* HART-Empire Earnings for 2007 (January-April) Released .. sounds like a press release, eh?

According to THIS POST back in 2006, I estimated that my 2006 earnings would be about $3,665 USD .. which turned out to be pretty close to actual. Actually, it was closer to about $2,200 USD plus private deals of $1,800 USD (that expired March 2007) for a total around $4,000 USD earnings.

Don’t ask me where the money went! It just went! But keep in mind, this is EARNINGS .. not cash.

Now .. I’ve deducted the $1,800 private deals from the lot to better represent the online earning potential and growth that I have accomplished from earning revenues online, and actually included (or ‘accrued’) revenue from sources that I have yet to receive payment from. You see, as an accountant – I’m anal like that! Not only can I tell you what I’ve earned, I can cross reference it by blog, by type of ad, and one other criteria .. but I won’t. What I do want to reflect is that without the private ads .. the $2,200 USD relates to:

* $183.33 per month average
* $6.03 per day average

So .. although I have all the details for 2007 recapped and itemized in excel spreadsheets on my computer, I have created a Google Document Spreadsheet and (hope this works) set it to SHARING in case anybody is curious to see a rough summary of how I keep track of my own personal earnings, from blogging – excluding private deals.

* HART-Empire Network Draft Earnings 2007

Summary of Gross Earnings 2007

* January 2007 – $344.61
* February 2007 – $372.37
* March 2007 – $492.41
* April 2007 – $476.08

** Year-To-Date Gross Earnings (Jan-Apr/2007) – $1,685.47

* Average (so far) $14.05 per day or, $421.37 per month

Reflection

I don’t know .. what do YOU think? Is that good? On one hand – I’ve struggled making my first $10 per month for many months .. and anything is good, right? But I’ve been blogging since May 2005 and now have over 40 blogs on 32 different domains. Also, I know of a lot of other bloggers that make about the same, or more, or less, but certainly spend a HECK OF A LOT LESS time blogging than I have been spending. But, I think the social aspect and ‘stress-release’ factor of reading, participating, commenting and just following the links is all part of the blogging process. It helps me get perspective, and lets me see what the world is doing out there online. It’s also fun too 🙂

It was only this recent March 2007 that I finally exceeded $100 per month level on Google Adsense earnings. I personally feel that if I were to SPEND more money on advertising, I would do more – but, I wanted to avoid that at all costs. As it turns out, I’ve actually started to purchase Text-Link-Ads to advertise the PetLvr site on a few sites .. just to test the waters .. but it hasn’t been much, as I am a cheap bastard 😀

* Advertising SPENT in 2007 – January $0, February $20, March $20, April $45 (I have also prepaid May/2007 for the same amount $45 at this point)

I have no savings, as I have actually been “bootstrapping” my business by reinvesting these gross proceeds towards certain other online aspects of my business that, I’d rather not go into at this point in time.

* February 2007 is the first time I have broken $100.00 Google Adsense Earnings in one month

Last month, January 2007 .. I came close – and received $99.50 earnings.

So is this a good thing? // I think so! Because if I can maintain that level of earnings, at least there will be some payment coming in from Google (direct deposit) into my bank account around the 24th of each month. Most of my automatic debit payments occur in the last week and 1st of the month .. so, that helps a little.

BUT – keep in mind the following:

1) I’ve been blogging since May 31, 2005 with adsense on my blogs
2) I currently have over 30 domains with blogs mostly all having adsense on my blogs

You see, it’s not really a BIG success based on the above knowledge .. but I always keep in mind: I remember back in 2005 in the first 6 months – you know, when everybody who WAS making money would saying .. “Don’t worry .. It takes at least 6 months to make money” – and when I would be earning something like $10.00 per month OR LESS and was still as WooHoo! happy as I am today.

* I received a commission cheque from Linkshare today – for the Canadian Accounts

* But – it was all on one sale at Dell Canada – 0.93% commission (less than 1%!)

* After I saw that crappy payout last spring – I started to concentrate on my Amazon products, to reach that $100 minimum threshold (which I also recieved earlier this month). I did want to do more with the musical instruments .. Woodwind and Brasswind .. but they had financial problems and went into receivership or something like that .. I think they mentioned in an email that they were not going to pay any balances, then again mention that they would .. it was too much Drama for a non-earning thing for me to continue.

After tax season when I am less busy, I think I will go back to promoting product like this over at 1800HART.com/picks/ The-Furniture-Site.com The-Lingerie-Site.com Medieval-Site.com and the Item-Site.com .. but I want to take time to represent companies that offer a much higher commission payout than Dell! Now that I know LINKSHARE (LinkSynergy.com) actually pays .. well, as I said .. it’s just good to know!

* It’s about friggin’ time .. since 2004

* Of course, $79.96 of that cheque was one sale (believe it or not!)

So, needless to say .. it is SAFE TO SAY .. that I suck at this Amazon commission earnings thingie. I’ve installed the new WP-AMAZON plugin that has been upgraded for wordpress version 2.1, but it only works if you use Firefox and only if you use visual editor as well. Otherwise, it doesn’t work – but, it is still in beta testing.

Now that I’ve got the balance of my Amazon Account … I don’t really see a need to further promote anything. However, I do have some links around my blogs – I will leave them online until the end of March 2007 Q1 to see if any earnings is generated. Most of the remaining earnings seems to be made from my PapillonLvr.com/blog/ selling Papillon Books!

