Parasite SEO on 6 host sites for 90 days — which ones still rank and which died

Same keyword set, same writer, six host platforms, 90 days. Three articles per host, 18 total. Tracked daily in one project so the data is comparable.

Still ranking top 10 at day 90
Host A (large news site, paid placement): 3/3 live, avg position 4.2
Host B (Medium-style publishing platform): 2/3 live, avg position 8.8
Host C (university subdomain, student blog): 3/3 live, avg position 6.1

Dead or deindexed
Host D (Q&A site): all three deindexed by day 21
Host E (free blogging platform): two removed by the platform, one left but position 40+
Host F (document-sharing site): indexed for 11 days, gone by day 14

What the survivors had in common

• Editorial review before publishing. Every host that let me publish instantly also deindexed me
• The page lived on a path that already had traffic, not a fresh author profile
• An internal link from somewhere on the host that was not my own page

Cost was $2,340 for placements plus $740 in content. Revenue over the 90 days was $4,180, so it paid, but the realistic read is that two of six hosts are worth anything and I burned $900 finding that out.

The editorial-review correlation is the useful finding here and it makes sense: if a human has to look at it, the page inherits trust from the section it sits in rather than from a throwaway profile.

Host C is the one I would be nervous about. University subdomains get cleaned up in waves, and when the sysadmin finds it you lose all three at once with no warning.

Agreed, and I am treating that one as rented. It is 40% of the revenue, which is exactly the wrong share for the least stable asset.

Were the articles AI-assisted? Asking because the hosts that deindexed you fastest are the ones with the most aggressive generated-content filters, and that would be a confound.

Mixed. Outlines and first drafts generated, then edited by a human for about 40 minutes per piece. I cannot rule out that being part of it.

Is $2,340 of placements a normal starting budget for this or am I reading it as more accessible than it is?

It is not a starting budget. If you have under $500 do not do parasite SEO, do a site. This only makes sense once you can afford to write off two thirds of a test.