Project 24 Income School Update: Real Traffic From 4 Sites (August 10-16)

Running four websites at the same time sounds like a management nightmare. But inside the Income School Project 24 community, building multiple content sites simultaneously is the actual strategy. This weekly update covers the August 10 through August 16 period across all four sites, with real traffic numbers, real bounce rates, and an honest breakdown of what is working and what is not yet working on each one.

If you are anywhere in your own Project 24 journey and wondering whether the methodology actually produces results outside of Jim and Ricky’s own channels, this walkthrough gives you a ground-level look at one creator’s portfolio at various stages of maturity, from a site with nearly 100 posts all the way down to a site with fewer than ten pieces of content that is somehow still pulling in organic traffic.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear picture of what traffic looks like on an Income School site at 11 months old with 97 posts
Why Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo traffic can actually validate your keyword research even when Google ignores you
How a theme switch from X Theme to the free Project 24 Acabado theme dramatically changed bounce rate
The surprising performance of a site with under 10 posts that averages 8 minutes and 21 seconds per session
Why a local listing site built to sell ad space to Kenosha businesses pivoted to a content-first blogging model
The real difference keyword research quality makes on Google rankings between Site 1 and Site 2
How to decide which niche site to focus on when your traffic is still early-stage across multiple projects
Find out which content type matches your existing skills fastest at finder.platformproof.com

What Project 24 Actually Is

Project 24 is an Income School course created by Jim and Ricky. It launched as a blogging course built around one specific belief: that you can replace your full-time income with passive income in 24 months by creating high-quality content and monetizing it through affiliate marketing, digital products, and ad revenue. The name is not a gimmick. It is a specific timeline with a specific outcome as the target.

The course gives members a 60-step framework to follow. You work through those steps in order, and the whole methodology centers on finding what Google actually wants, writing for real people, and then letting that content earn over time. Jim and Ricky have continued adding to the course since its launch. By the time of this update they had added a free WordPress theme, a YouTube mini-course, and a Pinterest mini-course. Members get all of it as part of the membership.

The free WordPress theme mentioned in this update is the Acabado theme that Jim and Ricky built specifically for Project 24 members. It is lightweight, fast, and optimized for the type of content sites the methodology produces. Critically, it can be installed on every site a member owns without license limits. If you have ten sites, you can use the theme on all ten.

Site One: The Flagship Site at 11 Months Old

The main site started on September 7, 2018. By the time of this August 2019 update, it had 97 published blog posts and around 30 to 35 YouTube videos, with 37 subscribers on the accompanying channel. For the week of August 10 through August 16, the site recorded 516 total pageviews and 273 unique views.

The average time on page was 27 seconds, which is on the lower end. The bounce rate was 17.62 percent, and the exit percent came in at 43.19 percent. The bounce rate number is the standout metric here. It dropped significantly after switching away from X Theme to the Project 24 Acabado theme. X Theme is feature-heavy, loads slowly, and tends to repel visitors quickly. The Acabado theme is lean, and the data shows the difference.

Where the traffic comes from tells the most interesting story for Site 1. The primary sources are Direct, Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo. Google is actually below YouTube in the traffic ranking for this site. That is unusual in the Project 24 world, where Google organic is the stated goal. The reason is that the keyword research on the first 30 posts was not dialed in the way the methodology later teaches. The posts are getting picked up by alternative search engines and direct traffic, but Google has not fully indexed and ranked them yet.

There is improvement happening. Before the update period, Google was sending roughly one or two visitors every few days or about one per week. During this period, it has climbed to about one visitor per day from Google. That is real growth. It is just slow growth, and it reflects the reality that Google takes time even when you are doing the right things. The top countries sending traffic are the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, which makes sense given the niche, which is considered somewhat of a luxury topic.