* alternative title … CLOSE .. BUT NO CIGAR

I’ve been busy these last 2 weeks and have not been paying attention to my Google Adsense Ad earnings. Although, I should note that I did notice on a few occassions, when I felt guilty about not posting for a few days .. that I logged into my google adsense account and noticed that I was earning MORE per day than when I was posting a lot. Go Figure!

I was browsing my Bloglines in the wee hours last Monday morning when I read the term “Made For Adsense” .. as referred by some jerk named Robert Conway‘s post over at Ryan’s College-Startup blog. Now, if you don’t have that blog in your Bloglines, I suggest you add it right now – because, that blog is NOT one of those “Made For Adsense” sites!

Most of the “Made For Adsense” sites seem to be scraper sites, and Wikipedia describes them..

Made for AdSense

Some scraper sites are created for monetizing the site using advertising programs such as Google AdSense. In such case, they are called Made for AdSense sites or MFA. This is also a derogatory term used to refer to websites that have no redeeming value except to get web visitors to the website for the sole purpose of clicking on advertisements.

The problem with Made for AdSense sites is they are considered sites that are spamming search engines and diluting the search results by providing surfers with less than satisfactory search results. The scraped content is considered redundant to that which would be shown by the search engine under normal circumstances had no MFA website been found in the listings.

These types of websites are being eliminated in various search engines and sometimes show up as supplemental results instead of being displayed in the initial search results.

Legality

Because scraper sites take content from other sites without the permission of the original creators, they frequently violate copyright law. It is illegal to republish copyrighted material without the copyright holder’s permission. This applies regardless of whether the material was originally published on a blog, a mailing list, or any other less-formal medium, just as much as if it were commercially published…

I’ve always enjoyed watching the infrequent postings of the Fighting Splog blog as someone (who ever he is) tries to help Google catch all of the Sploggers out there! Just on the last post .. there was a google adsense account with 13692 splogs alone! Now, that’s splogging!

Now – let me be clear – ALL of my sites are being monetized, in some ways .. with google adsense, some other advertising, links to amazon etc. Currently, it’s not a business and just a hobby and I do hope to cover my costs in blogging and maintaining all of my sites and online access. And, I also hope that by Christmas I can afford to take my wife on a decent vacation from it. And, I also won’t lie .. I do secretly hope that somehow – I luck out and can do this full time or, at least earn revenues as IF I am working full time, but really working part time.

But – I am not a “Made For Adsense” scraper. Most of my sites that are actually earning me any sort of earnings right now it the PetLvr series of blogs. I’ve got almost 2500 posts in the archives! I hope that my site has everything that a reader will want to find in my sites .. but let’s face it, I can’t have everything. That’s one of the reasons I do include Google Ads on my site. If people are searching for a topic .. I like that contextually related ads can appear on my site and if they find what they are looking for .. great! And, if they can’t .. well I can get a FINDERS FEE for referring them to a site that perhaps can help them get the information that they are looking at.

So? Am I Making Money With Google Adsense?

It’s no secret that I felt that I got shafted by Technorati a year ago .. and I have been slowly recovering – traffic wise and google earnings wise. I think I was making headway back then.

Currently, if make over $100 per month .. Google will wire me money directly into my bank account. That is something that I hope will happen. It was a slow start, taking about 3 years to earn $10.00 but when I started blogging I have made progress. In the recent months, it’s been taking about 2 months of earnings before I can cross over that threshold $100 limit and expect a payment around the 23rd of the following month. Of course, that’s not on one site – that’s on 30 sites in the HART-Empire Network. It’s not that great of an accomplishment.

But – I came sooooooo close to being the first time ever breaking the $100 mark in one month – for January 2007. I earned $99.50 USD .. Awww.. I guess no more payment until March 23rd again. oh well!

I do keep stats of all my earnings from all my affiliates and sites, because (1) I am an accountant and (2) I need to report all of the earnings on my Income Tax Return and of course (3) I’m anal like that. So, I recapped it on excel and made it into a little graph to show you how I’ve been doing. BELIEVE ME .. this is not a bragging thing, or ego thing . because I know it’s laughable .. but, then again – I remember seeing others post information about their earnings that showed where they were at, and similar to where I’m at now .. and it was nice to know that I have learned two things:

* Yes – it takes a long time, but don’t worry because eventually your efforts will pay off over time
* Don’t go crazy trying to monetize but, if you don’t – you will miss opportunities by not monetizing

If I had my DRUTHERS .. I wish that google would pay me directly into my Paypal account, instead of wiring it into my bank account. At least, the money would be available to me. When the money goes into my bank account, it gets eaten alive by my mortgage payments, utility payments, common element payments, and other reckless abandonment of my finances. I guess I should probably check out that Google Checkout option they are promoting .. maybe because Paypal is a competitor is the reason they don’t do that now.

Here are the graphics

Final Thoughts

Just talking out loud .. you know .. creating MORE archives and keeping the wheel spinning 😀

Actually .. to earn $100 per month, I need to earn $3.33 or so per day. I can tell you (although, if you are still reading this and have your own fascination with potential google adsense earnings) that for some strange reason I get great joys in watching the days that I earn close to $5.00 per day. I think that the highest daily earning that I ever made was back in Feb/2006 and it was something like $9.80 .. I remember actually clicking REFRESH up until 2am that morning wondering if I were to hit that elusive $10 per day. You see .. this was the magic number that I was hoping to be able to earn in 2006 and use that $3,650 to take my wife on a great vacation! Naturally, I had to revise that wish to be that I would like to have SAVED EARNINGS in 2007 about $3,650 after my online expenses .. so ..

HART’s WORK IS NEVER DONE! First Ze Internet .. Zen Ze vorld!