Moving Day

Ever move?

Do you know that feeling of satisfaction that comes when you make that final trip up the stairs with a box of stuff? The joy, and that's not too strong a word, when you can exhale because everything is just so?

I guess it's like that with Web sites too.

I've had a book review site at homestead.com for a few years. I like to read books and write reviews -- I'm as surprised as the next person about what I write on a particular day when a review is done -- but there are other elements as well. First, I'm on some lists from publishers for review copies, and reading for free is always good. Second, I've got a connection to amazon.com, so that if anyone goes through the site and actually buys books, I get a commission. Third, thanks to the placement of Google ads, I get fees for clicks.

Homestead.com now charges $100 a year for personal Web sites, which allows the user to have as many Web sites as he or she would like. I put a few other Web sites up in an attempt to get more ad hits -- the history of the Buffalo Braves, pictures of places I've been on road trips, reunion sites, etc. I was getting a great many hits on the road trips site, and then Google decided for some reason not to list my pictures in their image listings. The number of hits per day dropped drastically, and so did the income.

So ... it was clearly time to move to blogspot.com, where this blog is located. It is free. I had started a Hockey Abstract site on blogspot, and that worked out well. The Buffalo Braves site was an easy one to move, as that only took a day. Check it out here.

Meanwhile, for the last several days I've been cutting and pasting the sports-related contents of the book review site and moving it to its new location. I even added photos of the covers of all the books, which brightens the presentation greatly. Meanwhile, I've moved the reviews of non-sports books to epinions.com; that site pays money directly for reviews based on the number of readers.

I'm not sure if I'll be moving the WEBR, Daily Orange and Road Trips! sites or if I'll just let them die. But I am looking forward to saving $100 per year. There's a recession on, you know.