Project 24 Income School August 2019 Monthly Review: 4 Sites Report

Eleven months into Project 24 and Alston is managing four live websites at the same time. In August 2019 he recorded the raw traffic numbers for every one of them, the problems each site is running into, and the ideas he is testing to push them forward. This is not a highlight reel. The numbers range from 67 pageviews to 2,014 pageviews, and every figure is reported honestly, including the sites that are barely moving.

If you are thinking about starting a blog or you are already a few months in and wondering whether your numbers are normal, this breakdown gives you a realistic picture of what four sites at different stages actually look like. Each site has a different niche, a different traffic source mix, and a different problem to solve. Watching how one person handles all four at once is a useful education on what actually drives growth at this stage of the content marketing game.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear explanation of what Project 24 is and how it has evolved since Alston joined in September 2018
The exact August 2019 pageview and unique visitor counts for all four sites
Why Site 1 is not getting Google traffic even after a full year of publishing
What happened to the bounce rate on Site 1 after switching from X theme to the free Avocado theme
The local ad-selling strategy behind Site 3 and why Kenosha is an underserved market
How Site 4 is pulling 424 pageviews with fewer than 15 posts and almost no images
What the traffic source breakdowns reveal about keyword selection and niche authority
How to figure out which online income approach fits your situation at finder.platformproof.com

What Project 24 Is and How It Started

Project 24 is a course program created by Jim and Ricky, the owners of Income School. The name refers to the idea that it takes roughly 24 months to build a content website to the point where it generates meaningful passive income. When Alston first joined on September 7, 2018, it was primarily a blogging course: a step-by-step guide to building niche content websites, doing keyword research correctly, and writing the type of articles that rank in search engines over time.

Since then, Income School has expanded what they offer inside the program. They created a free WordPress theme called the Avocado theme, designed to load fast and keep visitors on the page longer. They also added a full YouTube course for creators who want to use video as part of their content strategy. Alston has been doing exactly that: pairing YouTube videos with his written blog content to drive traffic back to his sites.

The approach is methodical. Choose a niche, find low-competition keywords, write thorough articles, and let search traffic accumulate over time. Income does not happen quickly, but the goal is to build something that earns without constant active work. This monthly review is a checkpoint on that journey across four separate sites.

Site 1: The Flagship With 95 to 100 Blog Posts

This is Alston’s largest and most developed site. By August 2019 it had between 95 and 100 published blog posts, about 35 YouTube videos connected to it, and roughly 40 YouTube subscribers. He has been uploading one video per week to that channel and directing those viewers back to the corresponding blog content.

The August 2019 traffic numbers for Site 1: 2,014 pageviews and 1,067 unique views. This is the second or possibly third consecutive month where the site has cleared the 2,000 pageview threshold. That milestone matters because it is roughly the point where more premium advertising networks, beyond Google AdSense, become worth approaching. Alston notes that he actually removed AdSense from the site at the start of August when he switched themes, so the site was not earning from ads during this period at all. That is a short-term sacrifice he accepted in order to get the theme in place.

The traffic sources for Site 1 show roughly 50 percent coming from organic search. The other half is split across direct, social, and referral traffic. On the surface that looks strong. But when you look at which search engines are sending that organic traffic, the picture gets more complicated. Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo are the main organic sources. Google is present but far down the list.

Alston identifies two reasons for the Google gap. First, his early keyword research on the first 30 or so posts was not done properly. He was targeting topics that were too competitive for a new site in its first year. Second, the niche itself may fall under what Google classifies as Your Money or Your Life content, a category where Google holds websites to a higher standard before ranking them prominently. Neither of those issues is permanent, but they explain why organic traffic is not doubling the way it could if Google were the dominant source.

Site 1 also benefits from a plugin called Blog to Social, which automatically distributes new and existing blog posts to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook on a rolling schedule. At the time of this review, that schedule is set to continue for the next 25 weeks. It creates a steady drip of social traffic without requiring Alston to manually post anything. YouTube is also a meaningful referral source, sending 24 visitors to the site in August alone. The top countries by traffic are the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, which is exactly the developed-market audience that advertising networks and affiliate programs value most.

