Income School Project 24: August 17-23 Weekly Update on 4 Sites

One year into Income School’s Project 24 program, Alston Godbolt is running four separate websites at the same time. The sites are all at different stages, built in different niches, and showing very different results. The week of August 17 to 23, 2019, he pulled data from all four dashboards and walked through every number on camera.

This post breaks down exactly what he found: real pageview counts, real traffic sources, and what separates the site Google loves from the one it is still ignoring. If you are thinking about starting a content site in 2024, or if you are already in Project 24 and wondering how your numbers stack up, these four case studies give you a concrete baseline to compare against.

What You’ll Walk Out With

Real weekly pageview numbers from four sites at different stages of growth
A breakdown of which traffic sources were working (and which were not) for each site
Why the Avocado WordPress theme from Income School reduced bounce rate noticeably
What a 10-post bare-minimum site with zero affiliate links can still earn in traffic
Why Google organic traffic is not the only valid traffic source for a new content site
The honest drawbacks of running four sites in parallel as a solo creator
A starting point for figuring out which kind of site matches your situation, using finder.platformproof.com

What Is Income School Project 24?

Project 24 is a content creation course created by Jim and Ricky, the owners of Income School. Alston joined the course on September 7, 2018. The core idea of the program is straightforward: build websites that earn passive income through affiliate marketing and digital products. The method relies entirely on publishing quality content and doing real search engine optimization. No backlinks, no guest posting, no cold outreach.

At the time of this update, the course included a structured set of 60 steps to build a site from scratch. Project 24 had also expanded to include a YouTube course and a Pinterest course since Alston first joined. The proprietary Avocado WordPress theme was added to the program as well, and it became a notable factor in how sites performed, especially around bounce rate.

The promise of the program: replace your full-time income with passive income in 24 months, if you follow the 60 steps consistently. Alston joined in September 2018, which means by August 2019 he was about 11 months in. These four sites represent the work he had built up in that time.

Site 1: The Content Machine (97 Blog Posts, 497 Weekly Pageviews)

Site 1 is Alston’s largest site. By the week of August 17 to 23, 2019, it had somewhere between 90 and 100 blog posts. He estimated 97 at the time of recording. Alongside the blog, the site had 38 to 39 YouTube videos attached to it, with Alston publishing one new video every single day.

The weekly traffic numbers for Site 1 came in at 497 total pageviews. Divided across seven days, that works out to approximately 71 pageviews per day. The site recorded 238 unique views for the week. Average time on page was 35 seconds. Bounce rate was 4.50, and the exit rate was 40.24.

The traffic source breakdown for Site 1 was unusual. Organic search led the way, but it was not Google driving those organic visits. The primary sources were Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo. Google, in Alston’s own words, was “still against me.” Despite having nearly 100 posts on the site, Google had not picked up traffic the way the other search engines had.

What was making up the gap was YouTube. The 38 to 39 videos attached to the site were sending visitors over, roughly one or more per day. Alston noted that as those YouTube videos matured, he expected the YouTube-sourced traffic to keep growing. The site was also drawing visitors from the United States, Canada, and Australia, which were all expected geographic sources for the niche.

The key takeaway from Site 1: a site can get real, consistent traffic before Google fully indexes and ranks it, especially when a YouTube channel is running alongside the blog. The YouTube channel acts as an alternate discovery channel that operates on its own timeline, separate from Google’s trust-building period for new domains.

Site 2: The One Google Loves (35 Posts, 13 Daily Pageviews)

Site 2 was Alston’s second largest, with approximately 35 blog posts and 10 YouTube videos. The YouTube channel for this site had around 8 subscribers. Weekly pageviews came in at 112, which works out to about 13 pageviews per day.

Unlike Site 1, Site 2 had no trouble with Google. The traffic source breakdown showed 66% of visits coming from Google organic search, with 18% direct and 7% social. When Alston looked more closely at the breakdown, the order was: Google organic first, then direct, then Facebook, DuckDuckGo, Bing, Yahoo, and YouTube.

This is the reverse of what Site 1 was experiencing, and the difference is worth noting. Both sites were built using the same Project 24 method. Both published content consistently. Yet Site 2 had already earned Google’s trust in a way that Site 1 had not. The niche, the domain age, the topic clustering, and the specific keywords all play a role in how quickly Google indexes and ranks a new site. The same method does not always produce the same timeline.

One important factor Alston flagged: Site 2 did not have the Avocado WordPress theme installed. As a result, the bounce rate on Site 2 was noticeably higher than on the sites using the Avocado theme. This was a consistent pattern across all four sites he tracked.

Traffic for Site 2 came from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada, which again tracked with what you would expect from an English-language content site targeting general consumer audiences.

