OK I am alive this has been the longest I have been without blogging for the last year. The truth of the matter is that its been one of the most exhausting month of my time.
The biggest piece of news has been the set up a SEO consultancy arm of my business, in the two months that this has been live I have already got 5 long term committed customers. So welcome all of you lovely people 
Having revamped my staff, and brought it back to the quota of 12 full time members my estimates show that I can absorb another 5 more customers before I need to go out and look for more staff.
I was really please with the number of people that got in touch with me after my last post, wanting to work with me and offering various projects. I have responded to all e-mails I think. That aside what have I been up to for almost month and a half?
Well to explain that I have really have to make an omission, one of my readers and a fellow bloggers (not a very well known one) decided to report my sites to google result was that I had 10 sites in the same sector whacked at once! Luckily they do not form the majority of my income so it was ok. Few that have come out of this.
1. This year i have had more sites penalized then in my entire history as an affiliate marketer. Looking at the full history of them, only one site was down to the number and type of links rest were all becuase they fell in one of two categories. They were deemed to push malware (as was the case after the hacked site, which is not up and running thankfully) Or they were deemed as thin doorway sites. Having logged 80+hours shifting through various blogs and webmaster forum etc, I think I know enough about why would google penalize sites. To that end there is going to be a dedicated interactive help center (which will be work in progress) which will help webmasters figure out what their peanelty is and give advice on how to get out of it.
2. I am seriously consider putting a page called “haters” and outing every one who I think is an asshole. One of the fuckers, who was involved in my 10 sites I have e-mailed and I WILL come after you. I am stating this in public YOUR SITES YOU TURD WILL GO DOWN…Shall I make it public? umm I dont know..Though contacting me through A4U or via my site and pretending to be my friend is not going to cut it…
3. I realized looking at my old post that I tended to vent on this blog, so that is going to stop. I have now decided to be more aggressive both in terms of sectors/niches that I take on as well as How I handle this kind of crap, this will hopefully be the LAST time I will moan about any of my sites or the hate I seem to be attracting. The warning is clear, mess with me and I will take away your means to earn a living online.
Enough of the Dark Shit..
Things I have learnt?
Lots and lots of information about penalization, algorithmic and manual penalties. I also know a lot more about homepage blog networks that seem to be all the craze these days, and there is going to be my take on that relatively soon.
The case study that I promised has kind of fallen wayward, as I have done no work on it, but am now going to work on this as soon as possible. The income on my sites has slipped somewhat but still maintaining a healthy profit as seen by the scanned partial invoice of sales made in the last month from one of my merchants.
The values are not individual sales but individual sites, the crazy thing has been that this is only one of my main merchants and secondly for I think the first time ever, I have earned commission in WHOLE NUMBERS? has that ever happened to you? In total however I have earned 10% less then last month but its up considerably after my sites all recovering from black Friday.
Where is all the money going?
Well a significant potion of the income 75%+ (plus proceeds from earlier sales of sites) go towards a big project of mine in fact two big projects. I am also adding more and more tools and custom scripts to my sites, and my arsenal.
I am still split whether to add more square footage and move out of my cupboard of a home office and move somewhere where lines between office and home life are clearly defined. Be it in a nearby building or rent a separate house altogether.
I also see close affiliate friends getting cool cars, and I feel really really bad with my 02 honda lol, I HAVE to upgrade. I have my eyes set on a new XJ, though keep holding of thinking not in my neighbourhood, and I should really buy better house, and move out of East London.
As decisive as I try to be in my business, I am complete opposite when it comes to buying anything valuable dont really know why.
Personal Plans
We have been dicked around by GOSH for a while regarding my sons op time, and we are no closer to getting one, which is really starting to get on my nerves. I have let my health slide considerably with doctors telling me that my blood pressure means that I will have a stroke by the time I am in my 40′s which is a scary thought.
I have promised myself that in October I will become the health freak that I once used to be, and really take care of myself even if it means that I loose some money. It remains to be seen if I actually manage to achieve this feat?
How was your month?
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Great to see you blogging again Mansoor!!
Good to know things are getting back on track for you, and the consultancy firm is set up. They are also some AWESOME figures you are showing there, and I can’t see why you won’t be able to treat yourself to a VERY nice car
By the way, I look forward to your post on private blog networks and any other tips you have relating to Google, penalties and algorithms.
Kamran recently posted..Odd Search Engine Traffic
Hi Kammy,
Consultancy thing is a bit challenging at times, and some of the questions I will now get asked are basic to say the least. One client wanted a face to face meeting, and could not understand why his old seo consultant could rank him for injury lawyers “location” in 6 month and I said it would take him longer to rank for injury lawyers (as in whole of uk!)