Site 2: The Site Google Actually Likes

Site 2 has between 30 and 40 blog posts and only 10 YouTube videos, all of which are older and have not been refreshed in some time. The August 2019 numbers: 511 pageviews and 474 unique views, with an average time on page of 4 minutes and 17 seconds. The bounce rate sits at 91.35 percent, which is on the higher end, and Alston notes this is partly because the site is still running the older X theme rather than the Avocado theme.

What sets Site 2 apart is the traffic source breakdown. Unlike Site 1, Google is the dominant organic search source here by a wide margin. It leads ahead of direct traffic, Facebook, Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. This is what a well-positioned niche site looks like in Google’s eyes at this stage. The niche does not carry the YMYL classification concerns that Site 1 does, and the early keyword research was more targeted. The result is clear in the data: fewer posts, less YouTube support, but better Google placement.

The traffic geography follows the same pattern as Site 1, with the top four or five countries being developed English-speaking markets. This matters for monetization because ad networks price inventory differently based on where visitors are located. Traffic from the US, UK, Canada, and Australia commands significantly higher ad rates than traffic from regions with lower purchasing power.

Site 3: The Local Business Experiment at learnkenosha.com

Site 3 is a local-focused site called learnkenosha.com. This site operates on a different model entirely. The original plan was not to build traffic for ad revenue but to build enough of a local audience that Alston could sell ad space directly to Kenosha, Wisconsin businesses. Kenosha sits between Milwaukee and Chicago, which means local businesses there are competing in a market where advertising rates skew toward Chicago prices. That creates an opportunity for a local publisher who can offer access to a Kenosha-specific audience at a lower cost than the big metro outlets.

The August 2019 numbers reflect how early this site still is: 67 pageviews and 63 unique views. With only about 15 blog posts published, growth is predictably slow. Alston has not invested heavily in this site yet because the model is still being worked out. One idea he mentions is creating a YouTube channel specifically for this site, built around interviews with local Kenosha businesses and local figures. That kind of content is genuinely underserved in that market. Chicago and Milwaukee get covered extensively, but Kenosha is in a gap where someone with a local content strategy could own the space.

The traffic source breakdown for Site 3 shows Google performing fine here. There is no YMYL classification concern in this niche, so the site ranks without the friction that Site 1 faces. Alston also flags that any traffic coming from outside the United States or outside the Midwest in this context is likely spam or bot traffic rather than genuine local visitors, which is a sensible way to interpret the data for a hyper-local site.

Site 4: Minimal Design, Surprisingly Strong Numbers

Site 4 is the smallest site in the portfolio by post count, with fewer than 15 published articles. It is also the most visually stripped-down site Alston runs. There is a logo on it, but almost no images in the actual posts. The design is about as basic as a WordPress site gets. And yet the August 2019 numbers are: 424 pageviews and 394 unique views, with an average time on page of 6 minutes and 58 seconds. Organic search accounts for about 91 percent of that traffic.

That time on page figure is worth pausing on. Nearly 7 minutes is a strong signal that visitors are reading this content thoroughly. A site with fewer than 15 posts, no images to speak of, and a plain layout is still holding readers for almost 7 minutes. That points to strong content-to-query alignment: the articles are answering exactly what searchers are looking for, which keeps people on the page.

The traffic source mix for Site 4 includes Google as the clear leader, followed by Bing, Yahoo, AOL, DuckDuckGo, and Facebook. The geographic spread includes the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and India. This site is running on X theme and has not been updated to the Avocado theme yet, which likely contributes to the bounce rate sitting above 91 percent. If that pattern holds from what happened with Site 1, a theme switch could shift that number meaningfully.

Not sure which online income path makes sense for your skills and schedule?

Take a two-minute quiz and get a specific recommendation at finder.platformproof.com.

