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My 10 Year Side Project Story

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Re: My 10 Year Side Project Story

#31

Post by dillondoyle »

travisgriggs wrote: post #26

> The site now has more than a million visitors a month and earns a nice side income from a small ad. So when it says that, what does that mean? It pays for hosting costs I assume. Are we talking enough to pay for a couple of meals out a month? Or enough to retire on?

CPMs can range, but if it's high quality and or niche they could be fairly high for something like a 'sponsored' ad on a super target forum/email list.

Still not a lot of impressions though. it would be 1,000,000 / 1000 = 1000 * __ x.

Where X I might guess anywhere from $.5 cpm to maybe even $10 if it's super unique and high quality niche. banners are cheap for a reason.

Though someone like Axios where they do a more 'sponsored' big higher quality ad probably gets more. I think some jobs or industry email lists able to get sponsors to pay big. Video gets more.

It's all about niche & quality. I'd rather spend more on a higher quality ad than touch any open market banner crap.

Re: My 10 Year Side Project Story

#32

Post by infecto »

jonathanberger wrote: post #28
travisgriggs wrote: post #26

> The site now has more than a million visitors a month and earns a nice side income from a small ad. So when it says that, what does that mean? It pays for hosting costs I assume. Are we talking enough to pay for a couple of meals out a month? Or enough to retire on?

It means I didn't want to get too specific about the amount involved. But I can see there's lots of interest in this question. I wonder actually if something like https://www.levels.fyi could be built or exists but for ad-supported websites (side project idea?). It'd be really useful for people to understand more broadly "if you create site of type x and it gets y amount of traffic you can expect this level of ad rev…

I wish I remember the site from a decade ago but I feel like this existed sorta with a site that used to hold auctions/sales for people selling their website. I wish I could remember the site now, would be fun to look at it in wayback machine. I remember things like traffic numbers, sources, revenue etc.

Re: My 10 Year Side Project Story

#33

Post by mbrodersen »

xupybd wrote: post #15

"another said it should have taken an hour not a weekend to create." I hate comments like that. Maybe someone could make it in less time but I suspect the commenter hadn't even tried. Why throw your estimate out there as better than someone's real effort? That level of arrogance is frustrating.

I think it usually is a combination of lack of experience and a deep desire to impress others. In other words: they are immature and lack self confidence.

Re: My 10 Year Side Project Story

#34

Post by dolphenstein »

hihihihi1234 wrote: post #10
dolphenstein wrote: post #9

Can relate. I built a little web utility back in 2009. Did practically nothing with it (occasional updates every 2/3 years) and it slowly accumulated inbound links and google ranking. Then finally in 2019 I decided to put a bit more effort into it. Now I make my living from it! :-)

What is your web utility, if I may ask?

https://www.ezyzip.com/

Re: My 10 Year Side Project Story

#35

Post by Nextgrid »

jonathanberger wrote: post #28
travisgriggs wrote: post #26

> The site now has more than a million visitors a month and earns a nice side income from a small ad. So when it says that, what does that mean? It pays for hosting costs I assume. Are we talking enough to pay for a couple of meals out a month? Or enough to retire on?

It means I didn't want to get too specific about the amount involved. But I can see there's lots of interest in this question. I wonder actually if something like https://www.levels.fyi could be built or exists but for ad-supported websites (side project idea?). It'd be really useful for people to understand more broadly "if you create site of type x and it gets y amount of traffic you can expect this level of ad rev…

> It means I didn't want to get too specific about the amount involved.

Is this because you don't want to reveal anything about your personal financial situation or is it because knowing the amount would somehow help someone compete and encroach on your "territory"?

Re: My 10 Year Side Project Story

#36

Post by jonathanberger »

Nextgrid wrote: post #35
jonathanberger wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means I didn't want to get too specific about the amount involved. But I can see there's lots of interest in this question. I wonder actually if something like https://www.levels.fyi could be built or exists but for ad-supported websites (side project idea?). It'd be really useful for people to understand more broadly "if you create site of type x and it gets y amount of traffic you can expect this level of ad rev…

> It means I didn't want to get too specific about the amount involved. Is this because you don't want to reveal anything about your personal financial situation or is it because knowing the amount would somehow help someone compete and encroach on your "territory"?

Interesting question. I tried to introspect a bit about the reason and I'm still not really sure. Maybe an American cultural influence of things like salaries being taboo.

Re: My 10 Year Side Project Story

#38

Post by sedibles »

jonathanberger wrote: post #19
hbn wrote: post #12

I made a very small and simple scraper utility for a photo sharing website (it's one of those sites that doesn't let you download through the app or easily on the website, similar to Instagram). Grab the link, throw it in a box on my site, and it gives you the full-res image you can right click -> download. It's doing pretty decent in traffic, ranking around number 4 in a fairly generic search for this utility, and g…

I had trouble getting AdSense "interested" also. Depending on what Adsense is telling you I'd have varying suggestions if ads were still the way you wanted to go. The best ways I know to monetize something for consumers: ads, app stores, donation buttons. I tried an iPhone app to monetize the time zone converter but in my case the ad performed better. I tried a donation button for a few weeks and it brought in more t…

I too wanted to use adSense in order to drive traffic to my side project. I made a small calculator for estimating dosage in cannabis edibles, which gets a few clicks here and there (https://www.scientificedibles.com).

It turns out that adSense, will not touch any cannabis content with a 10ft pole so it pretty much ruled out getting any traffic via them. There were some more niche advertisers but for those you needed substantially more funds.

In the end, I found that SEO and content were a good alternative (and free!).

Re: My 10 Year Side Project Story

#39

Post by Waterluvian »

dolphenstein wrote: post #34
hihihihi1234 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your web utility, if I may ask?

https://www.ezyzip.com/

Are all those formats for decompression and compression done purely client side?

What library are you using for the client side compression? Or did you make your own?

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