Google Sandbox… Yeah, It’s Real
Google Sandbox, Is It Real?
I’ve gone back and forth with the Google sandbox. I read up on this from various articles online and in many ecourses over the past year. I was leaning towards the Google sandbox not being real. I didn’t have any real proof.
Desperate Journey from $0/day – $100/day and Beyond
I’m quite embarrassed to even being starting this. At 31 years old, I thought I would have figured out internet marketing by now.
I married young at 21 years old, months before my first child was going to be born. Prior to that, I had only had 2 real jobs. My hubby and I had made the decision that he would go to work and I would be a stay at home mom. But I wasn’t satisfied with not helping to add to the family income.
I’m not exactly sure how I started promoting in a certain industry. But I did and I learned a lot of hard lessons the hard way. I went from free hosting to paid hosting to dedicated server. Back then, learning the ropes of promoting such sites was hard. I don’t learn quickly. I wasn’t able to spend much money to grow my business as we were on a single income with a child to take care of.
I befriended many webmasters in the business, many of which were making tens of thousands of dollars every month or actually owning certain sites. Some were surprised that I was actually a woman working on the business side since there were very few female webmasters back then.
I tried to learn as much as I could and consistently built galleries to promote on the many TGPs. I thought I was getting a lot of traffic but my traffic was barely showing up compared the more experienced players.
I hit a lot of lows too. One I remember was when my server had gotten hacked into and my pictures were all being hotlinked. Then another time, my own computer took a crap and I lost everything. Since then I’ve learn to back my stuff up LOL
The best I had ever done in one month was over $3,000. I was so damn proud of myself especially since I saved Christmas that one year.
Throughout the years, me and hubby made financial mistakes that were very costly. We even started a landscaping business that put us deep in the hole. Embarrassingly enough, we found ourselves moving backing to his mother’s house 3 times. Yes I know, pathetic.
6 years ago, we were $91,000 in debt. Today, we’re down to under $8,000. It’s a huge accomplishment and we’re aiming to be debt free.
We’re still living at his mother’s house with our 2 kids. I had given up the adult affiliate marketing a couple years ago to focus more on mainstream internet marketing. Now that I have 2 kids, I want to be able to working on non-adult stuff so that when they come into the room, I’m not trying to cover up what I’m working on LOL
A few years back, I started up a website where I created Myspace graphics for end users to place on their profiles. I even started selling graphics packs to myspace site owners which netted me over $3,000 in my best month LOL. That number seems common.
It was a lot of work but I was proud of what I was doing. Unfortunately, a lot of teenagers got wind of what I did on a certain forum and started doing the same thing. Except, they slashed prices down to a couple bucks a pack. Really devalued the graphics packs. I didn’t want to and couldn’t compete with that.
I removed all the packs and the graphics I had on the site I owned and turned it into a Zazzle storefront with the intention of creating graphics to plaster all over their products like mugs and mousepads. But I figured why do all the work when I can promote other people’s work on my site?
I’ve made a few bucks from it but nothing to be amazed about.
I also made money as an ebay seller. I was a powerseller at one point too. but it just wasn’t my cup of tea.
Over the years, I’ve picked up knowledge in
- basic website html design
- proficient in wordpress
- some photoshop
- and a few other miscellaneous things that I can’t think of at the moment
What I’ve studied:
- A lot of shitty, rehashed crap
- stuff from the gurus that have been way over my head (extremely complicated in my mind)
- building and flipping sites
- building niche sites with amazon and adsense monetization
- authority sites
- basic Search Engine Optimization
- a little bit of social marketing here and there
- A bit of CPA
What’s worked for me so far:
- flipping 3-4 start up autoblogs for $50-80 each (however, a couple had to be relisted a few times before they got sold)
- a Christmas site that got page 1 listings for various products last month based on Info product killer method (made a couple hundred bucks half of which was from Adsense)
- Halloween costume site based on Commission Blueprint method ($70 in October last year)
- $5 (2 sales); 1 from the christmas site and 1 from promoting a penny auction in a classifieds ad
As you can see, my results haven’t been amazing. My brain’s all over the place… scattered, if you will. I’ve dabbled here and there, got a huge case of information overload and paralysis by overanalysis. I have really no money to put into this right now and it sucks because I know I need money to make money.
Building sites doesn’t seem to be a problem for me. The biggest problem is how to generate traffic. I’m just not good at it. period. 
I need to learn methods that will bring in the cash a little quicker so I can fund my long term projects. I keep hearing that CPA can bring the cash in pretty quickly if you know what you’re doing. Like I mentioned earlier, I started posting up classified ads promoting penny auctions. So far, 6 ads spread over 2 days have brought in $3.50 (1 sale lol)
I watched videos on setting up and promoting an adult dating site on backpage.com . but after I had things set up, I realized that just about all the city links to post ads in the “no strings attached” sections were “under review”. so they are at this point unavailable. Now what? I thought about using Craigslist but they have notices plastered everywhere that scammers need to be reported to their affiliate programs by reporting their affiliate ids. I did more research into it and read articles warning people not to fall for such dating scams. Grrrr.
Can you still make money promoting CPA offers on craigslist? or have I once again missed the wagon?
Another method I started to use was a variation of the $297 ebay method. except I used craigslist. Contacted a few people but never heard back.
So here I am frustrated to no end. I am constantly amazed and impressed by the people who are making a good living on the internet, especially those that are quite younger than me and have figured it out. I’m not expecting to get rich over night. I just want to make enough money right now to be able to pay off our debt and move back to CA where my family lives.
Obstacles:
- My impatience
- Being a stay at home mom raising and homeschooling 2 kids (one with ADHD)
- A hubby who’s jobless (finding a job here has been very difficult)
- My bad habit of over analyzing and then getting paralyzed with fear that I will fail
- Really no money to support my internet marketing
- Living at my in laws house
Short term goals:
- Find a mentor who is willing to show me the ropes; take me under their wing (I had one when I was in adult affiliate marketing)
- Make $50/day consistently
- Make $100/day
- Make $300/day
- Build a portfolio of sites that make me passive income every month
- Learn CPA (first with free methods and then moving on to PPC later)
- Learn methods that I can use on a daily basis to bring steady traffic to my sites (press releases, video marketing, etc.)
Long term goals:
- Pay off the $8,000 debt
- Get a “newer” car (we only have 1 car, a 97 jeep)
- Make $10,000/month
- Move back to CA
- Buy our first home
I know I can reach all my goals if I can find my way through this. Many others have done it before me. Why can’t I?