Just Sold My Portfolio for 7 Figures USD, AMA.

MrMedia said:
1. Yes - one was completely destroyed by a competitor with negative SEO days before I was about to list for sale Lost about $400k. In turn I destroyed his site so although we both lost it gave me cold comfort.
Click to expand...
Man that's crazy.

1. When did this happen?
2. Do you worry it could happen again?
3. How did you know it was a specific competitor?

Crazy that you were each able to fool Google and destroy one another.
 
Darth said:
Man that's crazy.

1. When did this happen?
2. Do you worry it could happen again?
3. How did you know it was a specific competitor?

Crazy that you were each able to fool Google and destroy one another.
Click to expand...
1. Couple of years ago. Still have the site and it makes $700 p/month but was doing $13k at its peak.
2. It’s part of the game.
3. He took all my rankings.

I got a well known seo to send me the details of a well known google rep and reported the fucker as a “concerned citizen” reporting bad user experience lol.

3 days later he was annihilated.
 
How detailed were your content briefs or instructions to your writers for each piece of content? Were you able to get away with just giving them target keywords?
 
Inspirational thread, thanks @MrMedia

I've got a few aged sites, two I'm going to scale up content with doing something similar to you. Both get hundreds of thousands of page views a month, but I fell into the cycle of slow publishing (once a week, sometimes once every two weeks). I've another business outside content sites so my attention has been divided by that and multiple sites / general business things that come up.

I'm in the process of turning that around. I've just published 13 new posts on one, and have around 100 in the wings which are getting formatted and uploaded. I'll be stepping up content over the coming months, putting systems in place to allow this and hiring enough to fulfill the need.

I'm interested to see how this strategy does on older domains - one site I created in 2012 and has around 1,100 posts (aiming to get that up to 10,000 or so in the new few years - the niche can handle it) and the other created in 2016 and has around 300 posts (but by this point my KW research / post structure etc has got better and it gets similar traffic to the other site).

Thanks again for sharing.
 
Shaunhi said:
Inspirational thread, thanks @MrMedia

I've got a few aged sites, two I'm going to scale up content with doing something similar to you. Both get hundreds of thousands of page views a month, but I fell into the cycle of slow publishing (once a week, sometimes once every two weeks). I've another business outside content sites so my attention has been divided by that and multiple sites / general business things that come up.

I'm in the process of turning that around. I've just published 13 new posts on one, and have around 100 in the wings which are getting formatted and uploaded. I'll be stepping up content over the coming months, putting systems in place to allow this and hiring enough to fulfill the need.

I'm interested to see how this strategy does on older domains - one site I created in 2012 and has around 1,100 posts (aiming to get that up to 10,000 or so in the new few years - the niche can handle it) and the other created in 2016 and has around 300 posts (but by this point my KW research / post structure etc has got better and it gets similar traffic to the other site).

Thanks again for sharing.
Click to expand...
Thanks.

You should check my other thread where I purchased an old established site and applied the volume content model to it.

It works and I am sure it will work for you too.

Good luck.
 
MrMedia said:
1. Yes - one was completely destroyed by a competitor with negative SEO days before I was about to list for sale Lost about $400k. In turn I destroyed his site so although we both lost it gave me cold comfort.

2. Posts that are selected for updates vs rewriting really depends on case by case basis. If it shows zero signs of ranking ever I will just leave it or if my gut tells me it is hurting the site somehow I will delete. More an art than a science.

Posts that get updated are posts that show promise and could do with a freshness bump. If I trust my writer enough I will often say add 500 more words to these posts, include this related kw. Thats about it as the main research has already been done in the first place when the post was created.
Click to expand...
Wild!

Did any of your sites experience short downturns? would you continue publishing if a site was declining?
 
britt said:
Wild!

Did any of your sites experience short downturns? would you continue publishing if a site was declining?
Click to expand...
Yes and yes. Part of the Game unless it was like -90% nuked then time to move on.
 
Do you ever start multiple websites in the same niche? Or, do you typically have to sign a non-compete agreement upon the sale of a website?
 
MrMedia said:
No due to non competes.
Click to expand...
Would you ever recommend someone build out, say, 3 websites in the same niche and rewrite the same articles for each website (not content spinning- legit rewrites)? I know people do this when testing domains, but taking over the SERP for various terms with your own websites could be a good way to syphon traffic, right? OR, do you think that the websites would just end up competing against each other based on the fact that they're all new, have similar authority, etc.
 
