Close to quitting the day job....

[penguinbc]

Thanks for all the feedback it helps putting things into perspective.

I focus all my effort on seo and thats where all of my income originates. Right now its coming from adsense and cpa so its slightly diversified and I would never feel comfortable getting all of my income from one source.

I was getting all of my income from adsense at one time and was banned for a misunderstanding (They claim I set users homepages without their permission, my software had a tickbox asking if I could do so which isn't against their rules, there was no way to appeal or let them know about it), so make sure that even if you were not able to use adsense for example that you could still make enough money to sustain yourself. Diversity is the key of course so you are on the right track.

 

[cgh85]

i hope to get the level one day where i can call an end to the day job!!

 

[NicheChopper]

It depends on many things dude, if you are making money from one source and from a little period of time. You have to prove and testify that your method and system has feasibility to hang on for at least 1-2 years. Affiliate marketing like streams are vulnerably inconstant. So before quitting a day job, you must ask yourself that AM I READY

 

[Incantation]

And I really do think the diversity of income matters more than just the dollar amount. A guy making $1k/day on just AdSense is at the complete mercy of Google. If someone decides to ban his account, then he's screwed. However, if another guy is making $500/day but is making it from a combination of affiliate marketing w/ traffic from both organic and PPC, selling link building services, some AdSense on his blog network, web design, installation and programming services, etc, etc, etc. then he is in much better shape to "retire" from his day job.

It is not in Google's interest to just go around banning their performing publishers. It's retards trying to cheat them that give them a bad name for this. They can see regular payments, the click data across this time and so on that will tell them all they need to know. I believe they now have detection in place to nuke any clicks after three have been made from a single user (about time). Seriously, just follow their terms and conditions/quality guidelines and Google Adsense is secure and a great way to make money online. The only concern with Google comes down to rankings with their ever-changing algorithm. Most of us on here spam, so getting sites nuked is the only issue at hand. Having a large network of sites and as you say using other monetisation methods provides some protection to this.

 

[YouDontKnowMe]

It is not in Google's interest to just go around banning their performing publishers. It's retards trying to cheat them that give them a bad name for this. They can see regular payments, the click data across this time and so on that will tell them all they need to know. I believe they now have detection in place to nuke any clicks after three have been made from a single user (about time). Seriously, just follow their terms and conditions/quality guidelines and Google Adsense is secure and a great way to make money online. The only concern with Google comes down to rankings with their ever-changing algorithm. Most of us on here spam, so getting sites nuked is the only issue at hand. Having a large network of sites and as you say using other monetisation methods provides some protection to this.

Dude, there have been some BIG TIME publishers who got railed in the ass when the G banned their accounts. I'm not saying it happens all the time, but it does happen to people who are not intentionally tying to cheat the system.

 

[bigbrian]

Just make sure you have some money stacked in the bank so if you have an "oh shit" you can fall back on the bankroll for a bit until you get things stable again.

There will always be ups and downs because that is the nature of the business but if you have some stability at $400/day and some cash in the bank why not give it a shot. Your gut will tell you when it's time!

Brian