This is Mark's original review of Micro Site Profits, a course by Jason Van Orden and Jeremy Frandsen of Internet Business Mastery. Launched in September 2012, the course taught beginners how to build small niche websites that earn passive income through Google AdSense. Mark was a charter member of the Internet Business Mastery Academy and reviewed this course as an affiliate.

What Micro Site Profits Taught

The premise was straightforward: build small websites focused on specific niches, drive free traffic from Google through SEO, and monetize with AdSense advertising. The course promised a low-maintenance path to online income that worked even with Google's algorithm changes at the time.

The program included seven training modules covering niche discovery and keyword targeting, content creation strategies for non-writers, launching a site in under an hour, traffic generation through SEO, AdSense monetization, scaling by building more sites, and a bonus module on growing successful micro-sites into authority sites.

The course also included an action guide with checklists, private Facebook mastermind groups, and expert interviews. Mark noted that the Facebook community was very active with members supporting each other.

Mark's Perspective at the Time

Mark was personally excited about the course because he knew Jason and Jeremy from being a charter Internet Business Mastery Academy member. He positioned Micro Site Profits as filling a gap between full authority sites and lighter-weight affiliate sites. The course was designed to remove common obstacles for beginners: you did not need to be an expert, create your own product, or build a massive content site.

What's Changed Since This Review

Mark published this review in February 2013. Micro Site Profits is no longer available for purchase. The micro niche AdSense site model the course taught has been largely invalidated by subsequent Google algorithm updates.

Google's Panda, Penguin, and Helpful Content Updates systematically targeted thin niche sites. The strategy of building many small sites with minimal content optimized primarily for AdSense revenue is exactly the type of content Google has worked to remove from search results. Sites need substantial, original, expert-level content to rank in 2026.

AdSense revenue has declined for small publishers. Ad rates have been squeezed by programmatic advertising competition, and Google has raised its quality thresholds for AdSense approval. Premium ad networks like Mediavine and Raptive (formerly AdThrive) now offer better rates but require minimum traffic levels that micro-sites rarely achieve.

The Internet Business Mastery podcast and community have evolved. Jason and Jeremy have moved on to other projects. The original Internet Business Mastery brand is no longer actively producing new content.

The underlying principle of starting small and validating before scaling remains sound. Modern equivalents focus on building one quality site with depth of content, establishing topical authority, and diversifying monetization beyond a single ad network. The “start to profit” philosophy that Mark valued in this course is timeless even though the specific micro-site execution no longer works.