Site Two: The One Google Actually Likes

Site 2 is the second largest site in the portfolio. It started at the end of October 2018 and had around 35 to 40 total published blog posts at the time of this update. It also has about 10 YouTube videos and 7 YouTube subscribers. For the same August 10 through August 16 window, Site 2 recorded 91 pageviews and 91 unique views.

The average time on page is 2 minutes and 18 seconds. That is dramatically higher than Site 1’s 27 seconds. The bounce rate is 95.51 percent, and the exit percent is 91.75 percent. The high bounce rate here is partially attributed to X Theme still being installed on this site. The same theme problem that dragged Site 1’s bounce rate down before the theme switch is still present on Site 2.

But the traffic source breakdown is what makes Site 2 interesting. Google organic leads every other source by a significant margin. Google is followed by Direct, Facebook, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and then YouTube. This site’s keyword research was done more carefully than Site 1’s first 30 posts, and Google has responded by ranking the content. That is the cause-and-effect the Income School methodology is built around. Better keyword research means Google finds you earlier and sends you traffic that converts into real sessions.

The niche for Site 2 has more global reach than Site 1. Traffic comes from the United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, and India. A niche with international demand means more potential ceiling on traffic and ad revenue over time, which makes Site 2 a high-priority asset to continue developing even though it currently has fewer posts than Site 1.

Site Three: Under Ten Posts and Still Getting Organic Traffic

Site 3 is the smallest active site in the portfolio by post count. It has fewer than ten published blog posts, and no new content had been added in roughly three months before this update. Despite that level of neglect, the site recorded 83 pageviews and 76 unique views for the week.

The metric that jumps out immediately is the average time on page: 8 minutes and 21 seconds. That is a number that most content creators would love to see on their best-performing articles. It suggests the content is deeply aligned with what visitors are searching for. They are finding exactly what they came to find, and they are spending real time consuming it. The bounce rate was 89.47 percent and the exit percent was 91.57 percent.

The niche for Site 3 is described as very tightly focused. The narrower the topic, the less competition there is, which explains why Google is sending traffic to a site with fewer than ten posts. The traffic source breakdown shows Google organic search leading, followed by Direct, Bing, Facebook, Yahoo search. Google has 56 referring pages indexed from this site. Countries sending traffic are the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and India.

The lesson from Site 3 is a counterintuitive one. A hyper-specific niche, even with minimal content, can outperform a broader niche with far more posts when Google finds the content relevant. The average session duration of over eight minutes signals that the quality of what is written matters more than volume at this early stage.

Not sure which niche fits your skills and schedule?

Answer seven quick questions and get a personalized content path at finder.platformproof.com.

Site Four: LearnKenosha.com and the Local Ad Revenue Thesis

The fourth site in the portfolio is LearnKenosha.com, a local information site built around the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin. In the week covered by this update, it recorded 16 pageviews. That number has been declining steadily over prior weeks.

LearnKenosha.com started as something different than a content site. The original goal was to sell advertising space directly to local businesses and restaurants. The problem that inspired the idea was a real one: Kenosha is geographically between Chicago and Milwaukee, so local businesses get lumped into those major metro advertising markets. That means they pay Chicago or Milwaukee rates for ad space even though they are a mid-sized city on Lake Michigan. The theory was that a Kenosha-specific website could offer cheaper, more targeted ad space to those same businesses.

The site originally launched as a listing directory. Once the Project 24 methodology came into the picture, the approach shifted. People are not going to type LearnKenosha.com into a browser unless they already know it exists. Search traffic is the only scalable path to the audience the site needs before it can approach local businesses with a credible pitch. The strategy became: build blog posts first, get found in organic search, generate social proof through traffic numbers, and then approach restaurants and businesses with a real audience to show them.

The traffic breakdown for LearnKenosha.com shows Google organic leading, followed by Direct, Facebook, and Bing. Any traffic from outside the United States is treated as suspicious or spam for this site, which makes geographic sense. A local Kenosha site has no meaningful reason to attract visitors from outside the US. The declining pageview trend is a signal that content production needs to restart to keep search engines engaged.

