Things are getting better. Internal vs external links.

Things are gradually getting better. After quite some time down the page I'm back to the third place with my former main search term, and I'm slowly creeping up with my now main and second search terms. Currently I'm holding 16th and fifth places respectively. After serious dip well below 1000 traffic is back to around 2000 level, and adsense shows some more or less respectable figures. Nothing close to $150 just yet, but yesterday I managed to close $44, which is way better than last week standard $15-20.

Looks like my aggressive link building campaign and risky internal linking experiments are starting to generate some value. Not sure what is more effective, but I suspect internal linking. And looks like it has even more potential, cause I just fixed titles, and the new structure definitely is not reflected in the SERP yet. This is not to say link building campaign does not work. Just on the current stage internal links re-structuring seems to bring in more bang for the buck.

But I can do only so much with internal links. As soon as they are optimized, I can't improve any further. On the other hand, external links can be built infinitely. So, until I have more ideas on internal links optimization, I need to continue with link building campaign...

Yes, it is a roller coaster. Changes in Adsense layout. New logo.

Did I tell you this is a roller coaster? Well, going from 6 bucks to 12 and then back to 5 on the same traffic definitely feels like one. I should train my stomach to be stronger, this is going to be quite a ride.

Anyway, around midnight from Aug 18 to Aug 19 I changed adsense layout one more time. As planned, I combined upper left links with the site menu (links on top), but this time I did not blend the links, I painted them in nice bright blue.

And I made new logo for my site. I did not decide that it is final for now, at least not yet, but I like it much more than the previous one.

Adsense roller coaster. Work incentives.

What a roller coaster! First, my traffic grows like crazy. I got some paid directories links, some articles, etc., and my SERPs are getting better and better. I'm second on Yahoo for ddir. Yesterday I got more than 900 visits, and today it is going to be even better. But my earnings yesterday barely crossed $6 - way below I have expected from that kind of traffic. Today I got more than $12. This is definitely something to celebrate. I can't live on that money, but nonetheless they are already noticeable. If I just continue at the same pace (and I hope I will be able to increase this significantly) 12x365=4380 yearly! In some countries this is considered a good income.

Finally, after more than a year online, I got some incentive to work on this project. I started to stage the upgrade to the most recent version of the code. My code is heavily modified, and upgrading is a huge job, and I just did not have energy for it when my site just barely was breaking even. Next in queue are graphics and editing.