I changed my blog’s name (and corresponding URL) around september 2012, because I had come up with a half-decent alias to use globally (on Twitter, this blog, handles in games, on forums, etc…). pleinolijf is an anagram of my real name, and it’s a word that ‘could’ exist in my native language, as in it’s linguistically correct; it’s a concatenation of two existing words.
Anyway, I wanted to change as many logins and usernames as possible so as to have a uniform, global name to use with online services, including my WordPress blog.
I only noticed this a few days back, as I haven’t been very actively blogging since the beginning of 2009. Up until then, my blog was averaging about 2,000 visitors a day, even when quasi no new content had been added over the three-year timespan from then up until now. When I checked my stats again after cobwebs had gathered over them, I noticed a huge drop in visitors all of a sudden. The drop occurred mid-way September 2012, which is around the time I changed the blog’s name (and URL) I think. I obviously hadn’t thought it through, because the change of address meant that all the links that pointed to posts of mine now effectively went nowhere. So my posts before Sept. 2012 were no longer getting any hits. The average visit count for my blog in total was one a day. ONE.
Oops.
Now, I could change the address back to the former, but since I don’t generate any money with my blog, I honestly can’t be bothered. To me, it’s important that my user logins and urls are consistent (with the new pseudonym I created).
The good news however, is that I am inclined to create new content and use my blog again to do this. I think the drop of activity had come from the popularity of Facebook over the years. Especially for short posts (sharing a clip on YouTube, posting a link to interesting stuff, …), social media are a better platform. It’s just that I notice I am slowly but surely beginning to be more inclined to really create content, instead of only sharing links.
The latter is ideal for Facebook and Twitter, but the former is what blogs were made for. I hope this feeling persists and that new posts with proper content created by me will start (and keep) appearing here, and with that, the visitor counter going back up.
Room of a pleinolijf 