I've been reflecting lately on some of my success and most importantly my failures.  I truly believe that a person can learn from their failures and online marketing is no exception.  In this post I hope to bring to light some of my failed websites, why they failed, and what I've learned from my own experiences in the pursuit of the mighty online dollar.

ObsceneCaffeine.com

This was my first website dedicated to MySpace and was a MySpace resource site.  I was an early adopter for the MSRS script, that had a lot of promises, plenty of automation, and a programmer that was willing to offer support.  I learned my first lesson in buying online scripts with this endeavor, which 'was don't believe the hype'.

The website gained marginal traffic, in the neighborhood of 100 uniques per day and had a pretty good distribution of theme uses.  The problem was that monetiziation was virtually eliminated once Google took a stand and no longer allowed small images directly next to Adsense ads.  Essentially the entire website was created in the hopes that unsuspecting visitors would be clicking on ads, thinking they were being taken to other parts of the official ObsceneCaffeine website.

To add insult to injury, there was no development with the script.  Essentially less than 5 months after the script was released it was abandoned by it's original developer.  The support forum provided was ho hum, but for all intent and purposes...it was dead.  The overpriced script was now worthless and the website, unable to properly monetize, was worthless on the market.

What I learned from this experience was don't buy into hype and early adoption is not always a good thing.

Styckr.com

This website was created in the hopes I could create a free image host and monetize with ads like Adbrite, hopefully bringing in plenty of views.  I used a free image hosting script that worked, was supported, and was extremely user friendly.  However, modifying the script proved difficult and monetizing even more of a challenge.

All to often users would hot link images and attempts to force page loads was met with decreased traffic.  There is far too much competition in this arena for me to compete successfully, which coupled with my coding limitations proved fatal.  As I mentioned, it was successful shortly after launch, which crippled my server.  I couldn't justify leaving up a minimal money earner that constantly threatened the stability of the rest of my sites.

What I learned was that free was great, but the general public would take advantage of it at every opportunity.  Furthermore, the majority of those looking to host free images are looking to upload porn (which is it's own problem legally) and drive traffic that is less than premium.

TheTounge.org

This was the very first domain I ever purchased, complete with misspelled words. lol.  I was naive and intended to create a thriving gadget/tech community on the backend of a Joomla script.  Because creating content was a burden at the time, I figured why not cut 'n paste press releases.  As well all know, but I had yet to learn, Google hates duplicate content.  TheTounge.org was struck down repeatedly for duplicate content before I wised up and shut'er down.

Joomla was also, at the time, constantly updated and any brief period it wasn't updated it was hacked.  This was extremely frustrating and an eye opener.  Not everyone wants to see you succeed and some will even go out of their way to cause heartache that stretches far beyond the typical forum troll.

What I learned from this website was general SEO common sense.  Thanks to TheTounge.org I learned what it took to stay in the Google good graces.

Z-Blackfox.info

This website was originally purchased as an expired domain with high PR.  Little did I know that PR could be spoofed and what you were left with was a dead domain, possibly even black listed.  I held on though and after about 12 months I had developed a working directory, complete with link building news blog.

Z-Blackfox.info was also the first website that I started investing in, at least heavily with advertising campaigns.  The link directory relied on a small review fee and certain sponsored listings.  I think I broke even...maybe.

What I learned was that there is such a thing as too-good-to-be-true in domain purchasing.  Also, that just because you throw money at a project does not guarantee success.  Without a solid business model, like any business, failure is always a step away.

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This is the conclusion of Part 1 of My Failed Websites and Why.  Trust me, I have plenty of other failed websites that I will be covering in another post.  It's just as important for people to share their mistakes as it is for them to share their successes.  All too often in the blogosphere guru's are willing to talk about how great they are, yet fail to mention all the failures they walked over to get where they are now.  Hopefully, this exercise will teach someone, something, at least how not to fail like I did.

Looking to promote your website or blog you may turn to free directory listings as your first method of link building.  However, in my own experience, directory submissions are a huge waste of time and possibly money.  Consider the fact that I've made literally thousands of directory submissions paid and free, in only one instance has a directory paid off, but I'll cover that later.

First of all directory submission is extremely time consuming.  Filling out link information, titles, and wading through categories can eat up a lot of time better spent on content creation.  There are paid services, but this only eliminates one problem with directory submission.  Yes I've used paid services well, but this was when I was ignorant to the game directories play.

Second it's truly hard to gauge the quality of link you will receive back from a directory.  Assuming it does get accepted, how deep into it's pages will ultimately reflect the direct benefit of link juice your page receives.  However, even more difficult to find out is the quality of the directory itself.

Problems arrise if a directory is on a shared server or one server with a ton of directories installed.  Google knows this trick, familiar with directory code, and will eventualy make that link worthless.  Yes, this can even happen with a directory with high PR, eventually it will be sniffed out as a paid link farm, granted a bit glorified.  These things are so easy to throw up, that even my grandma has a link directory, which brings me to my next point.

Link Directories are extremely easy to install and get running on a server.  Therefore any slightly competent peon with a web server could technically create an appealing directory on a bought PR domain.  This games many new webmasters and helps in emptying their wallets.  Most of these scum directories are easily spotted, because they either require a link back or a small listing review fee.

To help protect agains the previous issue, at least ask yourself, "Have I ever heard of this directory before I started looking for link submissions?"  Chances are you have not, which means it holds no value beyond your own personal belief that Google PR is the answer to your traffic woes.  If this was the case, those with the biggest wallets would have a monopoly on the search engines.

Lastly, as I mentioned there was one directory that provided actual results for one of my websites.  The directory in question was Best Of The Web and not only did I receive actual SERP boosts, but also a decent amount of direct traffic.  Why was it a smart submission?  I had heard of it before I started submitting, they had a long standing in SERPs, and it the link would be placed on a page with other reputable sites, not just ones who paid.  Going even further, even if you do pay, most good link directories have such corrupt editors that they are just as likely to steal your content and link their site than your submission.  Yes, been down this road with DMOZ...on numerous occasions.

So, keep in mind this was a 1 in 10,000 success submission, that's why I say link directories are a waste of time and money.  Don't bother, get out there create content, develop sites, leave comments, don't go link spamming directories.