Blog to Travel

By January, I had covered French Polynesia (Tahiti) in the South Pacific and New Zealand, and was hoofing it around Australia.

In January 2008, I earned $304.28.

• $136.46 from Text Link Ads
• $143.85 from the renewal of a 6-month text link ad sale (direct with me)
• $23.97 from reader donation

The Text Link Ad income was the highest so far for a month without a referral bonus!  I continue to see my 10-link inventory maxed out, which is good because I can count on the income immediately, though bad because it means I cannot earn more through new sales based on my higher ad rate.

Still, after 2 months of travel, I was increasingly excited about any money I could bring in.

After a whirlwind first 3 months on the road, I feel the need to resume my earnings reports.  Despite a lack of updates on Blog to Travel, I’ve managed to schedule posts almost daily on GoBackpacking as I travel around the world.

In December 2007, I earned $233.00.

• $129.91 from Text Link Ads
• $60.00 from Review Me (1 review written from the island of Moorea in French Polynesia)
• $43.09 from reader donations

This income took on a whole new meaning when it was deposited into my bank account.  It provided a mental boost given I had severed my ties with life in the USA and was half way around the world in New Zealand.

In September, I earned $653.51

• $126.11 from Text Link Ads
• $527.40 from the renewal of a direct sale (5 links on different pages for 12 months)

In October, I earned $108.00

• All of it from Text Link Ads

I would’ve earned an additional $30, however I declined a Review Me request. I raised my TLA rate to $42 per link, per month, however because I’m usually running at full capacity (10 links) for the majority of each month, it’s going to take many months for new buyers to purchase my links at the higher rate.

In November, I expect to earn $134.36

• All from Text Link Ads again

I raised my Review Me price over $100, given the amount of work they require. I’m not inclined to do any now, however I may change my tune once I’m on the road. If I can continue to earn $134 a month while I’m traveling, that could cover a few splurges, an extra activity or two, or who knows!

Since I’ve saved enough to make it around the world *without* having to work, I’ve down shifted and intend to fully enjoy myself, updating my primary GoBackpacking Blog for fun instead of profit. I expect my traffic to potentially decrease as I will be posting less often. I’m still happy to have retained a PR 4 after the last Google Page Rank update, and was surprised to see Blog to Travel hit PR 2.

I depart New York City on November 30th for Tahiti!

CashQuests posted an interesting piece today about the possibility of Google abandoning PageRank in favor of a different strategy, much to the exclusion of paid text links. While I believe the post was meant more to elicit a reaction than make a serious case for that side of the debate, it did get me thinking.

Text link ads are currently my biggest moneymaker, and a sudden cessation of Google’s PageRank system would likely have an immediate impact on my ability to make money online. Though it’s been 5 months since the last PageRank (that boosted my backpacking blog from PRO to PR4 overnight), I believe the delay is the result of updates being made to the algorithm to detect or place less emphasis on paid text links.

Regardless of changes to Google’s PageRank strategy, I’m confident the “make money online” community is so strong at this point, it will adapt and evolve to whatever challenges come their way.  People are making thousands, if not millions, of dollars from text link ads.  For those of us focused on earning some pocket change online to fund our travels, we need only continue to subscribe to a few of the leading moneymaking blogs to see how they adapt and change.