The Real Numbers Breakdown Across All Four Sites

Looking at all four sites together for the week of August 10 through August 16 paints a useful picture of what a Project 24 portfolio looks like at various stages of development.

Site 1 (11 months old, 97 posts): 516 pageviews, 273 unique, 27-second average session, 17.62% bounce rate, traffic from Bing and Yahoo primarily
Site 2 (9 months old, 35-40 posts): 91 pageviews, 91 unique, 2 minutes 18 seconds average session, 95.51% bounce rate, Google organic leads traffic
Site 3 (age unknown, under 10 posts, no content in 3 months): 83 pageviews, 76 unique, 8 minutes 21 seconds average session, 89.47% bounce rate, Google indexes 56 pages
Site 4 (LearnKenosha.com, local listing site): 16 pageviews, traffic declining, Google organic leads, no meaningful non-US traffic

The total pageview count across all four sites for the week is roughly 706 pageviews. For a portfolio where the oldest site is 11 months old and the newest has fewer than 10 posts, that is a real-world baseline. It is not viral, but it is organic, compounding traffic from content that was written once and continues to earn visitors week after week.

What the Bounce Rate Numbers Actually Mean

Bounce rate gets misread constantly by new content creators. A 95 percent bounce rate on Site 2 sounds alarming until you understand what it measures. Bounce rate tracks the percentage of visitors who leave after viewing only one page. For informational content, a high bounce rate often means the visitor found exactly what they were looking for on that one page and left satisfied. It is not always a signal of failure.

Site 1’s bounce rate of 17.62 percent is unusually low. That means 82 percent of visitors are clicking through to a second page. That kind of internal engagement is typically a sign of strong internal linking and a site structure that encourages further reading. The Acabado theme switch gets credit here because the theme is designed to surface related content and reduce friction between pages.

Site 3’s 8-minute-plus average session duration is the most interesting metric in the entire portfolio for this week. It suggests the content on that site is genuinely useful to a narrow audience that has nowhere else to find the same depth of information. That is exactly the scenario the Project 24 methodology tries to engineer: low competition, high specificity, genuine usefulness.

Honest Drawbacks of Running Four Sites at Once

Managing four sites simultaneously means that content production on each individual site is slower than it would be with full focus on one. Site 2 had not received new content in months at the time of this update. Site 3 also went three months without a new post. The declining traffic on LearnKenosha.com is directly related to that same content production gap.

Search engines, including Google, want to see active, updated sites. A site that publishes regularly signals freshness. A site that goes quiet for three months may start to lose whatever footing it has gained. For anyone considering a multi-site approach inside Project 24, the tradeoff is real: more sites means more potential income streams, but each site needs a minimum level of attention to keep moving forward.

The other drawback visible in this update is the keyword research gap on Site 1. Nearly 100 posts written without the refined keyword framework that later posts used means a significant chunk of content is not pulling Google traffic the way it should. Those posts can be updated or improved over time, but the initial effort does not fully translate to results when the foundational targeting was off.

None of these are reasons to avoid the multi-site strategy. They are factors to account for when planning how to distribute your writing time and attention across a portfolio.

A Step-by-Step Look at How This Portfolio Operates

Here is how the Project 24 multi-site workflow functions in practice based on this update:

Each site started with a 60-step Project 24 framework, beginning with the first 30 posts completed as quickly as possible
Site 1 completed its first 30 posts in 45 days, then paused until mid-January before resuming content production
After the initial 30 posts, the site was left to sit and get indexed before new content was added, which is a deliberate part of the methodology
Each site tracks traffic weekly in Google Analytics, with attention to source breakdown, time on page, and geographic distribution
Theme choices matter: X Theme is being phased out in favor of the Project 24 Acabado theme across all sites because the speed difference shows up directly in bounce rate data
YouTube channels accompany most sites in the portfolio, though the channel sizes are small (Site 1 has 37 subscribers, Site 2 has 7)
Weekly public updates create accountability and serve as a secondary content channel on YouTube itself

Find Your X

The hardest part of starting a content site is not the writing. It is knowing which topic to build around. The Project 24 methodology gives you the framework, but you still need the niche. If you have been stalling because you do not know what to build, the Platform Proof Finder walks you through a short set of questions and matches you to the content type and income path that fits your existing knowledge. Visit finder.platformproof.com to get your match.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Project 24 and how does it work?

