July 2026: 3 Years Later... The Return

Welcome back! It's been 3 long years now since my last income report in August 2023, and 8 years since I quit my full-time job to build passive income businesses in 2018.

I want to sincerely apologize to my readers for such a long wait - to be honest, I was going through a difficult time with my business from 2023-2025, which required me to pursue other opportunities to make ends meet (more on this later in this post).

Now, I feel that I'm ready to restart the F is F blog, and provide regular updates with the transparency that my readers have come to expect from me. This year, I'm also planning to refresh the blog and publish more related content about my journey - stay tuned!

Derm Detective: Traffic Down, Revenue Recovering

First, let me provide an update on TheDermDetective.com, the skincare affiliate website that I started in 2018.

Here's an overview of the annual revenue from 2019 to 2026 (YTD):

As you can see, 2022-2023 were the best years, followed by a 77% decline in 2024 following the September 2023 Helpful Content Update.

This was followed by some recovery in 2025 to 46% of 2023 revenue and in 2026 to 68% of 2023 revenue (2026 is projected to exceed 2022/2023).

So what happened?

In short, the entire affiliate marketing industry experienced an existential collapse as Google sought to eliminate "low-value" affiliate sites through a series of Helpful Content Updates, that were eventually folded into its Core Updates.

TheDermDetective.com was no outlier, with traffic down in October 2023 by 48% vs. September 2023 and 67% vs. August 2023. Revenue declined in October 2023 by 49% vs. September 2023 and continued falling to a low of $175 in February 2024.

It wasn't just a "tough time" to be an affiliate. It was the equivalent of a pandemic "going out of business" time for affiliates.

So how did I respond?

To be honest, I didn't make any changes - I actually stopped working on the website in any meaningful capacity, only checking it periodically to update WordPress and plugins.

Why? Did I give up on the website? Well, not exactly.

Post-HCU, I was waiting for the usual suspects like Matt Diggity, Gael/Mark, and Kyle Roof to help the rest of us figure out how to recover our traffic.

Instead, there was just silence, with only a handful of case studies shared at SEO conferences, many of which involved 301/302 redirects to new domains, instead of recovering the existing domain's traffic.

As the months and years rolled on, people moved on - Authority Hacker closed down with The Affiliate Lab following soon after. Once thriving Facebook groups were abandoned, shut down, or slowly faded into irrelevance.

Affiliate SEOs also moved on - whether to new frontiers like AI Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), old frontiers like local SEO, or back into industries and agencies.

As for Derm Detective, it's seen a meaningful recovery in revenue but almost no recovery in organic traffic from Google.

And yet, the website continues to receive visitors from alternative search engines (DuckDuckGo, Bing, Yahoo) and generate income from Amazon Associates, returning to similar revenue levels as pre-HCU after November 2025.

Convert Better: A New Chapter

I, too, moved on in 2024 - starting an agency, Convert Better, to help brands use conversion rate optimization (CRO) and A/B testing to maximize revenue growth.

Convert Better was the direct result of years of experience, working on both my own and clients' websites, where I observed that relatively small changes to landing pages often led to substantial increases in conversions.

As traffic becomes more difficult and expensive to acquire, businesses are adapting by optimizing their sales funnels and user experiences, and I believe I can leverage my skills to assist with the transition from traffic-first to revenue-first SEO.

To date, I've had the privilege of working with over a dozen brands from around the world, helping them unlock new revenue opportunities through user-led design and experimentation.

I've also had the opportunity to present my work in front of hundreds of attendees at last year's Shenzhen SEO Conference and in September of this year, I'll be returning as both a sponsor and speaker.

Affiliate Marketing: The End, A New Beginning, Or Something In-Between?

Naturally, many of you are probably wondering, "is affiliate marketing dead now?"

Well, I think the answer mostly depends on your goals and risk tolerance.

Is affiliate marketing still the beginner-friendly passive income side hustle of c.2018-2023? A time when you could copy and paste a GeneratePress template, hire freelance writers to publish a few hundred articles, and generate $1,000+/month within a year?

Probably not.

If I had to guess, I'd say over 90% of traditional website affiliates have shut down, slowed down, or remain on life support, with popular courses like The Authority Hacker System (TASS) and The Affiliate Lab closing their doors forever.

In short, the competition has left town, leaving behind a legacy of abandoned websites, blogs, and aged domains.

But is affiliate marketing still a viable business model? A business that requires no staff, no inventory, minimal overhead costs, and can be scaled into a 6-figure or even 7-figure income?

For me, the answer is still absolutely.

In the last few years, affiliate marketing has blown up on social media, with TikTok leading the way and influencers cashing in on the growing popularity of video-based shopping.

This trend will no doubt continue, with brands and creators rushing in to reach audiences through TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

Yet, traditional search and websites are not yet extinct. While challenges abound, I think there are still opportunities to build high-quality affiliate websites that can grow and compound over time, and generate $1,000-5,000/month in revenue.

This year, I plan to launch another affiliate website in the skincare niche, applying design principles and CRO lessons from the last few years to create a conversion-first website.

The new website will run on the latest Oxygen Builder 6 with fast LiteSpeed caching and WordPress-optimized Quic.Cloud CDN.

I'm also building AI automation directly into this new project, so content creation only takes a few clicks, not a few hours.

I'm excited to bring this new project to life and will give an update as soon as it's ready!

Key Metrics (July 2026)

• Revenue: $1,750 (-38% MoM, +248% YoY)
• Sessions: 6,927 (-3% MoM)
• RPM: $253
• % of Revenue (Amazon): 90%

Last month, TheDermDetective.com earned $1,750, down 38% MoM from $2,819 in June 2026 (which benefited from higher commission rates from Creator Connections campaigns related to Amazon Prime Day).

This now marks 6 consecutive months of revenue exceeding $1,500 in 2026.

Traffic has been steadily growing this year from 5,000 sessions in January 2026 to ~7,000 sessions in July 2026.

Interestingly, organic traffic consisted of DuckDuckGo, Bing, and Yahoo - and no that's not a typo:

The standout, however, is profitability (RPM) which has gradually increased from $100 in 2021-2023 to $130 in 2024, then from $170 in 2025 to $250 in July 2026.

Overall, it was another strong month for TheDermDetective.com and I expect continued revenue growth this year.

Final Words

Thanks for sharing a moment with me, I plan to publish more income reports and related content soon - stay tuned!

To Flexibility and Freedom,

Tom