The coming and going of affiliates and affiliate site

[AidanLCFC]

Posting on the Betway thread and talking to my mate last week who's been around this industry as an affiliate manager for a long time has got me not only reminiscing but also thinking about how this whole industry evolves and how people cope.
When I said on the other thread about going from hero to zero in a matter of days it triggered my mind somehow. I remember when I had a site that ranked very well in the UK for heavy keywords the competition for those phrases is pretty different now to what it was. What happened to those sites and affiliates that were running them?
I know many affiliates have been lucky and sold their assets and got out, some coming back with other projects and some enjoying laying on the beach, but some I remember got hit by google changes etc and their sites tanked before they had the chance to impliment an exit strategy, if that's what they actually wanted to do.
I'm not picking on these sites at all or calling the owners, I hope they managed to get involved in other profitable projects but 2 sites that I always remember that were flying high then shot down was football-data and betrescue, and I'm sure at 1 point betrescue was huge. I have no idea who ran those sites although recall chatting to the fella who had football-data on GPWA when Stan James closed accounts (GPWA were shitbags and took the side of their sponsor) and he came across as decent. If I recall there was bigfreebet, freebetinfo and freebets4all as well that seemed to be about for a long time as well.
What happens to these affiliates and sites? I'm guessing you guys in the different niches like bingo, casino and poker have seen the same over the years. Do they move on but keep the sites updated so compliant so still get paid for historical players? Do they just give up and cry? Start new projects?
Has there anyone on here that has experienced this happening to themselves? It is no way a thread to laugh at people or take the piss, I'm genuinely interested how people have coped with this fickle industry and how they coped and reacted going from hero to zero?
Any other memories from the industry as well feel free to chuck them in, I really do love looking back, and boy was it a different landscape then.

 

[KasinoKing]

Has there anyone on here that has experienced this happening to themselves?

For sure.

I've had 14 great years as an affiliate, and now when my numbers and stats are falling off a cliff, I consider myself to be very fortunate to be in the position to "retire" any time of my own choosing.
I say "retire" because I wont stop working, but just go back to thinking of it as a hobby rather than my job - like it was in the first 2 years of my affiliate career.

KK

 

[AidanLCFC]

For sure.

I've had 14 great years as an affiliate, and now when my numbers and stats are falling off a cliff, I consider myself to be very fortunate to be in the position to "retire" any time of my own choosing.
I say "retire" because I wont stop working, but just go back to thinking of it as a hobby rather than my job - like it was in the first 2 years of my affiliate career.

KK

Nice reply KK, very refreshing to see someone be honest about numbers. I don't know what it is with this industry but so many people bullshit about numbers and figures. Hope fortunes return

 

[AidanLCFC]

anyone else want to chime in? surely others have experiences they can share?

 

[BadSanta]

Hey Aidan, our uk focused site tanked around end of 2017, we still get a reasonable amount of legacy payments, but its a small percentage of what we used to do, we've threw a new design up for compliance reasons, but it's not good enough to scale the serps at the moment. Had a couple of years hiatus due to personal reasons, bought a property with the loot we made, a fixer upperer! Possibly the worst mistake i've ever made for a billion reasons.

Now looking to come out of my slump, dust things off, switch to a .com domain and get things cooking again, also attempting to put a site together for bitcoin casinos, it's a little tricky when most of them won't let uk residents see the site! But i'm still hopeful i can achieve world domination going in blind! Ever the optimist! Hope you are doing alright, i know you sold your main site. I must say, it was one of the most resilient free bets sites on the web, that bad boy was near the top for years, hope you got a good price!

You will know who this btw, all the best.

 

[RyanWeb]

I started here in 09, things really took off for me a few years later, maybe 2012-2016 where amazing years... I had several top ranking sites, where when I would explain what I did, I would tell people to google "keyword" and I would be the #1 search result. Since then a ton of affiliate programs (C-planet, and AE mainly) went rouge or closed, that was a huge part of my built up player base. Sometimes I think back on how much we would have earned, if all those programs did not close down, and commissions where truly for the lifetime of the player.