Do you prefer to let bots crawl your site right at the start when you are working on it or to block until you have few articles?
 
DanielS said:
Would you ever recommend someone build out, say, 3 websites in the same niche and rewrite the same articles for each website (not content spinning- legit rewrites)? I know people do this when testing domains, but taking over the SERP for various terms with your own websites could be a good way to syphon traffic, right? OR, do you think that the websites would just end up competing against each other based on the fact that they're all new, have similar authority, etc.
Click to expand...
This works for some people but it seems spammy to me so no, not my vibe.

proto said:
Do you prefer to let bots crawl your site right at the start when you are working on it or to block until you have few articles?
Click to expand...
I would and have never blocked bots.
 
DanielS said:
Would you ever recommend someone build out, say, 3 websites in the same niche and rewrite the same articles for each website (not content spinning- legit rewrites)? I know people do this when testing domains, but taking over the SERP for various terms with your own websites could be a good way to syphon traffic, right? OR, do you think that the websites would just end up competing against each other based on the fact that they're all new, have similar authority, etc.
Click to expand...
We've done this and its worked well. Content needs to be 100% unique and you need to add value and differentiate all sites and articles from each site. Its definitely an investment, but could pay off if done correctly.

The notion behind doing this is mopping up all the traffic you can from the serps and your positions in the serps.

The Breakdown of serp POS CTR is (via https://www.advancedwebranking.com/ctrstudy/ and only click on last results "Organic"):

#1 = 28%~
#2 = 12%~
#3 = 6%~
#4 = 5%~

So if you have 4 sites all covering top 4 pos's, rather than just 1 site at #1 POS, you'll almost double your Clicks to any given KW.

We've done it and ended up selling our portfolio and its minimizes your risk - Seems that buyers like that.

Also, if 1 site gets nailed, you have others to take its place, hedging your losses.

Just my 2 cents.

This strategy is good for Niches that convert well and have good payouts. Not every Niche is worth doing this in, so judge the ROI in your niche to see if its worth going after.
 
Also, if 1 site gets nailed, you have others to take its place, hedging your losses
Click to expand...
I'm assuming you are not linking these sites together then? Or is that concern overblown?
 
tothemoon said:
We've done this and its worked well. Content needs to be 100% unique and you need to add value and differentiate all sites and articles from each site. Its definitely an investment, but could pay off if done correctly.

The notion behind doing this is mopping up all the traffic you can from the serps and your positions in the serps.

The Breakdown of serp POS CTR is (via https://www.advancedwebranking.com/ctrstudy/ and only click on last results "Organic"):

#1 = 28%~
#2 = 12%~
#3 = 6%~
#4 = 5%~

So if you have 4 sites all covering top 4 pos's, rather than just 1 site at #1 POS, you'll almost double your Clicks to any given KW.

We've done it and ended up selling our portfolio and its minimizes your risk - Seems that buyers like that.

Also, if 1 site gets nailed, you have others to take its place, hedging your losses.

Just my 2 cents.

This strategy is good for Niches that convert well and have good payouts. Not every Niche is worth doing this in, so judge the ROI in your niche to see if its worth going after.
Click to expand...
Makes sense.
Can you elab on how you create 4 posts about blue widgets that are significantly different from each other and what technically needs to go into separating each site as its own entity in Google’s eyes.
 
@MrMedia you said that you always update the published date after rewriting a post, do you ever touch the modified date?
 
harrytwatter said:
I'm assuming you are not linking these sites together then? Or is that concern overblown?
Click to expand...
We would keep all sites/entities 100% separated, including:
- Different Hosting (company and IP )
- Different Themes
- Different Layouts
- Different Link building
- Etc etc

MrMedia said:
Makes sense.
Can you elab on how you create 4 posts about blue widgets that are significantly different from each other and what technically needs to go into separating each site as its own entity in Google’s eyes.
Click to expand...
You for sure.

I mentioned above how we keep sites separated in terms of hosting, etc.

As for content, you may be reviewing the same products, but terms of actual content, we would ensure its completely unique, different images, different listicle rankings of products, different CTA's, etc.

Some sites will include videos embedded, others will get a in-house video and others wont get videos.

What I like about using multiple properties to rank is the flexibility you have in testing in terms of speed, on-page optimization, schema types, On-page factors, etc.

