I just don't know what to do anymore..

rankjuice

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I'm not sure if I'm writing this looking for help, or to just get shit off my chest, but here goes.

I just can't seem to make money anymore.

Back in the day, I would run multiple blogs and make a good income doing that. On the side I would make money via content locking by driving traffic using parasites.

It worked well... Until it didn't.

Google and even bing tanked all of my sites so I started to rebuild while focusing on ranking parasites.

At that point, all of my income came from the parasites, but the sites I was building and putting a lot of time and effort into, just didn't rank. Even zero comp keywords weren't bringing traffic.

I decided to switch things up and get into Pinterest as a traffic source.

As expected, the process was slow but I got to a point were I was getting hundreds of unique visitors per day, and getting clicks in display ads and had a steady flow of affiliate sales.

Fast forward to the start of this year.

All of my usual parasite targets had gone down and traffic from Pinterest started to dip.

I needed a plan.

My plan was to do more work on Pinterest, as I had not touched it for a few months, and create a list of fresh parasites to work on.

Now I'm not sure if it's just bad luck, or someone had somehow put a curse in my, but nothing I do anymore seems to work.

I started posting on Pinterest again, but since the start of the year, traffic keeps going down. Even with consistent posting, nothing seems to be getting eyes on my blogs.

Now, I wouldn't say I was an expert in Pinterest marketing or anything, but I had a really good understanding of how to get traffic from there. I even created a few python script to help me with things like kw research. But nothing I do seems to get any traction.

On the parasite side of things, not one of the 100s of parasite pages are ranking. I'm seeing plenty of people rank using these parasites, for very high competition keywords, yet I can't even rank them for low comp ones.

With all this in mind, I thought to myself, maybe I should jump onto something different, so over the past couple of months, I decided to try and create some faceless channels on Instagram, tiktok and YouTube.

I went though a few courses (free and paid ones) and spent countless hours learning the ins and outs of each platform and learning how to edit videos.

Here are the results from that little venture:

Instagram: zero followers and insta seems to not want to push my reels, so very small amount of views

Tiktok: I'm in the UK and no matter what method I try, I just can't get views from USA. Only a small amount of views per video and a total of 10 followers

YouTube: this is where I have put the most time in.

I have multiple channels.

One long-term faceless explainer type channel. With this one, I have managed to get around 20 followers, but I'm not too worried about that right now as, like I said, it's a long-term channel about a topic I love. The reach I'm getting is very low, but I only have a couple of videos in it right now (they take me about 2 weeks to make)

The latest thing that is pissing me off is the three viral shorts channels I have.

This is what has happened with each one:

- I post a short and it gets over 1k views
- I post another short and that get around the same
- I post another short, and get ZERO views
- same again with any other short I post

Without fail, I can hit the 'zero view jail' after posting two videos. On aged PVA accounts, with history of watching videos and liking and subbing

It is driving me insane.

I have tried a few other things like selling services and digital products, but all in all, I feel cursed.

No matter what I dedicate my time to, nothing goes to plan.

I could understand if it was just a case of shiny object syndrome, but I am giving everything my all, and not seeing any positive movement. In fact half of the time it goes the other way

I post on Pinterest.. my traffic goes down.

I try and rank parasites.. either they don't rank or don't even index

I try and sell digital products that are better than what is currently on the market.. people see it and don't buy (even though there is demand, and I try different traffic sources/landing pages/prices)

I post videos in niches that are known to be easy to get views on...no views.

I know I have gone on for a bit and it just looks like I'm moaning, but it is just something I needed to get off my chest.

For the past 20 years, I have made a living online. Now, I'm currently living off what my wife makes.

I can't even get a day job due to medical reasons that I'm not going to get into (that would probably be another lengthy post).

So, in a nutshell, everything I touch turns to shit.

Hell, I may even make a BST for my services, to sell to your competitors so I can tank their businesses lol

Anyway, that's my TED talk or whatever the kids say these days
 
@rankjuice It’s tough to read your story, and it seems like you’re being really hard on yourself—even though you don’t realize how much you’ve actually managed to try out, things many people never get the chance to do. I get it, things change fast—about 80% of what used to be my income three years ago is gone now, some sold off, others just stopped working like you described. Honestly, I’ve had to go through 200 different projects to find just two or three that make money. Sometimes it’s all about catching inspiration, timing your move right, and sticking with it. Maybe just focus on that one thing that works for you. Right now, it feels like you just need a spark—seriously, I’d be happy to connect and chat anytime. Reach out if you want to talk.
 
