Follow me on my 30 day journey as I try to match CodyTheBest using Adsense & Craig's List

So CodytheBest posted a method that he uses to generate at least $800 a month using Google Adsense. Here is the thread:

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/making-money/330908-800-per-month-method.html


So I have decided to duplicate this method with a twist and record my 30 day journey using this method. I have already decided that if I make at least $200 this month without a ban, that its worth pursuing.


What you need is a Google Adsense account and Craig's List account to start as well as a domain name and hosting. I have an adsense account that is over 2 years old as well as a Craig's List account that's even older.

Day One: So I first did some research on the most popular searches on Craig's List and found these were the most popular:
Cars, Furniture, Real Estate, Computers/Tech, Baby, Phones and Tickets.

I decided to stick with the real estate market, but do something different that is still popular. (and no, I'm not going to tell you what that is.

I then did some research using the Google Keyword tool to find some long-tail keywords that have to do with my niche. Once I found a good keyword phrase, I purchased a .com domain using a $1 coupon that was posted on here for Godaddy. I also purchased private registration just in case some nosey-posey goes snooping around.

I already had hosting, so I set up my Wordpress site, but used a different theme than was given in the example. Still follows the same setup and concept, but just less cluttered.

I installed my usual wordpress plugins, but I also installed a plugin called 'wp-geolocation-js' which inserts the city in a post, page or template according to where your visitor is from. So say your site is called "Find Cars to Buy" you could set it up, so (for example) when a visitor comes from Atlanta the text reads, "Find Cars to Buy in Atlanta." Just makes it more personal in my opinion.

I wrote two original articles and put them on the front page. I also did a privacy policy, sitemap, and contact page. I put some filler widgets on the side, like a video from YouTube, tips etc. and then I installed my 3 Google Adsense Ads. I did not hide them or manipulate them in any way. I used text ads/links only. Make sure you have enough keyword rich content on your site, or the Google Adsense Ads won't show the links you want.

MAKE SURE YOU USE the 728x15 links ad at the top! Looking at my stats, this is the one getting the most clicks. Also make sure all of your Adsense Ads are above the fold.

Once my Wordpress site was ready, I started my ads on Craigs List. I did some research to see what the most popular cities were for my niche, and chose about 16 total. I manually posted 5 ads in five different cities last night, and 5 ads in 5 different cities this morning. You can either make your ads up and get pics from Google Images, or you can do what I did and go to a legitimate site with real ads and pictures and use those. Just copy and paste, switch up the verbiage a bit and Viola! you have convincing ad. After 3 days, I can simply reuse those ads and maybe switch up the verbiage a little bit. Another thing I did when I posted is that I used several hide referrer websites for my link to the site. So for example at the end of my ad I would say something like:

To buy this car, visit: <a href="http://www.referrerurl.com?http://findcarsforsale.com"><b>CARS FOR SALE IN MIAMI</b></a>

That way Google can't determine that your clicks are coming from CL.

So as I type this I have made almost $9.00 with a CTR of almost 15%. Not bad in only 19 hours and 10 ads.

To be continued...

belgirl said:

Day One: So I first did some research on the most popular searches on Craig's List and found these were the most popular:
Cars, Furniture, Real Estate, Computers/Tech, Baby, Phones and Tickets

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Interesting post... will be following your progress.

i would like to ask a noobish ques? How do you do a search for the most popular items on CL :06:

africanpres

africanpresident said:

Interesting post... will be following your progress.

i would like to ask a noobish ques? How do you do a search for the most popular items on CL :06:

africanpres

Click to expand...

You know I just did some research on Google to see if anyone else had done some analysis and sure enough--they had.

Looking forward to seeing the results. Keep hustling bro!

Great post. Nice to see some success.
The good part is those ads will stay for a while and will eventually bring residuals $$$ in the next few days...But the new ones are the one that bring the most for the day.

Good to see you putting in work!
Keep hustling man, I can't wait to see the results.

The thing is, how do you post in so many different cities like Cody suggests? We all know how hard it is to post in CL nowadays let alone post across different cities.

Donnie Darko said:

The thing is, how do you post in so many different cities like Cody suggests? We all know how hard it is to post in CL nowadays let alone post across different cities.

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Because all of my posts are different - different titles, different prices, different content and even different referrer links. CL won't see it as duplicate content which is why you post one city every 3rd or 4th day. So for example, if I am going to post an ad in Austin on day one, I wouldn't post that same ad again until day four etc.

BTW everyone, I am a girl not a "bro." ROFL.

