Official Report: 5 Month Check in for the NEW AI Site Challenge!

[Spencer Haws]

The results are in for month 5! You can see the full 5 month leaderboard right here!

You can also see additional comments and details from each participant below. Thank you!

• This topic was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by Spencer Haws.

[Victoria]

My site stats are as follows:
“Total Clicks” Does Google Search Console – 6.83k
ORGANIC “Sessions” 6629k
Report the “Users” metric in GA 4 – 8.8k

Hoping I can make a final push this month!

[Ashley]

Didn’t add much new content, but continuing to grow steadily through Google search.

Total Articles Published: 69
Total Clicks from GSC: 291
Organic Sessions: 591
Total Users: 671

[Chris LeBlanc]

Hey guys,

Site is still pretty new, since I ended up changing niches at the beginning of the year. I am just over 2 months in now.

Articles: 55
Total Traffic: 118
Total Organic sessions: 24
Total GSC clicks: 27

[Troy De Ville]

The site didn’t have much uplift; it kind of flatlined with 4,088 organic sessions. Hopefully it picks up for the last month!!!

[Ian]

My site stats for month 5:

Total number of articles: 156
Total traffic in Feb: 716
Organic sessions: 607
Total clicks in GSC: 476

Only spent an hour or two on the site in February.

I’m seeing significant traffic increases in the last couple days, so March should be interesting!

[Holly]

Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to do much. Maybe 1 new article in Feb with at total of 27.
Total traffic: 507
Organic sessions: 427
GSC clicks: 274

[Jen]

41 new articles
2216 total sessions
3219 total pageviews
1397 organic search sessions
GSC= 1.24k clicks
made $6.48 on AdSense 🙂

Can’t wait to see how the new google update affects the sites! (Of course I am hopeful, but you never know….)

[Madison Cates]

Saw a slight increase in traffic this month, but nothing significant. I finished the month with a little over 4,600 sessions and around 4,100 organic sessions. Publishing a lot on these final days so we’ll see what happens.

[Johnson]

The site is still growing but at a minimal rate. The organic traffic increased by 13% from last month.
I published only 2 articles in February (I don’t have time), for a total of 337 articles.
Google Search Console: 2.1K
Total Session (GA): 2.7K

• This reply was modified 1 month, 4 weeks ago by Johnson.

[Tom Seest]

https://HowDoYouGame.com
Articles Published: 601
Total Traffic: 194
Organic Sessions: 60
Total Clicks: 64

Happy with progress.

I’m unlikely to change anything up this month. While I have made excellent progress on my heart failure front, testing almost normal now, my dad is quickly succumbing to cancer. So, my focus is elsewhere.

I’m glad I took the time to participate, which allowed me to establish a set of processes that I can refine over time. But, I won’t be mixing things up this month.

I wish all of you well in the final month here. It’s been a blast watching all of you, and your different strategies and tactics.

[Tom Seest]

https://HowDoYouLose.com
Articles Published: 613
Total Users: 154
Total Traffic: 5
Organic Sessions: 60
Total Clicks: 2

Same note as my HowDoYouGame post.

[Tom]

Hey Everyone.

I hope all is well. Here’s my Feb numbers:

Total Articles: 139
Total Traffic GA4: 5700
Organic Sessions GA4: 6299
Total Clicks GSC: 4980

See you all in a month!

[Edvard]

Site #1

Total traffic: 45
Organic sessions: 34
GSC clicks: 15
Articles: 245

Site is still dead.

Site #2

Total traffic: 20,340
Organic sessions: 18,612
GSC clicks: 19,300
Articles: ~7,000,000

Most traffic is from the first half of the month as the site got hit quite hard. I’m not optimistic for a speedy recovery, but I don’t think all hope is out for a gradual comeback. For now I’ll just wait and see.

Site #3

Total traffic: 9,346
Organic sessions: 7,650
GSC clicks: 7,900
Articles: 5,804

Happy with ~50% growth from last month. Traffic has been a bit volatile lately. Not sure if it’s because of my site-wide content update to fresh data or if it’s the google update kicking in. Will try to flesh out some thin pages this month and hopefully have time to start some link building. Even though it’s a bit late to have large effect for this challenge, I wanna continue growing the site.

[Selma]

Hi!

GA4 Stats
Users: 8.6 K
Sessions: 9.8 k
Views: 12k

All my traffic is from Pinterest.

Organic Search: only 6

[Troy De Ville]

I’ve pushed so many Pins to Pinterest, and still no growth in the last 5 months. It seems some sites hit, and others just fall short. I’ve love to know what’s working for you?

