MNS is promoted with a lot of promises/expectations on the $$ it can bring in.
But, doing some calculations on actual expected revenue from adsense alone leaves me a bit disillusioned. Maybe I'm overlooking something or I get something wrong, but here it goes:

A lot of MNS / keyword research is being sold as 'minimum 1000 exact searches per month' and $1+ CPC
So lets take 2000 searches.
Let's be a bit conservative in terms of ranking and assume we will rank 3rd.
The expected CTR for 3rd result is 9.5% on average.
So now we have 2000 * 9.5% = 190 visits a month. Let's assume a CTR on your ads of 2.5% = 4.75 clicks. A CPC of $1 actually means you are getting 0.68$, so this would mean 4.75*0.68$ = 3.23 $ / month!

So what am I missing here? I know you will also rank on some broad searches, but with a lot of MNS these are really not so much, especially when focussing on 1 keyword with EMD.
Even if you are ranked #1 with an expected CTR of 36.4% this would be $12.38

having 1k minimum searches is just a start point, you also generate your own traffic through posting your link in 2.0 sites. the search engine traffic can be looked at as 'passive' income and the rest as 'active' is how i see it.
also, you dont just rely on 1 site to make the money - to start with yes, but keep building bigger and bigger to expand. you often see people here talking about 300+ domains going up to about 2500 is the most i have seen.

That's just the start. Try targetting more longtail keywords, you will get more traffic.

Originally Posted by prateekm

That's just the start. Try targetting more longtail keywords, you will get more traffic.

well yeah that's what I like to do.. however, a lot of these MNS sites that are sold as a service (or just the keyword research) will target keywords without many longtail possibilities (most often)

Originally Posted by MexiLu

having 1k minimum searches is just a start point, you also generate your own traffic through posting your link in 2.0 sites. the search engine traffic can be looked at as 'passive' income and the rest as 'active' is how i see it.
also, you dont just rely on 1 site to make the money - to start with yes, but keep building bigger and bigger to expand. you often see people here talking about 300+ domains going up to about 2500 is the most i have seen.

yes I surely agree. My post is more in response of the MNS as a service selling (or just the keyword research) that is happening a lot on BHW. Where you focus on 1 keyword, get a site with perhaps 2 articles and you're down quite a bit of $ without even ranking yet..

You also have longtail keywords ranked and some of your other pages are ranked for other keywords or the same keyword.

You are being very harsh on the microniche site. My belief is that nothing can be put into numbers in such a fashion that you have. If you have tried it for yourself you will notice you get a lot more traffic than 9% of 2000. I have a website thats in position 11 on a search with an apparent 2600 searches a month and I get 30-40 uniques a day, AND THATS FROM POSITION 11. Have faith in your MNS, care for it and you will get more traffic than numbers can calculate.

if someone is willing to sell a keyword or string rather than keep it themselves it can't be worth more than they are asking.
mostly they are sold like this because people hear they can make thousands on the interwebs and want to start straight away living the millionaire lifestyle so they buy whatever looks cheap and easiest and then give up later when they realise their 'awesome keyword website of infinite monies' only pays in doggy treats.

I tend to learn more towards Micro Authoritiy Sites and choose generic domains within a niche and then target lots of keywords with one domain.

I believe the whole point in MNS is it can be profitable if you have lots of sites bringing in the bacon.

One of my sites targets 22K traffic split between 11 keywords and 7 pages, i started this site at the end of November and all the keywords are now ranking from 3 - 20, this month it will exceed £50/$78. When/if i rank all keywords in the top 3 it should easily bring in £150/$235.

There is good money to be made if you do it on a large scale

Originally Posted by shortguy014

You also have longtail keywords ranked and some of your other pages are ranked for other keywords or the same keyword.

You are being very harsh on the microniche site. My belief is that nothing can be put into numbers in such a fashion that you have. If you have tried it for yourself you will notice you get a lot more traffic than 9% of 2000. I have a website thats in position 11 on a search with an apparent 2600 searches a month and I get 30-40 uniques a day, AND THATS FROM POSITION 11. Have faith in your MNS, care for it and you will get more traffic than numbers can calculate.

yeah I know I'm being harsh and doing so on purpose to give a bit of counterweight to all the lovely promises and stories of easy $$$$ out there

and yeah I'm doing MNS / authority sites myself as well, just hadn't see the math being done like this before and it shocked me a bit.

Originally Posted by trubnut

I tend to learn more towards Micro Authoritiy....

One of my sites targets 22K traffic split between 11 keywords and 7 pages, .....

You consider 7 pages a "micro authority"? I call it the bare minimum for my mn sites. Not trying to be a hater, just curious.

Originally Posted by spruitje

You consider 7 pages a "micro authority"? I call it the bare minimum for my mn sites. Not trying to be a hater, just curious.

I think you misunderstood, i never said the site only has 7 pages, i mearly stated that from 7 pages i target 11 keywords and 22k traffic. The rest of the content on the site is there purely to bulk it up.

Right, my mistake. So you target your se traffic mainly through those 7 pages and use the rest as additional content in case of a manual review and/or to provide decent related information to your visitors to keep the bounce rate low? I'm asking because I was considering doing the same thing on one of my new domains.

Originally Posted by spruitje

Right, my mistake. So you target your se traffic mainly through those 7 pages and use the rest as additional content in case of a manual review and/or to provide decent related information to your visitors to keep the bounce rate low? I'm asking because I was considering doing the same thing on one of my new domains.

Yes that is what i do, i do get some traffic from the other articles and content on the site but it is insignificant compared to the traffic from the targeted search terms.

i see such sites (with 2 articles) being sold for $35 or so if they are rather plain.
if you purschased
1. keyword ($10 at least)
2. two uniques 700 words articles ($10)
3. do it all yourself assuming you have some adsense theme

you will spare $15, but it will take at least 2 hours to do all the stuff these guys do, from buying services, installation of wordpress to doing on page SEO

so these are not all that expensive

and you will get a bit more than those $3, usually over $15 on average, even $50 if you are lucky to hit the right keywords

do not think any strategy to go rich overnight. buying such sites is an investement. it will return in 3-4 months usually, then its all profit

i also hear people saying forget adsense go for CPA

but most CPA sites have the same offers, even dosens of same stuff on the same site, so you are stuck with a pretty tough competition there. you will earn more but will have to invest in some good links