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April 25, 2013

URL Change

A few hours ago I purchased the domain "topoftexasgazette.com". Blogger will redirect to it, but if you want, you can change your bookmarks to the dot com URL.  I'm not for sure if the few reader feeds this blog has will change.

I'm going ahead with the Blogger platform because it's user-friendly (read: simple for a doofus like me) and I didn't want to pay for hosting.  I might change that in the future, but will stick with Blogger for the time being.

Some other things have changed;  the Feedjit feed quit working, even though I changed the URL after I signed into my Feedjit account.  I put in a new module, but for some reason the colors and width of the module didn't come out the way I wanted, so I will "work" on that sometime soon.  It's an interesting feature, but not necessary.

Also, the ToTG Trivia scoreboard module quit working, but it wasn't working earlier before the URL change.  I will also see if I can fix that, but if not, I will just create a link in the right-hand nav-bar for those who like to play the quiz that way.  Until then, the URL is ToTG Trivia Tournament

Other than that, I don't see many other changes.  I'm thinking of using AdSense, but OTOH, I doubt I'd see much money from it, seeing as how there's only a few dozen unique hits each day and probably isn't worth the hassle.  We'll see...I might try it for a while.  The domain cost only ten bucks, so it's not as though I have anything other than time tied up in this site. 

I've read articles about making money with a blog, but I also have read that people who make a profit off their blogs are few and far between.  I follow some food blogs/sites in my reader and one woman said she had just started turning a profit after 6+ years of blogging.  She hinted at the time she had spent and I did some quick calculations and figured she was making about a dollar an hour.  My time isn't worth much, but it's worth more than that. (one of the reasons I follow her blog in my reader instead of bookmarking it and visiting it daily is because of the multiple and obtrusive ads she has on her pages.)

The URL is longer than I wanted, but someone already had purchased "totg.com".  It's not being used, but is for sale for $8875.

Yeah, sure.  I'll get that out of my piggy bank.

7 comments:

Barb said...

Wonder how they came up with that price tag?

Hope you still find blogging fun. I don't think I'd have the dedication to do it.

Mike said...

I don't know, Barb. I thought it an odd amt., too. I'd have to make that amount in a few months for it to be worth it to me.

I still enjoy this blog; I like to catch up on the headlines and other stuff in the modules I have. I should do more with it, at least make more of an effort than posting videos and quizzes, but I enjoy them and it's not like I have to satisfy a hundred loyal readers.

If I have any "regrets", it's sort of getting away from Panhandle-centric type posts. I should change the description, but....I also should get out and take more photos, but there's not a lot to take photos OF around here, think I've covered most of the "sights" around this area. Not quite as enthused about it as I used to be. I keep forgetting the car shows, too, will try to make them when they crank back up this summer.

I also didn't feel very good for a while, had kidney stone problems and it hurt to sit down. THAT problem is gone for the time being, so...

Say, maybe I should take a photo of the stone and make a post!

Thanks for stopping by, appreciate you and the others that do. xxx

Barb said...

I think a post of your sisters feet would get more hits than a post of your kidney stone

The Local Malcontent said...

Congratulations, Mike. You've done something which I've wanted to do (and will someday), but my domain name of my blog.
I hope that you are very satisfied, and also that you make some $$ with it too.
I'll go right now and change my reader feed over, and if there's any problems, get back to ya for assistance.
Way to go~!

The Local Malcontent said...

"but" equals "buy" above.. dangit.

Mike said...

I was reading a post about websites, Mal, and they pointed out Blogger had a feature to purchase the domain through them/Google Wallet. They said if you went through them (forget the name of the site, sorry, I can go look at the past post if you're interested) you could save 33% or something like that. I paid ten bucks, so it wasn't as though I would have saved a lot so I didn't try any harder to get the discount.

I've got a long-time Internet friend from N.Carolina who purchased his own domain and built a website. I believe he had thought about doing some business w/ his photo restoration, but he got married a year or so ago and don't think he does much with it, at least I haven't had any posts hit my reader lately. It's garazon.com.

The hosting fees aren't all that much, they vary of course, but I believe I've seen it as cheap as something like 79 bucks/yr. or 7-8 per month.

So, a hundred dollars a year, more or less doesn't seem too bad, there are a lot of other hobbies that cost much more than that. Still, if I was paying that or more I'd want to monetize however I could. That said, it would have to be a unique site to make any significant amt. of money off it and as they say, there's nothing new under the sun and finding a unique niche on the 'net could be daunting.

Then too, there's security. I believe my pal Garazon got his site hacked a year or so ago.

I purchased the domain on a momentary whim. I was perfectly satisfied w/ using Blogger as it is, but I thought I'd just give it a whirl, see if it would be worth going the extra step to having a "real" website. It's really just a way to fulfill my need for social interaction on my own terms. I don't like Twitter and am starting to despise Facebook and wouldn't even do that except for a few of my friends and younger kinfolk. I don't like G+, at least I haven't really tried it but don't like the looks of it. If it were not for all the glitches and stupid "upgrades", I would miss MSN Groups. I did a half dozen of similar things like that until I found them, enjoyed them for six/seven years until they did away with them.

sharintexas said...

Okay Barb. No more sisters feet hits would suit me just fine!