The Theme Switch That Changed Site 1’s Bounce Rate

Halfway through August 2019, Alston switched Site 1 from the paid X theme to the free Avocado theme that Income School and Jim and Ricky created for Project 24 students. The reason was page speed. X theme is a capable theme, but it is not optimized the way a theme built specifically for content sites is. Avocado is designed to load quickly and keep visitors reading rather than bouncing.

The bounce rate change after the switch was, in Alston’s words, dramatic. He had previously recorded a separate video specifically about the before-and-after page speed difference when moving from a premium paid theme to the Income School free theme. The difference was noticeable in the measurements. A lower bounce rate means more people are staying on the site and reading more content, which improves average session duration, increases ad impressions per visit, and sends positive engagement signals to Google over time.

This is a practical lesson that applies to anyone building a blog: the theme you choose affects your metrics in ways that compound. A site that retains visitors for longer earns more from the same amount of traffic. A faster-loading site also ranks better over time as Google continues to weight Core Web Vitals. Switching to a lightweight theme is one of the highest-ROI changes a content site can make, and it cost Alston nothing because Income School provides the Avocado theme free to Project 24 members.

What These Four Sites Reveal: A Practical Breakdown

Looking at four sites at once in the same monthly review is useful because it creates comparison points. Here is what the data across all four sites actually teaches:

Keyword research quality in year one determines Google traffic in year two. Site 1 has nearly 100 posts and is not getting significant Google organic traffic. Site 2 has 30 to 40 posts and Google dominates. The difference traces back to how the first 30 articles were targeted. Competitive keywords chosen early created a hole that takes time to climb out of.
Your niche classification shapes Google’s trust timeline. If your site could be interpreted as covering health, finance, safety, or legal matters, Google applies a higher credibility bar before promoting it. Site 1 may fall into this category. Site 3 (local business content) and Site 4 do not, and both receive Google traffic without issue.
A fast, lightweight theme is not optional at 2,000 pageviews. Site 1’s bounce rate dropped dramatically after switching to Avocado. Sites 2 and 4 are still on X theme with bounce rates above 91 percent. The data points in one direction.
Post count is not the only thing driving traffic. Site 4 has fewer than 15 posts and pulled 424 pageviews in August. Site 3 has about 15 posts and pulled only 67. The difference is niche selection and how well each article matches actual search intent. More posts help, but only if each post is targeting a realistic keyword.
YouTube adds a compounding referral layer. Site 1’s YouTube channel sent 24 visitors to the blog in August. That is not a huge number yet, but it represents people who watched a video and then moved to the site to read more. At 40 subscribers and one video per week, the channel is early. The video-to-blog pipeline takes time to build, but it creates a traffic source that no algorithm change can fully remove.
Automation handles social distribution without manual effort. The Blog to Social plugin sends existing posts to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook on a rolling schedule for 25 weeks out. This keeps social traffic ticking without Alston having to think about it. Automating distribution is an advantage most new bloggers skip because they are too focused on content creation.

Honest Drawbacks

Running four sites at the same time spreads attention thin. Site 3 (learnkenosha.com) has barely 15 posts and Alston acknowledges he has not put much time into it. The local ad-selling model requires more than just publishing articles: it requires actually reaching out to businesses, building relationships, and creating a sales process. That is a different skill set from content creation, and it has not been developed yet.

Site 1 is also not earning anything from ads during this review period. The Google AdSense removal at the start of the month was necessary to complete the theme switch cleanly, but it means the site with the most traffic is generating zero direct ad revenue in August. The 2,000 pageview threshold that would justify pursuing higher-paying ad networks has been cleared, but the follow-through has not happened yet.

The Google gap on Site 1 is also a real concern. Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo are solid traffic sources, but Google is the dominant search engine. Traffic from Yahoo and Bing is valuable, but it is a fraction of what Google sends to a site of equivalent age that it trusts. Fixing the keyword research problem on the older posts is a long-term project, not a quick repair, and the YMYL classification issue is one that takes time and authority-building to work through.