Site 3: LearnKenosha.com, the Local Site That Struggled to Find Its Direction

Site 3 was called LearnKenosha.com. It had between 15 and 20 blog posts. This site had a different origin story than the other three. It did not start as an Income School-modeled content site. Alston built it originally as a local resource for the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he lives. It started as what he called a “tribal type site” to represent the city.

Over time, he shifted the site and added blog posts using the Project 24 approach, but the mixed origin made it harder to build momentum. The site was also picking up social traffic through a plugin called Blog to Social, which had been set up to automatically schedule posts out to LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for 52 weeks. Alston had disabled the plugin, but it was still sending content out to social channels during this period.

Traffic sources for LearnKenosha.com were split between Google organic, Bing, and Facebook. Because the site was locally focused, almost all of the traffic came from the United States, and specifically from the Midwest region. Alston noted that if a visit came from outside Kenosha or the Midwest, his first assumption was that someone had attempted to access or probe the site.

The lesson from Site 3 is about topic clarity. Starting a site with one goal and then pivoting to a different content model midway through creates friction. The site struggled to build the kind of consistent topical authority that Project 24 is designed around, because the original foundation was a geographic identity rather than a search-demand-driven topic cluster.

Site 4: The Bare-Minimum Experiment (10 Posts, 114 Weekly Pageviews)

Site 4 was the most stripped-down of the four. By August 2019, it had only about 10 blog posts. There was no YouTube channel connected to it. There were no product images, no affiliate links, no color scheme to speak of. Alston described it as very plain and very basic.

Despite all of that, Site 4 was pulling 114 pageviews per week. That put it slightly ahead of Site 2 in raw weekly traffic volume, even though Site 2 had 35 posts and an attached YouTube channel. The traffic for Site 4 came almost entirely from organic search, led by Google, followed by Bing and Yahoo.

Geographic traffic was spread across the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, and Canada. The global spread suggested that the niche Site 4 was in had international search demand, even with just 10 posts published.

This is the data point that stands out most from the entire update. A site with 10 posts, no images, no affiliate links, no YouTube channel, and no visual design to speak of was generating 114 pageviews per week. The content itself was doing the work. It is a direct, real-world example of what happens when you write for a topic with clear search demand and no established competition: Google will send people to you even when your site looks like nothing at all.

Not sure which kind of online income path fits your current skills and situation?

Answer 7 questions and get a specific recommendation at finder.platformproof.com.

The Numbers Side by Side: What the Comparison Reveals

Looking at all four sites together gives a clearer picture of how different factors interact in a content site business:

Site 1: 97 posts, 38-39 YouTube videos, 497 weekly pageviews, 71 per day. Traffic from Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, YouTube. Google not yet contributing.
Site 2: 35 posts, 10 YouTube videos, 8 subscribers, 112 weekly pageviews, 13 per day. Traffic from Google (66% organic), direct, and Facebook.
Site 3: 15-20 posts, local niche, mixed-origin site. Traffic from Google organic, Bing, Facebook. Mostly Midwest US visitors.
Site 4: 10 posts, no YouTube, no affiliate links, no design. 114 weekly pageviews from Google, Bing, Yahoo.

The two things that jump out: volume of content does not automatically translate into the most traffic, and Google trust varies significantly from site to site even when the same method is used. Site 4 with 10 posts beat Site 2 with 35 posts in raw weekly volume. Site 1 with 97 posts had the most traffic overall, but it was coming from YouTube and alternative search engines rather than Google.

If you are building a content site and wondering why Google has not picked you up yet, Site 1 is the example that shows you it is not necessarily doing anything wrong. Other search engines and YouTube can carry real traffic while Google takes its time to decide whether to trust a newer domain.

The Avocado Theme and Bounce Rate: A Real-World Test

One of the more specific observations Alston made during this update was the difference in bounce rate between sites using the Avocado WordPress theme and the one that was not.

The Avocado theme was added to Income School’s Project 24 program as a proprietary theme designed for content sites. It is built with readability and site structure in mind. Sites using Avocado showed significantly lower bounce rates than Site 2, which was using a different WordPress theme.

Bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who land on a page and leave without clicking to another page on the site. A lower bounce rate generally means readers are sticking around and exploring more content. From a passive income standpoint, that is valuable: more pages viewed per session means more opportunities to see affiliate links, read more content, and build a habit of returning to the site.

The difference Alston observed was not subtle. It was clear enough that he flagged it as a notable factor across the four sites. If you are already in Project 24 and not using the Avocado theme, this data point from August 2019 suggests it is worth switching.

Honest Drawbacks of Running Four Sites at Once

Alston does not spell out the downsides explicitly in this update, but the data makes several of them visible.

First, attention is spread thin. Site 1 has nearly 100 posts and 39 YouTube videos, which is a significant volume of work. Site 4 has only 10 posts and no YouTube channel. If Alston had concentrated the same total output onto two sites instead of four, both of those sites would likely be much further along.

