This is Part One of a Twelve Part Article on driving traffic without Google.

It happens to enough web sites and webmasters, to be a major concern. You wake up one day and find your site or your client’s site has been penalized or delisted by Google. Your traffic has dropped down to nothing. Your site, which previously ranked at number one for your keyword phrase or phrases is now on page five, six or seven of the page results or even worse, the last page of the search results.

You have no idea why this has happened. And Google is not interested in telling you. So, you check your site looking for bad links, spam links, duplicate content and strange redirects. However, since the majority of your traffic comes from Google and a large part of your revenue comes from Adsense, you are, for all intent and purposes out of business.

Our shop is offline for a major upgrade. Please return soon for products.

Guy and Jack decided to do a silly competition. I printed up the top web affiliate categories and they picked a category out of a hat (or in this case, a big glass jar.) Their goal is to see if they really knew their *ss from our elbow, so to speak when it came to being affiliates.

They can't use their lists, nor can they spam (given the category and how overachieving Guy is, Jack made that a requirement.)

They have until the end of the month to finish their websites and then the entire month of June to see what they can produce in sales. Winner treats loser to dinner at Ruth Chris.

Since the category isn't work safe and they only have a one hundred dollars budget to work with, this should be interesting.

What category? Well, the site names should give it away - The Penis Pill and Penis Enlargement Faqs. Guy seems to have a leg up on male enhancement product category or is cheating like crazy. And me, I've been ROTFLMAO, ever since they picked the topic. Celebrating a birthday takes on a whole new meaning with these two!

Today's Adsense reporting is lagging behind by six to nine hours. It's 3PM and everyone's stat's look like early morning. The Adsense Help and Digital Point forum posts on the subject looked like anthill's that have been kicked over.

So, if you woke up this morning to no earnings, don't panic. But, this should make you think.

I haven't blogged for a while because we launched 9, count 'em 9 websites this month. But I have to take a moment and say thank you to Mike Filsaime and Eric Louviere at Job Crusher. I joined when they were just getting off the ground, looked at their forum once, and never came back. I didn't realize it was an auto renewing subscription and when I went to cancel, it was no hassle, no problem. Very happy with the customer service, and their response time was great. Looked around before I cancelled and their forum seems to be chock-full-o-information now. I'm not an affiliate, this is just a thank you note, because they deserve it.

However, if you want a free webmasters' forum that really works, let me tell you about Digital Point.

Digital Point Forums is the shizzbot of all webmaster forums. (Did I just use the word "shizzbot" in a article? Too much coffee this morning!) Whether you're a you're a beginner or a hardcore, I run 500 sites webmaster, Digital Point is the place to meet and exchange posts. Check out their ad co-op.

Adsense, content, websites for sale, plr, you name it Digital Point's got it, along with information on the things that really drive web traffic. Check out this James Dean Nash post at DP. FREE ebook with a ton of useful information. He's a great guy, and I sense a new Guru in the making.

Speaking of Guru's, I found an interesting site.

Guru's Secret, reviews all those "how to make money of the web" ebooks. I found it, when I was searching to find reviews of a new Adsense ebook. The reviews were scathing and they saved me a ton of money.

I am, of course, still pushing Qassia, which is, IMHO, going to become the new WikiPedia. I love the site. MySpace gives me a headache, and if you want to see me run, mention Squidoo lenses. I actually have two articles, posted on Qassia, which should have been on this site. I think I have 19-20 articles in total posted there. So, what's so great about Qassia?

FREE quality backlinks, surrounded by quality articles.Google is already adding pages from Qassia to their index.

Since Qassia is in closed beta, joining is by invitation only. So, let me extend my invitation to you to join Qassia.

Okay back to work.

Do you want to make a money online?

There are hundreds of sites that claim to help you make money on the web, fast, easy and with no work. However, it does takes work and focus to make a living online. Think of it as a part-time job, that has tremendous potential. We provide web content and tools for people who want to make money online.

ebook Living - content and tools to help you make a living on the web

There are four website basics, content, build traffic, qualify visitors and make money online.

