The content site model doesn’t work anymore.
Across 2061 sites using the Income School Acabado theme:
- Only 8 have 10,000 organic traffic (according to Semrush data)
- Average site has just 238 organic traffic
- Average site has lost 95% of organic traffic since March 2022
Income School, led by Ricky Kesler, teaches people how to create an Internet business through blogging and creating YouTube channels.
Their Project 24 claims that within 24 months you can attain financial freedom from blogging.
Jamie I.F. ran the data, and found that the average website using their theme gets just 238 monthly search traffic according to Semrush.
The average site using their WP Acabado theme has lost over 95% in traffic since March 2022.
The critique is based on a data study of 2,061 sites run by Income School students, analyzing their organic search performance using Semrush and other tools.
The study found that only 8 of these sites receive more than 10,000 monthly traffic, with more than 75% receiving under 10 visits per month.
The study estimates that the average Income School student’s site earns around $17.85 per month, which is not considered profitable when accounting for hosting costs, content creation, and the course fee.
Only a small percentage (0.73%) of sites using the Income School theme are on premium ad networks like Mediavine and Raptive, with most not meeting the traffic requirements to apply for these networks.
— 81 of 9,894 sites are on Mediavine. — 32 of 5,521 sites are on Raptive (CafeMedia/AdThrive).
113 Income School student sites made it to these premium ad networks of a total 15,415 sites on these networks.
However, most of these 113 no longer meet the traffic requirements to apply for these ad networks.
Income School model is no longer viable, it needs drastic changes are needed, like pausing enrollment, refunding recent signups, and being transparent about the effectiveness of their strategies.
Income School sells their course but not update their strategies to reflect the current state of SEO and content marketing, their are selling outdated tactics that no longer work.
Dataset containing all the sites and their traffic data in this study: Google Sheets
The study: Increasing.com