Since then I've been chasing the dream lol, I keep my sites updated and work as much as I can... But have built up a family and have less time then before. In recent years I have moved more towards learning a bit of programming and crypto has really taken a lot of my attn. But those are all things possible because of this industry.

To this day, being an affiliate has been more stable for me then anything else... I have friends and fam who's jobs have come and gone (now more then ever). I earn a stable income now most months, but always updating and improving my sites, as best as I can. At one point it felt like I was running to the bank every day with a new check...

I'm less active in forums now, and its more of a job then exciting, but i'm still here in the shadows working on something affiliate related almost everyday...

 

[Frank]

The key is to evolve, I have had ups and downs i have also deleted and changed hundreds of pages to keep myself relevant, mthe biggest shake up was when the cookie cutter sites evaporated.. the EMD were no longer worth more than €8 domain names thorough domian sellers will still try to tell you otherwise) . those that done the hard work are still around, the ones that took shortcuts didnt last as Google has evolved.

 

[AidanLCFC]

Hey Aidan, our uk focused site tanked around end of 2017, we still get a reasonable amount of legacy payments, but its a small percentage of what we used to do, we've threw a new design up for compliance reasons, but it's not good enough to scale the serps at the moment. Had a couple of years hiatus due to personal reasons, bought a property with the loot we made, a fixer upperer! Possibly the worst mistake i've ever made for a billion reasons.

Now looking to come out of my slump, dust things off, switch to a .com domain and get things cooking again, also attempting to put a site together for bitcoin casinos, it's a little tricky when most of them won't let uk residents see the site! But i'm still hopeful i can achieve world domination going in blind! Ever the optimist! Hope you are doing alright, i know you sold your main site. I must say, it was one of the most resilient free bets sites on the web, that bad boy was near the top for years, hope you got a good price!

You will know who this btw, all the best.

Nice one pal, hope you can bounce back. With the bitcoin casinos have you thought about using a VPN? I use ExpressVPN and it's great for putting me in different parts of the world.
Thanks for the kind words as well, I assuming we conversed on GPWA back in the day and quite possibly had a beer at LAC and I introduced you to some Betfred friends?

 

[NDG]

I've been in this for 18 years now. There have been a few bumps in the road, but things have gone quite well.
I've always wondered what happened to some of the affiliates that I've chatted with in the earlier years. They
had sites that ranked well and they were very enthusiastic about being an affiliate. Most of those affiliates
aren't around anymore. I wonder if they moved on to other niches or if they had to go back to a 9-5 job.

 

[RyanWeb]

attempting to put a site together for bitcoin casinos, it's a little tricky when most of them won't let uk residents see the site! But i'm still hopeful i can achieve world domination going in blind!

As Aidan mentioned, a VPN is almost a must for doing any type of world wide marketing, basically essential if you hope to achieve world domination lol. I myself use PrivateInternetAccess ($40/yr), have been using them for years and they work great. VERY basic to setup and extremely cheap for the invaluable service they provide. I've also heard good things about ExpressVPN ($99/yr).

IMO the internet would be very limited for me without a VPN. Look into it, they come in handy for many uses.

 

[AidanLCFC]

I've been in this for 18 years now. There have been a few bumps in the road, but things have gone quite well.
I've always wondered what happened to some of the affiliates that I've chatted with in the earlier years. They
had sites that ranked well and they were very enthusiastic about being an affiliate. Most of those affiliates
aren't around anymore. I wonder if they moved on to other niches or if they had to go back to a 9-5 job.

I'm guessing fair few sold and a fair few just crashed over time. I remember there was one affiliate, sure he was South American but could be wrong. He used to churn and burn. He had one site that was always coming an going, he'd spam it like hell, rank for a month or so then blow up and repeat the whole process again
When the first Penguin update happened I remember one site 'Chips' that seemed to escape any trouble then and ranked for a lot of terms, that site isn't even live anymore.
Also can anyone remember an old post Gary from GPWA, posted as freebetsuk7? he was so enthusiastic but struggled to get moving with any quality. I really hope he managed to make some money as he was a nice bloke and really tried but no idea what happened to him

 

[baldidiot]

Also can anyone remember an old post Gary from GPWA, posted as freebetsuk7? he was so enthusiastic but struggled to get moving with any quality. I really hope he managed to make some money as he was a nice bloke and really tried but no idea what happened to him

Ha ha, he was a character. Didn't mince his words, did he!