Deciding Where to Place Your Google Ads on Your Web Pages so That They Will Be Most Profitable

This is one of the best parts of the whole Google Adsense experience. No one else gets to make this decision except you. It’s your page. You get to decide how many ( up to 3 ads per page), what colors and shapes you will use and on what part of the page the ad will be placed. Should you place your ads at the top or bottom? In the middle of the text? To the left or right?

The most important decision should be based on the needs of the visitors to your site? What are they looking for? Are they there to read or merely to browse. If they are there to read an entire article, say, you might try placing your ads at the bottom of the page so they will have something to do next. Some publishers swear by placing the ads at the top left of the page because they think customers look there first.

The fun thing is experimenting with all the possibilities. Try different ad locations and different colors for a week and note the differences in your reports. When you hit on something successful, you’ll see the difference.

Profile of Qassia.com For Those Who May Want To Use it For Google Ads

Qassia.com is "intel" hosting website where you can make money with Google Adsense. You create an account and in your dashboard, input the publisher id you got when you created your Google Adsense account. If you have not done that yet, that is the first step to making money with your intel.

At Qassia.com, targeted Google Adsense ads will be displayed on your blog or "intel" pages. You get 100% of all adsense revenue generated on your intel pages.

Qassia also gives you Qassia Dollars any time you write intel something, rate someone else’s intel or refer someone to Qassia.

Qassia is currently in beta and joining is by invitation only...but don't worry, since you're a friend, click on the Qassia button and join the new party in town. Really, you're invited!

Because it’s there, it’s fun and it’s free. If you’re reading this, you obviously have some interest in the internet. You don’t even have to have your own site, although the more sites you use Google Adsense on, the more money you will make. For example, anyone can write a blog even if it’s just your own opinion on something.

When a publisher that signed up for Google AdSense through your referral earns their initial $100.00 within 180 days of sign-up and is eligible for payout, Google will credit your account with $100.00. *

Don’t be intimidated by the html code. It’s already formatted. All you have to do is choose the language and kind of button you would like, and copy and paste the html code to your site. Look for the referral code and more information under Adsense support.

Google Adwords

The flip side of Adsense is Adwords. If you need to advertise your site, choose Google Adwords.

Don't fall for pyramid schemes to make money on the web.

Pyramid schemes like the ones that send you to www.lynoville.info (there's always an affiliate ID attached to the address and you will not be able to get into the website unless you click on a link affiliate ID,) have made me angry ever since I fell for one in my early twenties. I was approached by co-workers and they convinced me that if I gave them $25, I could make back $50. The scheme was exposed on the evening news and collapsed a week after I joined.

Rule #1 - You'll never join this type of scheme early enough

I've been getting a bunch of the www.lynoville.info address emails, and I'd been getting "gift giving" emails. Normally, I wouldn't even read emails coming to this email address, because it was set up to capture junk emails. But I'd just submitted my sites to a bunch of directories and needed to check the mail.

After reading many teaser one paragraph, come on "click here" emails, I finally got an email that had a great sales pitch, and I'm a sucker for a great sales pitch page. I'd tried entering the site before, so I knew I had to use the affiliate link, and I did.

It asked for my name, email address and phone number. So I gave them my name, junk catcher email address and cell phone number and clicked again.

Rule #2 - Set up two free email addresses, one with Google, one with Yahoo. Keep the Google email address pristine, use the Yahoo address for junk.

And then I hit, "The Overnight Cash System" website. This is a slick, multi-media site that immediately launched a professionally made video. Just the sound caught my attention. I worked for a radio station and I know what goes into sound editing. The video was sharp and clean. The page itself was built to sell. After you confirmed your email address, you could download "the system" .pdf and their obligatory over-valued free gifts. I downloaded the .pdf file and steam began to pour out of my ears. I knew I had to write this article to warn people about this ponsy scheme.