Project 24 is an Income School membership created by Jim and Ricky that teaches a 60-step process for building content sites that generate passive income. The goal is to replace a full-time income with blog and YouTube earnings within 24 months. The methodology focuses on finding low-competition keywords, writing genuinely useful content, and monetizing through affiliate marketing, digital products, and display advertising.

How long does it take to get Google traffic with Project 24?

Based on the data in this update, Site 1 is 11 months old with 97 posts and is just beginning to see consistent daily traffic from Google. Google traffic timelines vary by niche competitiveness and keyword quality. Site 2, with better keyword research on its 35 to 40 posts, was already getting Google as its top traffic source within a similar timeframe. Better keyword targeting tends to accelerate the Google timeline.

Does Bing and Yahoo traffic mean anything for an Income School site?

Yes. Getting organic traffic from Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo before Google kicks in is a real signal. It means the content is indexed, the keyword targeting is directionally correct, and the site is earning traffic from real searches even if Google has not fully recognized it yet. This is common in the first year of a Project 24 site, and it validates that the approach is working even when Google results are slow.

Is the Project 24 Acabado theme really better than X Theme?

The data in this update suggests yes. Site 1 saw a significant drop in bounce rate after switching from X Theme to the Project 24 Acabado theme. X Theme is a feature-heavy theme that loads more slowly, which can cause visitors to leave before the page finishes loading. Acabado is purpose-built for content sites and prioritizes speed. It is also free for all Project 24 members and has no limit on how many sites you can install it on.

Can a site with under 10 posts actually get organic search traffic?

Yes, and Site 3 in this portfolio is evidence. With fewer than ten blog posts and no new content added in three months, the site still earned 83 pageviews and 76 unique views for the week with an average session duration of over eight minutes. A highly specific niche with low competition can get indexed and ranked on Google with very little content if what is there is genuinely useful and targeted.

What is a realistic bounce rate for an informational content site?

It depends on the site structure and the type of content. A high bounce rate on a single-topic informational page often means the visitor found exactly what they needed and left satisfied. Site 2 in this portfolio has a 95.51 percent bounce rate but also a 2 minute and 18 second average session, which means people are engaged before they leave. Site 1’s 17.62 percent bounce rate is exceptionally low and reflects strong internal linking through the Acabado theme’s design.

Should you run multiple sites at once when building with Project 24?

The multi-site approach has real tradeoffs. Running four sites means content production on each is slower, and sites can go months without new posts. The benefit is diversification: one niche that underperforms does not kill the whole portfolio. The honest answer is that multiple sites work better once you have developed a writing routine and workflow that can support all of them. Starting with one site and adding a second after the first hits a stable content output is a safer approach for most people.

How do you monetize a local listing site like LearnKenosha.com?

The strategy described in this update is a content-first approach to local ad sales. The idea is to build organic search traffic through blog posts, use that traffic as social proof, and then approach local businesses directly to sell ad space at rates lower than the Chicago or Milwaukee metro market charges. The challenge is that organic search traffic takes time, and the site needs enough posts to get indexed before the pitch to local businesses becomes credible.

Sources

Project 24 by Income School (Jim and Ricky): original course and methodology
Google Analytics data as shared in the original YouTube video for the week of August 10-16
Income School Acabado WordPress theme: free for Project 24 members
LearnKenosha.com: Alston Godbolt’s local content and listing site for Kenosha, Wisconsin