I tried to tell him local listings are a lot easer then UK wide ones, especially without google places but it was an uphill battle. More really becuase it was my fault as i did not come prepared for these types of questions. Live and learn
With regards to figures, they are partial figures. Over all picture definitely looks a lot better.. that is why I am relatively pleased with the month even though its been full of frustration and lots of hard work.
The google penalties, will be a permanent dedicated page which I am hoping lots of people will like
Glad to see your blog is finally up and running now 
Hey Mansoor,
Great to see you back.
There seems a lot of jealousy in the interwebs when people who think you can trust turn out to be your worst enemies – it’s happened to me too!
Good to see your consultancy is going well. I guess it’s important to diversify, especially when your income is not guaranteed.
Have to agree with separating business from home life. I will be moving soon, as the noise/disturbances at home are becoming pretty annoying, especially when all you want to do is that last bit of work.
Cheers,
Peter
Hi Peter,
Do tell about what happened to you? Its not a matter of trust just a matter of people’s mindset and i have to wonder why is it that other affiliates say I have never had this, as I get it a lot lmao..
Separating business from home is great but I love the fact that I can and do work all sorts of ridiculous hours, and working away from home will mean i need to be more organized and go home at a set time. Still wondering really, good luck on your impending move.
Hi Mansoor,
It was a site that was steadily generating income for 18 months on G page 1. Then all of a sudden… whoosh. Gone. It was actually down to page 5 for its main KW, so I thought a -50 penalty. I contacted Google and they said there was no penalty.
Around the time of the site dropping, I had also stopped using the backlinking services of someone I’d known for over a year (who i thought was a friend). I’d kept a record of all backlinks. A few weeks after the drop, I checked what was linking in, and it some dodgy russian and chinese sites! But, I did not have these links built or do a redirect! So something fishy was going on. Of course, I can’t prove it was the backlinker, but just too much of a coincidence.
Anyway, onward and upward!
;o)
Peter, you do realize that google only say it does not violate any terms they mean there is no MANUAL penalty. That is all the reconsideration request is aimed towards resolving. You site could still be under an algorithmic peanelty (which times out depending on severity varies between 90 days to 120 days)
Dodgy links can cause this, however there are ways to counteract that and you can write a reconsideration request accordingly. If you think domain is worth fighting for i suggest you do so, and its not hard
Thanks for the tips, Mansoor.
It happened in April; so if it was an algorithmic penalty, I think it would have timed out by now. To be honest, it wasn’t a massive earner. I guess you have to balance time+effort spent getting it ranked again vs time+effort on bigger projects.
Cheers,
Peter
I look at it differently if figuring out WHAT went wrong so it does not happen on your bigger projects
Yes, I think you’re right. I will leave it for a little while longer to see if it bounces back, then try a re-consideration request and build links / content.
Glad to hear you are back in budiness. Must be tough trying yo explain seo stuff to clients. Why did google penalize your sites ( apart from the hacked one)? Just because they were reported?
My month is going ok, earnings still down though which is a pain, nappies don’t grow on trees!
Hi Joe,
Seo stuff is hard to explain, the biggest problem is that numbers quoted. The clients that are coming in fall in one of two categories, either they have been quoted very large sums, and wondering wtf? or they have been quoted really really basic pricing and promised the world.
I kid you not I have an example where a local supplement merchant contacted me and we discussed various strategies. When it came to pricing my pricing was according to him WAY off as he was quoted half of what I was asking and GUARANTEED rankings for the terms wait for it……….. “Weight loss” and “body building” ! (in 6 months).
I told the client that he should definitely take this company up on the offer and, did point at the terms and conditions page on the seo company site. Anyway its a different kind of problem to be honest.
Google penalized those sites becuase of the site architecture. The information that google needed to see it was adding value was there but was buried and not immediately obvious. So it was deemed a thin site, I have a feeling I have a better understanding of what is a “thin” site now.
Why are your earnings down? I thought I manage to stabilize that site of yours? To be honest I have not looked so if its gone down again I will bring it up (if you want). How is your big site going the one you were preparing last year? It should be nicely matured by now right?
Oh we are going through the potty training stage.. but i doo feel your pain..Atleast here ASDA has a good deal on nappies lol..
All the best
Mansoor
How do people get away with promising so much? Do they just disappear when the results are due in? That site you fixed is still up there but it is seasonal so not getting the traffic it did. Big site is a bit slow, on page one for some terms but no number one spots so not much traffic.
Joe recently posted..Building a Blog Network
Well From what I understand its standard practise that money you pay out is non refundable (that is how i do it) The trouble is that by the time client realized no work has been done they are out by a few thousand.
Regards
Mansoor
Hi Mansoor,
I am a phys fanatic but I don’t earn 20k+ per month yet – swap roles?
Jim recently posted..Better Than Cheap: Free Loft Insulation
lmao..