 

[BadSanta]

Hey Aidan, yup we met at LAC a few years ago, only briefly and conversed over at GPWA, i started in the free bets industry and moved to casino, that was more luck on my part than a sound business move, but it turned it out well.

Hey Matt, nice to see you've joined the party, hope business is still booming! Thanks for the tips on the VPN everybody, that one slipped my mind, i'd tried a proxy and tor to no avail. But a VPN should do the job.

 

[BadSanta]

On a side note, the thing I miss most from when I started out, it's the climb, the excitement, expectation and anticipation. I didn't have a pot to piss in when I first started, but I could code. I made a site, it wasn't the best, although I deluded myself that it was. But it's when it actually starts to move up the rankings and you see a bit of money coming in that gives you a buzz, the kind of buzz that's hard to replicate elsewhere, the buzz that gets you checking the stats countless times a day even though you know they only update once, and the constant checking the serps to see if you've moved up a place or 2. That's the real fun part, the knowledge that anything is possible and the constant strive to be the best even though you've not achieved it yet. Call it an endless journey to reach the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But then when you get there, it's a different ball game, the pressures are different and you are focused on protecting the rankings and such. I miss the climb, although I'm sure it will be different this time, as I've already been to the end of the rainbow once.

I hope I've not just talked nonsense and some people can relate.

 

[AidanLCFC]

Ha ha, he was a character. Didn't mince his words, did he!

My favourite one was someone had told him that sig links were more powerful if they were in a bigger font so he increased the size of his and it took about half the screen up lol

 

[RyanWeb]

My favourite one was someone had told him that sig links were more powerful if they were in a bigger font so he increased the size of his and it took about half the screen up lol

lol them closely guarded algorithm secrets.

 

[baldidiot]

My favourite one was someone had told him that sig links were more powerful if they were in a bigger font so he increased the size of his and it took about half the screen up lol

Ha ha, yeah that was what first sprung to mind when you mentioned him!

 

[baldidiot]

I hope I've not just talked nonsense and some people can relate.

Totally know what you mean, especially with all the changes in the programs. Would be nice to draw a line under things and start afresh without needing to maintain accounts with various people to protect the player bases we've built up over many years.

 

[AidanLCFC]

On a side note, the thing I miss most from when I started out, it's the climb, the excitement, expectation and anticipation. I didn't have a pot to piss in when I first started, but I could code. I made a site, it wasn't the best, although I deluded myself that it was. But it's when it actually starts to move up the rankings and you see a bit of money coming in that gives you a buzz, the kind of buzz that's hard to replicate elsewhere, the buzz that gets you checking the stats countless times a day even though you know they only update once, and the constant checking the serps to see if you've moved up a place or 2. That's the real fun part, the knowledge that anything is possible and the constant strive to be the best even though you've not achieved it yet. Call it an endless journey to reach the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But then when you get there, it's a different ball game, the pressures are different and you are focused on protecting the rankings and such. I miss the climb, although I'm sure it will be different this time, as I've already been to the end of the rainbow once.

I hope I've not just talked nonsense and some people can relate.

I still remember finally making sense of seo and making progress in the SERPS. It was a great feeling then 1 Sunday night a google update kicked in and my rankings went mad. Jumped up to 3-4 for free bets which was mad and I never looked back, the feeling when that happened though was unreal. Even when I went up to 2nd for a bit it never beat that first buzz. The sense of achievement was something else, worth saying the stress of maintaining those rankings wasn't nice either.

 

[AidanLCFC]

Ha ha, yeah that was what first sprung to mind when you mentioned him!

I liked him, chatted a few times and tried to help him out a little without giving everything away for free. I know he had some limited success for a while but was always dancing close to the spam side (without knowing) and saw one project get battered in a Penguin update. I do hope he managed to make a wedge as he was full of enthusiasm and certainly didn't have an IT background which always reminded him of me on that front