The culprit here was "Panda II," the moniker for Google's sweeping algorithm changes put into place in February and October of this year. While the first update early this year actually helped my niche sites, this second one dealt a heavy blow to my best-earning pets niche site.
When the chances went into effect Oct. 13-14, my traffic was cut dramatically overnight:
Residual Writing Income: October 2011
Adsense $504.94
Amazon Associates $86.01
RA affiliates $81.48
Clickbank $70.81
Demand Studios $70.59
WA comissions $65
cj.com $37.76
NB comissions $19.96
e-junkie reseller $3.00
TOTAL $939.55
Now, I'm disappointed but I have a plan to move my site back up in the rankings, a plan I'm already putting to work. Stay tuned for updates!
Note: November and December will be the last months that I publish a detailed earnings report on the blog. I will continue to provide this information to my email subscribers and occasionally update my ballpark income amounts on the blog, but don't feel that there is much to be gained from a detailed report on the blog -- I don't think it's particularly useful to other writers/ WAHMs and eventually I hope to be at an income level once again where I'd rather not broadcast how much money I'm making to the world.
Have the recent Google algorithm changes (Panda II) affected your residual income? What are you going to do to bounce back if the changes were negative?