[Selma]

Hi Troy,

It depends on your niche really. I am in the lifestyle niche which is perfect for Pinterest. But I find with the right angle lots of niches could work just as well.

But here are some tips that helped me grow fast. I am no expert by any means and still a newbie to it, these are just what has worked for me so far.

First make sure your pin, pin titles, description and boards are optimized with keywords (seems obvious) this way Pinterest knows what it’s about.

I find that using enticing titles on my pins works. For instance, instead of saying 10 ways to clean your kitchen, I would write something like 10 Insanely Easy Ways to Clean Your Kitchen FAST. Other words that work great are absolute best, or super. Just very over-the-top words lol. But I make sure I deliver on my promise.

Another thing I noticed is Pinterest users like to save things sometimes without clicking out to your website, so sometimes I give all or some of the info away on the pin itself (i.e 150 Self-Care tips and I give maybe 25 in the pin itself). This encourages saves and likes which in turn will grow your reach. And a lot of people still end up clicking out to find out more. It seems that engagement is everything…the more people like and save the more your pins get pushed out. I believe this strategy is what helped me grow more than anything.

Lastly, I create content for the seasons or occasions. I create them at least 1 month in advance. For instance, my spring content I had up in January and it’s now taking off.

I test different things and when I see something working I go all in on that.

hope that helps

• This reply was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by Selma.

[Troy De Ville]

Thank you, Salma, that helps. I don’t think I add keywords in my description on Pins, so that helps.

[J Paul Hendricks]

Well done on the pinterest traffic… We have been pushing hard there but very little progress. Good tips from Troy above!

[Adrian D.]

Articles published so far: 75
Organic traffic: 105

[Tonja Gasperlin]

9.415 Organic Sessions

[Ryan]

Articles Published: 860
Organic Sessions: 579

Another month of 100% growth, which makes me feel like the site has pretty good potential. It’s starting to have days where traffic spikes much more than the average. Hopefully, this trend continues and those spikes become the norm.

I still have a ton of articles to make this site anywhere near complete. It’s maybe covered 5-10% of the topic… It also has the potential of adding a local physical business aspect to it. Have a great March, everyone!

[Dennis]

Hi!
Feb Stats
Users: 473
Sessions: 455
GSC Clicks: 292
Page Views: 593

Traffic is going up this Month, with 50+ organic visits per day; earned $4.72 on Amazon affiliates in Feb. $3+ so far in March.

[Dan Crone]

I’ve enjoyed pretending to participate. Never did get off the ground. We all have the same number of hours in a day, so it’s just a matter of priorities. Always something else to do, sometimes intentional, sometimes unintentional. Like this month I took a 19 hour Amtrak trip (don’t recommend) and this was followed by 20 days of Covid. (Yes, you can catch it twice. So stay vaccinated, it is out there.) I’ve got more excuses if anyone needs a few.:)

I’ve been following along as Google Core updates take on the Niche Website Community, and SEO as industry and occupation. As I type this, Google has launched the March Core update. In short, it seems to me ‘optimizing’ is ‘manipulating’. From picking a niche, to picking keywords, to chasing topics to maximize the keyword golden ratio, to making sure your page has the right ‘entities’, it seems it is all a cat-and-mouse game.

Some big players have been affected, and none have recovered. It’s probably incorrect to state it that way. They can’t recover because what was page 1 content is now page 20 content. They can’t recover because it’s not in their control. It isn’t directed at them. It’s not that Google likes them less, it likes a different kind of site more. As Diggity says, “the answer as to what Google likes is on the 1st page of Google”.

Try Perplexity. This is probably the future of search. It’s a better “Search Generative Experience” than Google, and so how does one get linked to by Perplexity?

[Mike B]

I think Google has outed themselves. We all know they have absolute control over the SERP results. And the Google AI fiasco especially shows they control everything they want us to see.

[Mike B]

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to add any new posts last month. That being said….my site never gained any organic traffic and I received zero organic clicks.

I did get 267 sessions from Organic Social and most of them came over 3 days. Maybe that’s the ticket to getting traffic to my website.

I had high hopes but maybe my topic is way to broad with way too much traffic. But it was a good learning experience.

Thanks Spencer for the contest. I haven’t given up on the site, but may let it simmer for a little while.
-Mike

[Mike B]

I think Google has outed themselves. We all know they have absolute control over the SERP results. And the Google AI fiasco especially shows they control everything they want us to see.

