Keep going, or start over? | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

My wife and I have been discussing this a bit lately, since a good deal of my income is dependent on my sites now.  Beating Broke, at some point in the past was the recipient of a penalty of some sort from Google.  The result is that BB has no page rank.  As we are all aware, PR is looked at pretty heavily by advertisers in regards to how much they'll pay for an ad on the site. 

Has anyone ever successfully gotten Google to lift one of these penalties?  If so, how? 

I understand that it's nearly impossible to do so, but I would love, for obvious reasons, to get my PR back.  The second part of the question, is, if I can't get the PR back, would I be better off starting over on a new domain and building from there, rather than spending the time on a site that will never have any PR?

Knowing how much time and effort I've put into Beating Broke, I lean towards saying F U Google, and keeping on with BB.  But, as always, I find that the Yakezie advice is a bit more level headed. ;)

The Big G isn't exactly known for being reasonable when they have made a decision.  Personally, I would suggest a two-fold strategy… keep BB running.  it is a nice site and you put a lot of work into it.  If you don't know why you got penalized, perhaps the penalty will be lifted someday for an equally unknown reason.  Meanwhile, start up a 2nd site.  Perhaps the 2nd site can focus on survival after quitting your job, or some other niche-y idea?  This solution will provide a win-win for you.

Jeremy @ Personal Finance Whiz said:

Selling links (which is what you are doing if the advertiser cares about PR) is only one very small piece of the pie when it comes to making money. From what I can see it looks like you have a large enough audience that you should be able to do well with more traditional advertising – CPM banners or AdSense – or via CPA or promoting products as an affiliate. This is doubly true if you have any level of traffic from the search engines. 

Search engine traffic is worth its weight in gold if you can monetize it. I have sites with a PR of 0 that earn 4 figures per month. 

All of this is to say that your site is likely worth far more than whatever you were making selling links based on your PR.

You're better at it than I am, Jeremy.  The traffic I do get barely manages to get me $20-$30 a month on adsense, and I don't know that I've ever sold an affiliate product through the site.  I'll have the time to get better at that part though, so it's a valid point.

I agree with Jeff. It's time like these that I wish Google has more competition. I got banned from Adsense and that sucks. I'll have to try affiliates and see how that goes. 

I would suggest going with a CPM network for ad revenue.  Perhaps Blog Ads or something of that nature. Don't drop BB.

I know it's hard, but I think you need to try and figure out what it is that caused your PR to drop.

Without knowing why, how will you know a new site won't build up and drop later on as well?

And if you can pinpoint some areas to focus on you may be able to correct BB (or at least have a better blueprint for a new site).

I'd go with the keeping of BB as your main blog – keep moving and then starting another site that is a bit different than the previous site  maybe a niche site that has more content then normal?  I would not abandon BB – too much of a following

MoneyBeagle said:

This is impetus to start my planned second site sooner rather than later. 

Ditto!

Dr Dean said:

I have so much trouble keeping up one site, the idea of two gives me cold chills… I think I need a drink…

Hahaha.  I know that feeling.  Lots of ideas, but lacking time to implement….

retireby40 said:

I agree with Jeff. It's time like these that I wish Google has more competition. I got banned from Adsense and that sucks. I'll have to try affiliates and see how that goes. 

 Affiliate marketing doesn't work as well as Adsense. It works best if you're like Pat Flynn – a ton of direct, loyal traffic.