Find Your X

Alston is running four different sites because he started early and experimented widely. But most people starting out do not need four sites. They need one well-chosen starting point. If you are not sure whether blogging, YouTube, local content, or a different online income path fits your skills and time, the fastest way to narrow it down is to answer a few direct questions about what you are good at and how much time you actually have. finder.platformproof.com runs through that process in about two minutes and gives you a specific recommendation instead of a list of possibilities.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Project 24 and how does it work?

Project 24 is a course created by Jim and Ricky of Income School. It teaches content marketing through blogging and YouTube. The core idea is to publish articles targeting low-competition search terms, build traffic over 24 months, and then monetize through ads and affiliate commissions. Since Alston joined in September 2018 they have added a free WordPress theme and a full YouTube course to the program.

Is 2,000 pageviews a month good for a year-old blog?

It depends heavily on the niche and how well the keyword research was done in the first few months. For a site that possibly falls into a YMYL category and where early keyword selection was too competitive, 2,014 pageviews after about a year is a reasonable result. Sites with better early keyword targeting can reach that threshold in 6 to 9 months. Alston notes that clearing 2,000 pageviews puts a site in range for higher-paying ad networks beyond Google AdSense.

Why is Google not the top traffic source for Site 1?

Alston identifies two likely reasons. The first is that his earliest 30 or so posts targeted keywords that were too competitive for a new site. Those articles have not earned strong rankings in Google. The second is that the niche may be classified as Your Money or Your Life content, meaning Google applies a stricter authority standard before ranking it prominently. Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo do not apply the same filters, which is why those engines send more traffic at this stage.

What is the Avocado theme and is it free?

The Avocado theme is a WordPress theme created by Income School and provided free to Project 24 members. It is designed for content-heavy blogs with a focus on fast load times and low bounce rates. Alston switched Site 1 from the paid X theme to Avocado mid-August 2019 and reported a dramatic improvement in bounce rate. The theme is available as part of the Project 24 membership.

How do you monetize a local website like learnkenosha.com?

The original plan for learnkenosha.com was to sell ad space directly to local businesses in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Because Kenosha sits between Milwaukee and Chicago, local businesses there sometimes face advertising costs that reflect the larger Chicago market. A locally-focused publisher who builds an audience of Kenosha readers can offer those businesses a more targeted, lower-cost alternative. Alston also considered creating a YouTube channel around local business interviews to drive traffic to the site.

Why does developed-country traffic matter for blog monetization?

Ad networks price their inventory based on the purchasing power of the audience. Visitors from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia generate significantly higher ad revenue per thousand pageviews than visitors from regions with lower average income. Affiliate programs also convert at different rates based on geography. When Alston sees his top traffic countries are US, UK, and Canada, that is a positive monetization signal regardless of which ad platform he ends up using.

Can you run four websites at the same time as a solo creator?

Yes, but the trade-off is depth on each site. Alston manages four sites, but Site 3 has only about 15 posts and has not received much attention. Site 4 also has fewer than 15 posts. Most of his active publishing is concentrated on Site 1. Running multiple sites makes sense if each one is in a distinct niche and you can batch your content creation, but it is harder to grow each site quickly when your attention is divided. Most people starting out should focus on one site until it reaches a traffic threshold that sustains itself with less active management.

What is the Blog to Social plugin and should you use it?

Blog to Social is a WordPress plugin that automatically distributes blog posts to social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. You can schedule posts to go out on a rolling basis, so your content continues to circulate on social channels weeks after it was originally published. Alston had it scheduled to continue for 25 weeks at the time of this review. It is a useful automation for bloggers who want consistent social presence without manually managing every post. Whether it is worth the cost depends on how active your social audience is in your niche.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “Project 24 Income School August 2019 Monthly Review on 4 Sites,” YouTube, August 2019
Income School, Project 24 course program (project24.com)
Income School, Avocado WordPress theme, provided free to Project 24 members
Blog to Social WordPress plugin, for automated social media distribution
Google Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, Your Money or Your Life classification