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WARNING: No âbackup siteâ can be hazardous to your wealth

In today’s search climate, if you have a website that has
âcracked the codeâ ie: you rank on page one for great keywords, you have a
winning product, a site that converts traffic, then you can’t afford not to
have a backup website (or two, three, four…).  What this means is if you
are dependent upon natural search engine traffic to make your living
online (and you have found a nice little cash cow niche) there are simply too
many times when a big Google algorithm change can potentially leave you out of
the money.

By having two (or more) websites ranking for the same keywords you have a much
better chance of surviving big algorithm shifts.   Here is the
scenario laid out:

No backup site: your site ranks #2
on page one for "widgets" for the last year, Google makes an
algorithm tweak, you drop to page three where there is no traffic and no money
to be made. Result: You go from making
$500/day from Google âfreeâ traffic to making $0 from Google and the not as
attractive $50/day that Yahoo/MSN chip in.

With backup site:
your main site ranks #2 on page one for âwidgets for the last year. Your backup site ranks on page two, #18
overall. Google makes a big update, your
main site drops to page three and your backup site rises to #4 on page
one. Result: You go from making $500/day
from Google âfree trafficâ to $400 and you still have your $50/day from
MSN/Yahoo.

If you donât have a
backup site now you could:

1. Start a new site from scratch and start slowly building
links and rankings and wait one year to crack some rankings for real money
keywords.

2. You could purchase a competing site that is stuck on page
3 or 4 today but could be one algorithm tweak away from page one tomorrow. 

I advise all of the
above but prefer to purchase the site lingering around within âstriking
distanceâ of page one. If a site is a
pure online play (no brick and mortar) and is on page 3 or 4 of Google chances
are they are not making a ton of money currently and with the right price they
would be willing to part with the site.

In summary, there are all sorts of tweaks that Google does
with their algorithm that can cause a huge shift in the rankings landscape and
devastate your cash flow. You simply
canât afford to have only one âline in the waterâ. So buy a new domain today and go out and buy
a competitors site, and when you get that done, do it again. By having multiple unique sites ranking in
the top three pages for your top keywords you give your business the best possible
chance of a continued long term cash stream. 

July 27th, 2006 | Posted by Patrick Gavin in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

Steve Gill on Jul 27th, 2006 at 2:55 pm

Hi - that’s a great article and a very good idea too.

However I’ve read that your AdSense income can get “smart priced” (reduced) if you have more than one website about an identical topic…

Like all things Google, there’s no way to definitively prove this (or at least no one has proven it, afaik), but it sounds possible.

Therefore, would you monetize both the primary site and backup site with AdSense or would you put something else on the backup site and switch up if/when they reverse positions after a Google update?

Of course the simple solution for U.S. marketers is to put (for instance) Google Adsense on the main site and Yahoo ads on the backup site, and then switch if applicable in the future, but non-U.S. marketers don’t have that option yet.

Any insights?

Patrick Gavin on Jul 27th, 2006 at 3:21 pm

Steve, I am a little partial to monetizing sites with Text Link Ads ;) but really when I talk about the backup site strategy I was thinking in terms of sites that make money by selling a product (or service) as it’s main money winner and I didn’t think of the Adsense angle.

Yuri on Jul 27th, 2006 at 9:02 pm

Instead of splitting your time on promoting two websites, you can promote one. By promoting I mean writing content, getting quality links, interacting with the people in the industry.

If you do everything right and white hat, you’ll be fine whatever the algorithm brings.

That sounds like putting all eggs in one basket, but this is not the case. If you work hard, sooner or later your site will be on the top (depending on how competitive niche you have and how good you are).

Jay Park on Jul 28th, 2006 at 4:29 pm

Great article.

With search I dont think you can ever be comfortable only having one site. Getting bumped down in the serps can happen by algo changes (even to white hat sites) or by competitors jumping you. By having multiple paths to your main revenue site you can reduce the risk.

Paul Vachier on Jul 28th, 2006 at 6:30 pm

That’s an interesting idea about buying/selling competitors sites. How would you go about doing that? Is there a site where you can offer your site for sale, for example? May be a good business idea.

Lim CS on Jul 29th, 2006 at 10:30 am

Good point made.

And I have to disagree with those who said about putting all the eggs in one baskets.

Search engine is well, unpredictable. And you ever heard of Google bombing where your competitor/somebody nasty can cause your rank to drop?

A backup plan, is necessary.

Shabda on Jul 29th, 2006 at 10:47 am

Hey, the link price calculator is not working? Did u guys make any changes?

Patrick Gavin on Jul 29th, 2006 at 1:36 pm

Paul, one popular place to buy or sell sites is at SitePoint’s Marketplace

http://www.sitepoint.com/marketplace/

but my recommendation is to directly approach sites that are ranking for your top keywords but whose sites are “out of the money” ranking on pages 2 to 4.

David Krug on Jul 29th, 2006 at 2:57 pm

The danger is becoming addicted to having sites and ending up with 20 of them on 10 niches.

IrishWonder on Aug 2nd, 2006 at 2:41 pm

Blackhats have been using this strategy for ages (for slightly different reasons but not so much different that it would stop me from mentioning it here). You cannot count on one site only, not only for the reasons of algorithm shifts and changes but also because of how difficult it is nowadays to optimize for both search engines (or for all three of them, for that matter). Besides if we talk about long tail searches and stuff it is much easier to target these with several sites than with just one.

SoNet Journal on Aug 4th, 2006 at 4:33 pm

Corner Store Sites

if you are going to buy an old established website, have the decency to at least look after it. Clean it up, let it rank as a back-up site for the one you have ranking already.

…

John Andrews on Aug 6th, 2006 at 6:12 pm

“blackhats” ?? As if having multiple sites was an evil, devious tactic? C’mon.

It’s a basic point… having more than one site in a niche, but there is so much more to it than just “make another site”. The experience may help you rise to a higher level of webmastering, which is all good.

mat on Aug 15th, 2006 at 5:59 pm

nice idea with the backup plan definelty worth it