Subscribed.Keep update your post and best of luck

Day Two: So as of this morning, none of my ads on CL have been flagged or deleted. Posted 5 more ads this morning in 5 different cities.

Observations: Most clicks happening before 3:00 PM. After that, seems to drop off considerably. I personally would advise to post your ads early each morning.

728 X 15 banner definitely is getting the most clicks.

My CTR ended yesterday at around 13.5%. Probably isn't a big deal, but since I will more than likely get a manual review at the end of the month because this will be my first payout, I think I am going to buy some cheap traffic just to dilute the CTR a bit.

I wish I could find out which cities are getting the most clicks. Anyone have a suggestion on this?

If you have different urls for each city, you can track clicks through the urls. If you're asking about tracking clicks to your adsense, then you'd have to create different sites for each city and name the blocks differently in your adsense admin panel.

belgirl said:

Because all of my posts are different - different titles, different prices, different content and even different referrer links. CL won't see it as duplicate content which is why you post one city every 3rd or 4th day. So for example, if I am going to post an ad in Austin on day one, I wouldn't post that same ad again until day four etc.

BTW everyone, I am a girl not a "bro." ROFL.

Click to expand...

I was more concerned about posting from the same IP, not the ad content etc.

Im following the same method lol but sorry im a noob so im just trying to do the best i can
My ctr is 2% and im on my 2nd day and have made a total of about $8. Is that bad?? how do you get your ctr so high and also do you post 5 ads a day or 25

The only reason IP tracking would be of concern is if you are going to spam, over post etc. Although Craiglist monitors the IP addresses of each account, its more concerned with overposting, duplicate content and spamming. Of course, if you have more than one Craigs List account, you will then need different IP addresses. But there is no reason to do this, unless you are going to abuse the system.

Donnie Darko said:

I was more concerned about posting from the same IP, not the ad content etc.

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Good luck. Would be interesting to see how this turns out.

Cody recommends only posting 5 per day. I guess you could post 25 a day, but that's perhaps overkill. Maybe Cody can give more of a definite answer to this question on the advantages and disadvantages of posting more.

I don't think $8 is bad. If you made an average of $8 every day for 30 days, that's $240 a month. Not a bad chunk of change for Adsense.

Your CTR is going to be dependent on several things - placement of Google Adsense--and how relevant the Google Adsense is to the content/ad. From what I have read, image Google ads don't do squat - so do text link ads only.

martin_5968 said:

Im following the same method lol but sorry im a noob so im just trying to do the best i can
My ctr is 2% and im on my 2nd day and have made a total of about $8. Is that bad?? how do you get your ctr so high and also do you post 5 ads a day or 25

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Hey,
a question regarding your landing page,

In the initial method the OP uses a 1-page modified copy of an actual real-estate site with disabled links and adsense ads.
You seems to use a wordpress site and unique content. The question is: what kind of content are you using? You mentioned some articles on the first page. If you post some ads on CL about actual items on sale (be it houses or cars) and the visitor sees nothing related to offers on the landing page, why should he click the links? Or did I misunderstood something?
I'm not asking for your detailed method, just a vague idea what your landing page looks like.

In general I like your way better, as I'm a bit worried about google's manual review and closing the adsense account. A copied 1-page landing page has probably no way of passing the review

@belgirl
if I am from another country how i post in US for example

Argh..my clicks today suck. I think its because the Google Adsense ads aren't as targeted as they were yesterday. I am going to have to go through and block all the irrelevant ads to see if that helps....

huubert said:

Hey,
a question regarding your landing page,

In the initial method the OP uses a 1-page modified copy of an actual real-estate site with disabled links and adsense ads.
You seems to use a wordpress site and unique content. The question is: what kind of content are you using? You mentioned some articles on the first page. If you post some ads on CL about actual items on sale (be it houses or cars) and the visitor sees nothing related to offers on the landing page, why should he click the links? Or did I misunderstood something?
I'm not asking for your detailed method, just a vague idea what your landing page looks like.

In general I like your way better, as I'm a bit worried about google's manual review and closing the adsense account. A copied 1-page landing page has probably no way of passing the review

Click to expand...

Ok, the original content that I wrote is just enough so that Google has something to crawl for the Google Adsense. If you don't have any content, Google will just chuck up anything that's not even related to your niche.

Secondly, if the Google links are related--they look like navigation links and people are so desperate to find that "good deal" that they click, thinking they are clicking a subcategory. So for example: if you are using the 728 x 15 text links ad and you are selling cars, your top links from Google may say something like "Cars for Sale" "Used cars" "Hondas for sale" etc. depending on the advertisers. Get my drift?