They are calling it - Gift Giving - send $500 up the line as a gift and let people know about the program and they'll send you $500 as a gift. Even worse, they want you to send cash via overnight delivery, which means if you join and it bombs or is flagged by the Justice Department, you're out $500 because there's no way to track the money. And that's just the entry level amount.

Rule #3 - Only people at the top make money, refer to Rule #1

Three hours later I got a phone call from the person who's affiliate link I clicked on asking me what I though of his website. That was an extremely short conversation.

Don't fall for sucker schemes like this. Only a few people benefit and you won't be one of them.

Some days, you just get lucky. Not only did I discover GadgetSpots.com today, so I can get some free web ads, but I also saw that switching my search engine to Ask.com could result in income.

Go to My Search Funds to get details on how using Ask.com's search engine can earn you money. If you do research on the web, or have just found yourself with time on your hands, this is the program for you. Payout to your PayPal account.

It's been a great day so far!

Statistics are a wonderful thing. Real time, this is what people are searching for on your site, statistics. If people are finding your website on a keyword or keyword phrase that fits into your site, build a page for it.

Never turn down unexpected free visits from Google or Yahoo or MSN, because if you are new, or not pulling in traffic, every visitor to your site is golden.

If you're seeing this as a .pdf file go to http://www.ebookliving.com to see the Gadget Spots story and see how their ads actually look.

The ads you see are from the Gadget Spots Network. They are free. In exchange Gadget Spots will run my ads across their network - for free. I think I'm in love.

In brief, Gadget Spots has two membership types, free and paid. For free membership you run across 25% of their network. For paid memberships, you run across 75% of their network.

Gadget Spots also has an affiliate program.

You select the category you want your ad to run in. Remember, this just launched a few days ago. As time goes on, you'll get more targeted website traffic.

Although Gadget Spots says this does not violate Adsense policy, you know the drill. Contact Adsense directly. Ask Support whether the ads violate policy and save your reply email from Adsense!

Conventional wisdom says that for an Adsense publisher to make money, he or she should be using the 336 X 280 ad format at the very begining of their articles.

Everytime I used that format, not only did my earnings significantly decrease, but all my the other ad blocks earnings decreased.

What were my best performers?

Four or five years ago, when I beginning to looking at making a living on the web, I had no clue. I put the websites up, used FrontPage as my WYSIWYG editor, took a week's vacation time to write an ebook and put a website online. Six months down the road, I did it again.

Woo Hoo, I had two business websites selling ebooks. After a few months, I had a Google page rank of 4. There was no end in site to the possibilities. All I had to do was lean back and let the money roll in.

I was young and innocent and foolish then.

I did some Adwords campaigns to jumpstart traffic and bought a links program, so that eventually, my traffic would be organic.

Buying a quality links program was one of the few things that I did that was absolutely the right thing to do, and has paid off handsomely.

I had a guru who tried to point me in the right direction, but I never quite "got" what he was talking about. And since he was working with me for free in five minute blocks whenever we could meet. I never was really able to learn and absorb his wisdom about the website business.

RL (real life) and a high paying real life 9 to 5 job (more like 9A to 11P), with a huge multi-national company demanded that I take my eye off of the websites.

Also, I was getting frustrated. Website design and implementation was not easy and I was looking for a way to integrate too many things into my websites.

I took my eye off the ball. The sales dried up. And my rankings went in the toilet.

It was time to reinvent my websites.

Screwing Up – By the Numbers

Since sales on our older ebook products had fallen off dramatically over the past year, along with our rankings, I decided to blow up our websites and reinvent them as fully optimized money making websites.

And although normally, I suggest you write keyword rich content, I decided to go with the truth and let the search engines categorize this particular article wherever they wanted.

I looked around and decided to convert all of our websites to CMS, monetize them with advertising. And introduce new e-products.