One of the hardest things about web publishing is dealing with the highs and the lows. We get a lot of feedback on our work if we put our email address at the bottom of the page, or allow comments. It is amazing how many of these are negative. Most of the negative posts are by mindless ninnies whose drivel makes no sense. I learned to ignore these long ago. The negative notes that bother me are the ones that make me question if what I am doing is worthwhile.
I recently had a note telling me that this person would be unable to recommend my website, InDepthInfo, in any way because it is an encyclopedia site, and he does not like such sites stating “it’s a bit too commercial for my audience, with too many ads and too little content of consequence”. I admit the commercial aspect. The problem is that without ads, I cannot continue. I tried to make a go with minimal ads and donations. (You may imagine how that worked out.) When I added adsense, I started to make enough to pay the bills. Actually, I am rather proud of the fact that I can make a living (albeit a bare one) from my writing. I think I have shown restraint as well, not stooping to link advertising within the content. All of the links in content have a direct relationship to other pages that bear on the topic at hand and add to the knowledge of the person using the link.
As for too little content of consequence? This comment burns me up somewhat as I make every effort to be as complete as possible in my research and relating information. My webpages on the Gulf War or on the Band of Brothers or The Battle of Salamis contain as much info on their subjects as books I have read. With research and writing most webpages take me as long as 8 hours to write and post.
Well, I am sounding a bit defensive here. However, it does bring up a good point. Am I losing readership of my writing and perhaps credibility as well by making these webpages a part of a large encyclopedic web site? The truth is most of the pages listed above do get a fair amount of traffic. However, they are some of my older sites that have been linked to in the past in a very comprehensive manner by people interested in subject of the pages. Today it is harder than ever to get recognition for information presented in an encyclopedic manner. This is partly because of the elitist attitude of some. It is also because of the way that search engines and directories publish results.
Yet the format does have its advantages. I like interlinking my webpages because I don’t have to duplicate effort when working on various projects which require background information that can be supplied by an article I have previously written. Interlinking your own websites is harder to do with a plethora of domains because Google frowns on such practices. Also it costs a bit more money, about $10.00 per site per year for each website to host them all on separate domains.
Carrying many domains seems to be a common practice now. I have shied somewhat away from that although I do have a few other domains. What to do? I have been told by paid experts that I should concentrate everything I have on one website. I have also been told not to put all my eggs in one basket and simply spew off domain after domain. What will I do? Not sure yet, but I do know that I will continue to work to create the most useful content that I can produce.