Second, Site 3 (LearnKenosha.com) is a clear case of a site that probably should not have been started the way it was. The city-focused origin made it harder to build topical authority, and the site had not grown at the pace of the other three despite running for the same period.

Third, the volume of content creation required to keep four sites active while also producing daily YouTube videos is not realistic for most people. Alston was producing one YouTube video every single day for Site 1 while maintaining three other sites. That is a pace that most side hustlers cannot sustain alongside full-time employment.

If you are looking at this update and thinking about starting with Project 24 yourself, the honest recommendation is to start with one site, get it to a point where Google has indexed and ranked a handful of posts, and then decide whether to expand. The multi-site approach works, but it works better when each site has already established some traction.

Find Your X

Alston built four content sites simultaneously because he had a clear system and a defined method. Most people starting out do not know which direction to go first. Should you start a blog? Launch a YouTube channel? Pick a niche and build affiliate content? Focus on local or go broad?

If you are in that position, the fastest way to get a concrete starting point is to use the free tool at finder.platformproof.com. It asks seven questions about your current skills, available time, and income goal, then tells you which online income path fits your actual situation. No generic advice. Just a specific direction to move in.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Income School Project 24?

Project 24 is a content marketing course built by Jim and Ricky at Income School. It teaches students how to build blogs and YouTube channels around specific niches and earn passive income through affiliate marketing. The name comes from the goal of replacing your full-time income within 24 months. The course includes 60 structured steps, an Avocado WordPress theme, and courses on YouTube and Pinterest alongside the core blogging content.

How long does it take to get Google traffic with a new blog?

It varies widely. Site 2 in this update had established Google organic traffic as its primary source with 35 posts. Site 1 had 97 posts and was still not getting meaningful Google traffic, relying instead on Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and YouTube. The domain age, niche competition, topic specificity, and overall site structure all affect how long Google takes to trust a new domain. Many Project 24 students report seeing real Google traffic somewhere between 6 and 18 months after launching.

Can a blog get traffic without Google?

Yes. Site 1 in this update was getting 497 weekly pageviews, 71 per day, without meaningful Google traffic. The primary sources were Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and YouTube. Bing and DuckDuckGo in particular are often underrated by new bloggers because the assumption is that Google is the only search engine that matters. In practice, a site that Google ignores in its first year can still build a real audience through alternative search engines and a connected YouTube channel.

Does the number of blog posts determine how much traffic you get?

Not in a straight line. Site 4 in this update had only 10 blog posts and was generating 114 weekly pageviews. Site 2 had 35 posts and was generating 112 weekly pageviews. More posts increase the number of topics you can rank for, but the topic selection and search demand behind each post matter more than the raw post count. A site with 10 posts on highly specific, low-competition keywords can outperform a site with 35 posts on topics that are already well-covered by established sites.

Should I run multiple websites at the same time?

It depends on your output capacity and how established your first site already is. Alston was able to run four sites because he had been building them since September 2018 and had developed a repeatable content process. For someone just starting out, running four sites at once typically means none of them get enough attention to build momentum. A better approach for most people is to start one site, get it to 20 to 30 posts, wait for the first signs of organic traffic, and then consider whether to open a second project.

What is the Avocado theme and why does it matter?

Avocado is a WordPress theme created by Income School for Project 24 members. It is designed for content blogs and optimizes for readability, internal navigation, and page structure. In Alston’s comparison across four sites, the sites using Avocado had noticeably lower bounce rates than the site running a different theme. A lower bounce rate means readers are spending more time on the site and visiting more pages per session, which improves your chances of earning affiliate commissions and increases the overall value of each visitor.

How many YouTube videos should a new content site have?

There is no fixed number, but this update gives a useful data point. Site 1 had 38 to 39 YouTube videos and was generating about one YouTube-referred visitor per day at minimum. Alston was posting one video per day at that point. Site 2 had 10 YouTube videos and 8 subscribers, with YouTube as one of its smaller traffic sources. The pattern suggests that YouTube traffic to a blog grows slowly at first and speeds up as the channel’s video library matures. Starting with a weekly publishing schedule and building from there is more realistic than daily publishing for most people.

Is Project 24 still worth it in 2024?

This update is from 2019, so the course has changed since Alston recorded this video. The core method of building niche content sites using SEO has become more competitive over time, and Google’s algorithm updates since 2020 have affected many content site owners. That said, the underlying logic of finding specific questions people search for and writing clear, accurate answers to those questions has not changed. Whether Project 24 specifically is the right course for your situation in 2024 is something worth researching based on recent student results and current pricing before investing.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, Project 24 weekly update video, August 17-23, 2019 (YouTube: GTGiGQVc96A)
Income School Project 24 course, Jim Harmer and Ricky Kesler, original enrollment September 7, 2018
Google Analytics / site dashboard data referenced in video: four sites, week of August 17-23, 2019