Last night I bought a website, Iraqi Insurgency. Although I do dabble in political websites, I actually did not buy this site for political reasons. I bought it because I thought it had potential to make money. Even though it had only one link as noted by Yahoo, it was ranked 5th for its primary keyword on Google. The seller was making significant claims for revenue, but I was pretty sure they were somewhat inflated. The site itself was really just a shell, a map, about 100 words, a contact page, a link page, and that was it.
When I buy a website, it is usually not in great shape. It is kind of like buying a fixer-upper on the Real Estate market. I get it with the idea that it has potential and with a bit of work it can add just a smidgeon to the bottom line.
The problem with this site is that it has a big potential to alienate some readers. I generally try to avoid doing that. I nearly bought a site on magnetic homeopathy a few weeks ago. Had I gotten the site, my plan was to rewrite the site as a kind of point-counterpoint, presenting the evidence for an against. I think it would have worked for that site. However, for this Iraqi Insurgency site, I decided at first to approach it from a strictly informational angle, to make all the adjectives politically neutral. I found this to be an impossibility. To use neutral words simply neutered the site (so to speak). To get to the nub of the truth, a certain amount of judgementalism must be injected into the articles.
Currently, I have only peeled off a couple of paragraphs and thrown them online. I am in the middle of writing a book on the History of Modern Europe, so this new project is going to have to wait. The plan is five or six pages describing the history and ramifications of the Iraqi Insurgency. I will draw a couple of maps and maybe a few sketches of the main participants. Hopefully, it will become a valuable resource on the insurgency.
