Three years ago I was making a few thousand dollars a month off my websites and then there was a crash. My web based income dropped to almost nothing. The affiliate programs that I belong to changed their terms, and even if the economy were to get better, I would not make as much as I used to.
There have been a few rays of hope.
First, people are beginning to buy on eBay again. A nice chunk of my income is from the eBay Partner Network affiliate program. I put eBay ads on some of my sites based on the keywords in the page. I put a lot of work into the programming and strategy, and it pays off. Even though eBay has cut the amount of money its partners get, I am slowly coming back. Each month I make a little more.
Google AdSense clicks are paying more than they used to. On a good day three years ago I would do $30 with AdSense, but for the last couple of years I’ve been doing $3 to $5. Lately I’ve seen what I hope is a trend. I have been seeing days where I make over $10 and one day this month I made over $20.
My sites get about 350,000 impressions a month, down from a peak of about 500k. By my estimates I should be making about 3,500 a month from the traffic (rule of thumb $10 per 1,000 page views depending on subject matter). If the economy improves, I may see that figure again.