[Karan Mallya]

Not much growth.
Total articles Published: 51
GA 4 Users: 57
GA 4 Sessions: 118
GSC: 69 Clicks

I have started my website on 1st Jan 2024

[Bec]

Hehe, some impressive stats above! Well done! So wishing I did a regular blog haha.
Definitely bringing up the rear with a measly 52 posts (product pages and some blogs)
582 impressions and 6 clicks on GSC 🙂

To be honest, sticking something out for 6 months for me has been the real challenge and it’s still encouraging me to tick along with it each month! So stoked for that! But man, kids and side hustles? Feels near impossible to find time at the moment! 🙁

[David]

Articles: 13
Total Traffic: 300 , Just in Feb: 116
Total Organic sessions: 1091, Just in Feb : 216

The last month I’ve had to focus on work, as Ive had a big client project on taking up all my time.
But I’m really pleased that although I only make low number of articles my site is growing organically and continues to climb. It helps me realise that its not about huge number of articles that gets traffic.

I spend many hours on just one single article, including making a lot of AI imagery and art, as it’s aimed at children. Many thanks

[J Paul Hendricks]

Hi all!! OK, here we go…

Site metrics took an unexpected (and unhappy) pause in growth. Users 169 (basically unchanged from 168), Total Organic 144 (-19%) and GSC Clicks 93 (-27%) respectively. Total posts are at 121, up from 96. Sprint 3 is well underway as we also continue making improvements on existing articles.

Overall average position is ~31.6 (down from the previous month’s record best). We continue to rank for more keywords. Despite the downtick in some metrics, impressions were up slightly. Top 5 pages by impressions are at an average position of 25.4, down from ~20.

Of those, GSC shows a mixed picture. The best 2 pages have avg positions of 8.5 and 8.7, down slightly but pulling in more clicks overall. The 3rd best page in terms of impressions has an average position of 68.2 but ranked for 67 KWs in Feb. This was a primary pillar page from launch and has stubbornly under-performed until now; it’s suddenly showing signs of life. My hope is that this pick up in impressions and KWs is an indication of positive things to come.

The off-page efforts continued. Early in the month I published some articles on Medium. I also managed to get a few other solid external link placements as well. In my experience it takes time for new links to have an effect but I’m hoping the recent core update treats the site well.

YouTube video publishing continues but engagement is low and this is expected (I think). These are relatively short (~3 mins) headless videos. So, while I doubt YT will help in this final lap of the race, it’s a no-brainer for a site in this niche to have a channel.

We are nowhere near the front-runners in this marathon. But, despite a dip in sessions in February, it looks like we will end strong. The last week’s numbers imply March will be our best month ever. I’ll be happy if we claw back into the top 20.

As noted before, it’s really been about the testing and validation of new processes and SOPs. On that front we have already won! Reminder that I revealed the site last month…

To see the site yourself just google: motivation pay ai coach app

[Mark]

131 site traffic for feb
16 clicks
25 articles, haven’t written any articles in Feb too busy with my full time job.

[Nadya From LivingOffCloud]

Site #1
How Many Articles are Published on Your Site? (before 3/1/24): 93
How much total traffic has the site received during the month of February: 106
How much ORGANIC “Sessions” has the site received in February: 83
How Many “Total Clicks” Does Google Search Console show: 68
🤷‍♀️

[Charles]

I haven’t really done any new changes or updates for the last 2 months or so. Since I was running many sites as part of my AI Sites Experiment, I decided to post on them and then leave them just like that. Then, recheck on them a few months down the line, and focus on those which have shown some potential. With the ongoing Google wildness, it gets even harder. For the next 1 week or so, I will try to improve the existing contents in my websites, do some internal linking, and a bit of editing. Then leave them sitting until the core update finishes rolling (which might actually come at the same time that this challenge will be ending).

[Seb]

I had honestly given up. I haven’t added any new article in 2-3 months, but traffic is picking up, and people are getting clapped by the HCU, so I figured I’d file my reports just in case.

February 2024

25 articles
534 organic traffic

[Sjpals]

So, I thought that I submitted my stats, but I obviously didnt!

I have become more and more disillusioned with domains and websites and I have dropped nearly 150 domains, and will only keep a couple.

This comp has been good in terms of proving to myself that I am totally unmotivated, and that I am totally kidding myself if I think I ever will be. I found it way too time consuming to write articles, even with the help of AI. So thank you for that interesting revelation, and good luck to those genuinely participating. Ill be interested to see the winning website!

My final stats:
I wrote 9 articles in the september when I set the site up and have not touched it since.
Its had 215 visits total in 6 months
29 organic visits total in 6 months

[Author]

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