T, and implemented a number of other changes. Link building started after about six months of Avalanche.

Looking forward to learning more from everyone and sharing where I can!
 
JoeyDonuts said:
Not sure if anyone can help. I want to post a reply on another thread and it keeps saying "insufficient priveleges". I read the rules, and it looks like I have enough Likes. Why can't I post still? Thanks
Click to expand...

You should be all set now. You needed 3 likes, and also 3 messages, and that one was your 3rd.
 
Hello,

Curios SEO Newbie here. I'm a trying solopreneur and believe that SEO skills could be vital for my future. After consuming content around I've decided to start learning by doing - that's the only way learning has worked for me. I'm starting with a brand new site and would love to challenge myself to rank up in 8 - 12 months. At the moment I don't have any monetary goals for this. I simply want to build a site that can attract organic traffic.
Has anyone tried anything like this? How was your experience? Pls feel free to share any getting started pointers. All help appreciated :smile:

Cheers,
pracas
 
pracas said:
Hello,

Curios SEO Newbie here. I'm a trying solopreneur and believe that SEO skills could be vital for my future. After consuming content around I've decided to start learning by doing - that's the only way learning has worked for me. I'm starting with a brand new site and would love to challenge myself to rank up in 8 - 12 months. At the moment I don't have any monetary goals for this. I simply want to build a site that can attract organic traffic.
Has anyone tried anything like this? How was your experience? Pls feel free to share any getting started pointers. All help appreciated :smile:

Cheers,
pracas
Click to expand...

Sounds like a great way to get started.

I did something similar a while back and what worked for me was picking a topic I liked enough to write about for six months, committing to a fixed writing schedule and sticking to it no matter what, and then learning and iterating along the way. BuSo is a great place for this. Good luck.
 
Hi BuSo!
Where should I start? Maybe my background. Software Developer with a history like a young dog. After working as corporate drone for too many years, I and my SO went self employed. Was hard at the start, then had some success with print on demand earning commission driving traffic with FB ads. Then started our own Shopify shop. Started great, then came the troubles :D supply chain issues due to pandemic, rising ads cost, Apples do not track, then again customer Angst issues due Ukraine war (our main market was the DACH region)...
Long story short, we sold our shop a year ago, my SO is back to being employed, but I can't.
Currently freelancing in the Shopify area and developing my first Shopify app.
And both, my freelancing and my app(s) will need a lot of traffic, preferably from search engines.
About a week ago i stumbled over a tweet which mentioned the "avalanche method" which linked to post here in BuSo! For a newb like me it sounds great. After reading tons of mediocre engagement begging stuff on Twitter, I suddenly had the feeling: Here is the real content.
And here I want to learn how to create a page and a blog where I can promote my freelance work and also my apps. And also earn some money with affiliate links with tools and content related to my business...
TLDR; I am hooked

Greets,
AUN
 
Hello,

I registered here two years ago, but unfortunately, I didn't pay much attention to the forum back then.

For about the past six months, I've been regularly reading along and now I want to start contributing here occasionally as well.

Inspired by the "Income School" YouTube channel, about 4 years ago, I launched my first website.
In total, I've built three websites following the "Income School" approach, completely avoiding link building.

And what can I say, none of them managed to surpass an average of $400 over 6 months.

Two of them were simultaneously destroyed by a Google Core update, and I sold the third one for $4k before it was also destroyed by a Google Core update about 5 months later.

For about two years now, I've been launching new sites only on expired domains. I sold my first site on an expired domain for $13k after about a year, and according to AHREF, it has weathered all subsequent Google updates without major issues.

None of my new sites have suffered significant damages from updates so far, and my most successful site to date has been making nearly $1k per month over the last 12 months.

However, my fear of Core Updates has remained :D

I wrote the text in German and had it translated into English by ChatGPT in the hope that it's more readable than if I had written it in English myself.

I hope that's okay.
 
What’s up guys, I’m not sure if BuSo is the right community for me but I want to build a business from nothing and I’m a complete newbie. I don’t know what kind of business or how but I’m looking for a community where I can start a progress log because that will help me keep my goals in focus and also regular writing helps organize my thoughts.

Some basic info about me:

I’m a 40 year old Software Engineer who kind of always wanted to become an entrepreneur “some day” but never really knew how and has been procrastinating for decades. That is, up until about a year ago when I came across the well known ways of building a “10k per month client business” like copywriting, short-form video editing and the like. Earlier this year, I gave a half-hearted effort to become a ghostwriter but I didn’t get very far with it.

I just finished reading MJ DeMarco’s book which put a lot of things in perspective. But before I start building anything, I want to read (or listen to the audio version of) some classic texts on copywriting, sales, marketing, entrepreneurship, mindset etc. because I’m sure I’ll need those skills. I already have some vague business ideas but I want to make a proper comparison of them to find the one I can commit to, to avoid jumping from one thing to another.

I have two degrees from two regionally good universities, one of which is in Economics. I speak two foreign languages. I have also solved some challenging problems in my life including quitting smoking (after a decade of being a heavy smoker) and quitting drinking (after more than a decade of increasingly more problematic drinking). I’m physically fit, I work out 6 days a week and I eat what I believe is a healthy diet.

