Full Circle - How I Bought a Website I sold Two Years Ago

Approximately two years ago, I was divesting myself of my hosting business, and in a separate transaction I sold off .  I sold it for about what I paid for it. A few days ago, I bought it back from the person I had sold it to, back in 2003. I paid less than half of what it had originally sold. I’ve upgraded, and am refocusing the site. It was focused on being a technical support site, but since the osCommerce main site does that so well, there’s no need. There is a need, however, for a site focused on helping people who don’t need technical support, but would like to learn more about managing an ecommerce site. So, the focus will be on subjects like marketing, SEO, fullfillment, and other non-technical issues. The technical stuff is still there, just consolidated into a smaller area. Come over and say hi!

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just

I thought today would be a good day to throw out an Abe Lincoln quote. When he said “The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just” of course he was talking about the American Civil War. Even though our personal struggles pale in comparison to what Mr. Linoln faced, I think this bit of wisdom can be readily applied to our own lives on a daily basis. In fact, what better way to address this than in our own personal lives. How often do we take the easy route when we know the more difficult would be the right thing to do?

Nazis on the March

Well, I turned on NBC Evening News an hour or so ago, and saw a news story about how the Nazi Party was putting on a huge rally in Germany today. It said that the Nazi Party staged a walk out of the German Parliament last week when they had a moment of silence for the victims of Auschwitz. I didn’t even know the Nazi Party was represented in the German Parliament any more, let alone that the authorities would allow such a stand from them. This is from the same German government that had the audacity to critisize our government for invading Iraq? Granted, I agree about Iraq, we need to withdraw, the sooner, the better, but I don’t want to hear it from Germans when they can’t even keep the Nazi Party from making the international news.

Learned something new about Sitepoint today

No, it’s not new to hear someone complaining about popups. I’ve never noticed the middle-click autoscroll icon before, though. I think it’s very slick. It accomplishes nothing, but it’s slick nonetheless. Nothing I’d waste effort doing on my own sites, but, lol… very slick.

I take things too literal

I bought a broadband phone line from BroadVoice(as if I needed this sixth phone line, lol, reason I got it was because it charges a flat fee for calling to Europe so my wife can talk all she wants without worrying about running up the phone bill anymore), which came with a broadband router and phone adapter, and am laughing at myself for lacking even the slightest glimmer of creativity in setting it up. The instructions say set it up between the cable modem and the router, so being the good little guinea pig that I am, I followed instructions to a word. Well, the phone worked fine, but my router wouldn’t work through the phone adapter thingy. So, I got frustrated and contacted their support. So, their support person told me “you can always put the device behind a router if you need to.” Duh… how the heck did I miss such an obvious solution.

My Blog Forum

Well, I’ve finally gotten around to putting some more focus on my forums. Recently, I’ve started trying to further develop my Blog Forum. Started posting more, getting others to post, tinkering with the design a bit. I also reconfigured the sections to make more sense, consolidate a few areas that hadn’t seen a whole lot of action. I’d like feedback on it, and bloggers go and post!

Not #1 in Google for keyword “business”? Oh, you must have been banned!

Hey, did you notice that your website is not ranking number one at Google for your target keyword? I’m sure your site must be banned. It has to be banned, there’s no other logical reason for it. You go to Google, type in the word “business” or whatever other keyword you want, and your site’s not there? Well, the only logical explanation is that Larry Page and Sergey Brin must have hand written the cod themselves into Google to prevent your site from ranking.

Why is it that so many people on forums everywhere are complaining that they’re banned from Google because they don’t have the #1 ranking for [insert keyword here]?

Business

Google Image Search

I’ve noticed on a couple of my sites, Google Image Search taking up a lot of bandwidth. This helps explain it a bit. I’m not sure if it’s worth it at all. On one of my sites, they were pretty much just hotlinking my images, so I disabled hotlinking. The site wasn’t getting very good rankings in the search anyway, and still isn’t. If Google is going to take my bandwidth, I’d appreciate if they’d at least give me a good SERP in return.

*disclaimer: if any Google employees ever read this, I’m being sarcastic with that final remark, please don’t ban me.

Time to watch the Superbowl

I don’t expect an interesting game this year, but you’ve got to watch when it’s the home town team. Have a look at this Patriots fan site a friend set up. Go Pats!

Marcia Yudkin’s List of Marketing & PR Resources

I really like Marcia Yudkin’s list of marketing and public relations resources and thought it would be worthwhile to share this. Not to mention, bookmark it for myself.

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