@rankjuice It’s tough to read your story, and it seems like you’re being really hard on yourself—even though you don’t realize how much you’ve actually managed to try out, things many people never get the chance to do. I get it, things change fast—about 80% of what used to be my income three years ago is gone now, some sold off, others just stopped working like you described. Honestly, I’ve had to go through 200 different projects to find just two or three that make money. Sometimes it’s all about catching inspiration, timing your move right, and sticking with it. Maybe just focus on that one thing that works for you. Right now, it feels like you just need a spark—seriously, I’d be happy to connect and chat anytime. Reach out if you want to talk.
Thanks mate. I know it seems like I'm being hard on myself, but it really does seem like everything I try, I'm doomed from the start. Even things I do offline that are not money related.
I decided to redecorate my office the other day and most of my tools have suddenly vanished and when I stepped onto my step ladder, it broke lol.

Seriously starting to think someone has out a curse in me or something
 
Thanks mate. I know it seems like I'm being hard on myself, but it really does seem like everything I try, I'm doomed from the start. Even things I do offline that are not money related.
I decided to redecorate my office the other day and most of my tools have suddenly vanished and when I stepped onto my step ladder, it broke lol.

Seriously starting to think someone has out a curse in me or something
Man, sounds like your office is officially haunted or you’ve got some serious bad luck karma working against you! But hey, you’ve got two choices here: feel sorry for yourself and let the curse win, or flip the script and keep pushing forward. As someone who’s got your back, I say scrap the broken ladder and lost tools—f** it—and keep moving. Sometimes you just gotta laugh it off and keep grinding. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Jump on flippa.com or acquire.com and get some inspiration right now, copy someone's business run some ads and start getting some customers.
 
I think you should stick to one thing. You have tried lots of things. Didn't you think people are making millions with the same thing you tried and failed?


Get motivated and start and stick to just ONE THING.
 
I hope you get your break soon... I really do, Champ <3

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Life goes on... It gets so heavy : (
 
The so called curse of black hat.

You have to master one social media and ignore SEO on Google using parasites.

With recent updates to AI, they're a lot better at detection of trickery like ranking on hacked sites / parasites. Some people can do it, but it's not about average black hat marketer.

You can't make good money these days doing the same thing over and over again.

Start over with your own sites, social media. Keyword based marketing on YouTube is easiest to start with if you upload relevant content to YouTube.

On TikTok you have to make great, entertaining content, like with your own camera, editing skills.

If you don't believe me with the AI part, even your thread has some things that can be detected as AI replies. :)
 
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Thanks guys for the advice and general kind words.

I'm currently taking the weekend off to collect my thoughts and will be back at it on Monday.

I failed to mention before, but I suffer from acute depression and anxiety.

It may be due to that condition that I am only recognising my failures, and discounting the wins.

Talking of wins, one of my old parasites from last year has suddenly started ranking out of nowhere and made me an extra $30 today :)
 
not an ideal solution but if it’s do or die to survive, i’d consider going the illegal route to make money
Not really easier than getting a minimum wage job at least for a few months.

Fabricate your CV to match job offers. Contact a doctor. Ask for pregabalin if you're anxious. For depression there are plenty options.

If you get busted with illicit drugs, it's gonna be a very long process and lawyer is gonna cost you extra few thousands. If you're unlucky, it's jail time.
 
Do you have a strategy? It sounds like you once lived the golden age of internet naivety, where people clicked on links becuase they could, without putting much thought into it.

Now the net has changed significantly. There are without question an abundance of shit blogs on every topic everyday. They have all been abandoned by traffic in preference for a chatbot in most cases.
People are savvy, they won't click untrusted links to fill in bs offers most time now. They'll search chatgpt and ask if that is a legit site. and of course.....

Its becoming easier to do stuff than ever before though. Who cares if you make one little short video, and uploaded then done a pin. lol Thats not a business strategy! or really giving the landscape an allmighty shake up, off your abilities.

Your living in the past, with your past generalizations. "Hey they worked before why isn't the same thing working now?" lol you should be more accute to the movement of traffic and who controls it on the net, than you have been.

You want to earn big. Then go big. Go big on the platforms that are big that pay you for content. Then go big on content.

Interactivity, and content. Thats all you need to concentrate on to make money. Do it in the right places, and you'll be able to develop a new business with up to date set of processes for the modern internet.
 
Thanks guys for the advice and general kind words.

I'm currently taking the weekend off to collect my thoughts and will be back at it on Monday.

I failed to mention before, but I suffer from acute depression and anxiety.

It may be due to that condition that I am only recognising my failures, and discounting the wins.

Talking of wins, one of my old parasites from last year has suddenly started ranking out of nowhere and made me an extra $30 today :)

I mean with this type of Attention that BHW has given you so far, you are literally ready to open an OF and rip us all off. Cheer up you will make it.
 
The night always feels darkest just before it breaks into morning.
Your story isn’t over.
The next chapter is waiting for you to turn the page.
One more step.
Never give up
 
Look at what people are selling in the marketplace, and you can generally reverse engineer the method, I've been in your spot, and sometimes its better to look for something new instead of staying with the same idea that no longer works.
 
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