I’m open to feedback and I wish every fellow builder the best of luck on their journeys.
 
Hey guys, I've been lurking on the sub for a few weeks now and I decided to finally get involved and ask some questions (Since I don't really have many answers :smile:)
About me:
I'm a high schooler who just wants a headstart in life and make some money through internet marketing.
I have only dabbled in social media marketing (Instagram, Facebook) till this day but I'm really interested different IM niches like SEO and CPA and the information on this site has been really helpful to me so I just posted to say hi and introduce myself.
Thanks for reading and GoodLuck on all your venture.
 
Hii, New here
Myself Saurabh and this is my first post here.
I am from India & running an Internet marketing Agency with a teal of 60 People. I am expert in Local SEO and doing it for more than 13 years.
Hope i will enjoy the journey here.
 
Hi, name is misterkel. Starting a website, planning a couple more once a I get the content to a good place on #1. Learning a lot, but came here because I have questions on siloing, SEO, interlinking, plugins and the like.
First question: I have no interest in programming, just in content marketing. Am I on the right forum or is this more for Web Devs (programmers)?
 
Hi, I've started reading about SEO three years ago and after finishing high school started some personal projects and niche sites (2 so far, one together with some friends/tech entusiasts) but I want to build more asset and eventually start an agency as well (long term project).
I've been reading on many SEO forums on the web and beyond some basic niche sites experiments I also tried CPA and parasite SEO, and now it's time to start reading interesting info here as well and lose even more social life reading about seo.
jokes aside, hope to be able to contribute a bit to the forum knowledge as well and gather more info about scaling my own projects.
 
Hi,

Been a member since 2014 and posted my first message today!

Used to be into SEO in the old days when it was easy, the days of sape and 301 redirects through a Wordpress site when you got banned by the big G. Always took the easy route (blackhat) as id rather be surfing than working. We used to rank well for console price comparison sites (think PS3 etc..) then got into finance and did a lot of payday, guarantor loans etc.. but when it got harder we built a broker platform and relied on brokers and affiliates to send us traffic and we did a fair bit of PPC (£1K a day spend) as I was bored of getting banned all the time and going from hero to zero overnight.

Covid smashed our last finance company to zero overnight and it's ruined our retail business aswell so back to the drawing board with our new site and reading up on whats going on with SEO world now AI has come onto the scene.
 
Hey all,

Been dabbling in SEO for years now on and off, and before that messed around with CPA offers and whatnot as a teenager using various spammy tactics.

I'm just now taking things seriously about SEO after seeing a small amount of success on it. I feel like just as I got it figured out so much is changing, kinda scary, gotta adapt, but also a lot of fear mongering happening imho.

Looking to broaden my horizons beyond organic search + affiliate, not sure which direction though, maybe I'll do some vertical integration kinda thing with skills I've learned from SEO.

Cheers
 
Hello everyone :D, I’ve been wandering around this forum for a while! I find super interesting and cool topics that keep me thinking all day.

I’m an in-house SEO manager and freelancer, but I know this is a never-ending learning path. The people here are always hungry for knowledge, so I think this is the right place to spend my time.

I'm a fan of all of you guys. Thanks to all the admins and users who keep this forum alive! I hope it never ends.
 
Heya, my name is Mentalite, I'm 18 years old, and have been scheming to make it big online so I can do the fun things in life

I first got into Digital Marketing back in November 2022, when I started reading "Dotcom Secrets" by Russell Brunson which taught me a lot about sales funnels and how today's businesses actually function. Being the impressionable teen I am, seeing the big numbers that a funnel can generate really pumped me up and made me wanna do it as well.

My plan is to do freelance full-stack marketing for a while so I can gain a bunch of experience to nail my future business ventures. Currently, I'm working on honing my copywriting while the other skills were so much easier to tame (funnels, email marketing, some graphic & web design)

Now, I will do this for however long it takes until it goes my way. The ultimate goal is to get to a point where I am free of financial or time burdens, allowing me to start a family and live on a FARM!
 
Howdy y'all, longtime lurker here. Love reading about SEO on this site, it's definitely the most helpful, above-the-board site I've found (below the board meaning BHW).

Figured I might as well introduce myself. I started a blog in college way back in 2011. Always had an interest in SEO and finally learned how to properly do keyword research near the end of 2021.

The blog I started in college is still my main blog and it's now with Mediavine and makes me a full time living. I was doing great until September 14th when I lost 35% of my Google traffic overnight.

So, I'm in the club too. Not a noob per-say but more like a DIYer turned semi-pro. My blog has a whole brand surrounding it locally in addition to the SEO presence bringing traffic from around the world.

Prior to the update I was right around 350,000 sessions per month.

Seeing how things shake out but I just did a whole bunch of housekeeping on my site this week. Added author bios, a page detailing our full history, and improved page experience as much as possible. Today seems to be recovering some but it's hard to tell for sure.
 
Hi, Everyone!

About me
M48, California. I'm a full-stack web developer transitioning into website publishing and traffic leaking. I've messed around with early SEO and affiliate programs, CPA offers, Prosper202, etc., over the years, but mainly freelancing web development.