Example of optimization Differences we would apply would be URL/Permalinks:
kw = Best blue Widgets

SITE1:
SEO Title:
Best Blue Widgets of {insert year} - Our Honest Review
Permalink:
site1.com/best-blue-widgets

SITE2:
SEO Title:
Best Blue Widgets - We Review & Rank them for {insert year}
Permalink:
site2.com/blue-widgets

SITE3:
SEO Title:
Best Blue Widgets Reviewed - [ Updated for {insert year} ]
Permalink:
site3.com/best-blue-widgets-reviewed

There's so many factors to a page/domain ranking, so I cant say which one works best, but the above is an example of how we would differentiate and test the same topic on 3x domains.

It does get a bit tricky, but again, if the ROI is great, then we push it across as many sites as possible and we've actually landed SERP POS 1-3 (including featured snippets) and have seen profits literally 3x in the sites we've recently sold.
 
tothemoon said:
We would keep all sites/entities 100% separated, including:
- Different Hosting (company and IP )
- Different Themes
- Different Layouts
- Different Link building
- Etc etc


You for sure.

I mentioned above how we keep sites separated in terms of hosting, etc.

As for content, you may be reviewing the same products, but terms of actual content, we would ensure its completely unique, different images, different listicle rankings of products, different CTA's, etc.

Some sites will include videos embedded, others will get a in-house video and others wont get videos.

What I like about using multiple properties to rank is the flexibility you have in testing in terms of speed, on-page optimization, schema types, On-page factors, etc.

Example of optimization Differences we would apply would be URL/Permalinks:
kw = Best blue Widgets

SITE1:
SEO Title:
Best Blue Widgets of {insert year} - Our Honest Review
Permalink:
site1.com/best-blue-widgets

SITE2:
SEO Title:
Best Blue Widgets - We Review & Rank them for {insert year}
Permalink:
site2.com/blue-widgets

SITE3:
SEO Title:
Best Blue Widgets Reviewed - [ Updated for {insert year} ]
Permalink:
site3.com/best-blue-widgets-reviewed

There's so many factors to a page/domain ranking, so I cant say which one works best, but the above is an example of how we would differentiate and test the same topic on 3x domains.

It does get a bit tricky, but again, if the ROI is great, then we push it across as many sites as possible and we've actually landed SERP POS 1-3 (including featured snippets) and have seen profits literally 3x in the sites we've recently sold.
Click to expand...
It makes total sense but I would always have a sense that the ban hammer is likely to land at any point.
Could say the same for anything really but this seems like it is beyond the normal levels of risk associated with seo.
Then again you are x3 your returns so it could be worth it.
Ever get a project nuked?
 
MrMedia said:
Ever get a project nuked?
Click to expand...

We're extremely paranoid due to this risk.

We literally tunnel through different IP's to access each sites' unique GSC & Google Analytics account (all different gmails created on different IPs) to ensure not even our IP is the same in their access logs.

We use different registrars for domains, even if auction domain, we'll transfer to new registrar.

We use different browser (portable) and ensure all browser footprints are different (using https://browserleaks.com/) and ensure we're not leaking dns ip, etc. We've even gone as far as use VM (using vmware), but that may have been a bit to far :D

The risk imo is worth the reward if done correctly. Getting lazy about security and covering your tracks could result in some sort of issue.

But then again, I've seen Portfolios for sale with 5-7 sites all in the same niche, targeting same keywords that have sold for +$5M in the last 6 months. Buyers seem to like this, as it minimizes their risks.

We just think of it like competing with our competition - They target our kws & vice versa, so why not compete with ourselves and push them down further?
 
Why would there be a problem with running sites in same niche if they have different/rewritten content? AFAIK none of it is against Google policies. There is a ton of big networks that have multiple sites in the same niche (eg TV & movies) covering the same news.
 
Darth said:
Why would there be a problem with running sites in same niche if they have different/rewritten content? AFAIK none of it is against Google policies. There is a ton of big networks that have multiple sites in the same niche (eg TV & movies) covering the same news.
Click to expand...
Agreed - look at DotDash - they have loads of sites with similar content and they rank extremely well after they 301'd about.com to all those niche specific sites.
 
I'm unable to give any specific details as it's not my network of sites, but the company I work for owns multiple sites in the gambling niche and just covers the SERPs for various phrases.

Everything is kept separate. We don't interlink between sites. A lot of the same stuff @tothemoon mention.

I don't know their tech setup, but I imagine it's different/unique if everything on the site is kept unique/separate.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back