Anybody remember Rimonabant?

I wanted to try agency development a few years ago and now I'm looking for a change. The development grind isn't scalable or sustainable long term and I'm more entrepreneurial at heart. So I'm pursuing that life instead.

I've had successful sites and partnerships in the past, but every era has its own challenges and opportunities. This one is no different. I look forward to charting its interior with everyone else here.

How I ended up here
I was originally inspired by Jon Dykstra (Fatstacksblog) sometime earlier this year. I've been trying to make time to do niche research and launch some sites, but I've been working on a big software development project this year and it leaves very little time. That's coming to a close over the next few weeks (for now) so I'm gearing up for lots of work on new pursuits this fall and winter.

While I still plan to pursue long-term content sites, a la Fatstacksblog, along the way I encountered Kyle Roof's videos on YouTube. In one of them, he refers listeners to a "builder society thread" called, "Avalanche technique... SEO with no resources or something to that effect", and here I am.

Then, after taking on board CCarter's basement/avalanche/tier strategy, I eventually stumbled upon the whole "traffic leak" strategy and list building, segmenting, filtering, and the whole "no google" aspect of it. Very refreshing when you've been immersed in the whole, "pray thee to thine google gods. ist thy only hope.", literature for a while.

So, I think a combination of long-term niche sites combined with non-google-dependent list building and CCarter-style, no-holds-barred guerilla marketing would produce a more diverse and stable portfolio of sites and digital assets.

Also, if/when the google gods eventually bestow traffic onto these long-term content sites, by that time, if I follow 'the parable of Darth Carter', I should know as much or more about how to effectively monetize the traffic that I'm getting from the google gods than those that wish to leak it to their sites via ad networks.

It will be interesting to see how much more you can possibly make off the same google traffic by not just passing it on to ad networks. Why not do whatever the advertisers on the ad networks are doing? (Note to self: Turn off ad blocker and start clicking ads to see what they are doing.)

I also really like the idea of not depending on google given that every few years there's always some tsunami sh*t storm of fire and brimstone that rips through everybody's sites w/out the common courtesy of a reach around. Fun times.

Note to self: Value peace of mind as much as google traffic so we can achieve Zen while the content-site-only crowd runs for the hills.

Also, this latest google shakeout looks like it may actually advantage the traffic leaking strategy given it's heavy emphasis on UGC and other more leakable sites.

Anyway, while I am going through the Digital Strategy course, I'm trying to avoid too much forum reading time as action is always better than idle theorizing. So I'll start a lab thread ASAP and get to work.

I look forward to learning and contributing. The signal-to-noise ratio here is off the charts! Thanks to the moderators.
 
How's it going?

Longtime lurker that's been running one semi-large content/affiliate site fulltime for over 10 years.

Decided to finally post because of this HCU update. First time I've been hit in years and am seeking some insight on how to recover. I'm pretty sure I know why I got slapped this time and am hoping my situation (and my ideas to rebound) will offer some insight to you all as well.

Have been aware of the traffic leaks strategy for awhile, but have been too comfortable relying on Google to give it a proper shot. Maybe it's time to evolve.

Anyways, looking forward to chatting with you all.
 
Hi everyone, my name Floris Username: Florisvdo

I've been immersed in the world of photography and digital contemporary art for quite some time. Specializing in creating digital portraits, I often blend the natural elements like flowers, birds, and butterflies into my artwork, providing a surreal experience. My pieces often focus on the beauty of women intertwined with nature, giving each portrait an ethereal touch.

Unlike many here who are into SEO and online marketing, my digital art journey has been more about capturing aesthetics and emotions, translating them into custom art pieces that tell a story. While I haven't had to recover from Google updates, I've faced my own set of challenges, like keeping up with rapidly evolving digital art tools and navigating the competitive landscape of custom art.

I may not have 1k articles to show for my efforts, but I've created a portfolio that I'm proud of, with each piece being a labor of love.

Looking forward to learning from this talented community and sharing my own artistic insights where I can!
 
Hi all, I'm Bothan Spy and this is my first post here. Looking to get a handle on SEO and blogging.

Nice to use an old-fashioned FORUM again! I remember good conversations with these before Social Media, Reddit and the year 2000. Yeah, I'm old.

I'm looking forward to FINALLY making a bit of $$$ online and I think this can be a good place to learn how. I want to build something that outlasts me! Cheers.
 
Hello everyone! Have been following this forum for years and figured it's about time to get involved.

I've been doing SEO for about 9 years now, 90% of that being iGaming (online casino and sports betting). Worked in and led in-house teams of large operators, worked for an agency, and founded an affiliate company. This has allowed me to gain perspective on all sides of the business basically.

I love technical SEO and have a lot of experience with link building (which as you all know is a must in the gambling niche).

Besides that, I manage my own content/affiliate sites. This is where BuSo has always been useful for inspiration and following discussions on algo changes etc.

I look forward to continuing to learn here and also sharing my knowledge where I can! The landscape is definitely changing, and navigating all these changes is going to be easier by putting minds together :smile:
 
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