The Fall and Rise of a Weblog: Prologue

My introduction into the weblogging world started with John Chow. I read an article showcasing John Chow in Entrepreneur Magazine (the February 2008 issue) and decided to start a weblog soon after. Film-Book dot Com was that blog. I started it in January 2008. I read his free eBook, which showcased steps to build a blog and earn revenue off of it. It had many useful tips, especially for someone new to the field like I was. Under domains was a suggestion for a hosting company called Bluefur.com. I looked at their website. I looked at the offerings and decided to go with their Manage Blogs service. Since I was new to blogging, I figured I needed all the help I could get. I automated my payments so that I would always be on time with them and services would never be interrupted. Everything went well for almost a year. When I needed help with a plug-in or was having some issue with Film-Book dot Com, I emailed them (submitted a ticket) and within a reasonable amount of time, the issue was ironed out for me or I was given instructions on how to do so. I had learned many things from January 2008 to November 30, 2008. I made many contacts through the medium, some of which I would even consider friends. I was about to celebrate my one year anniversary in January 2009 with over 400 posts. Film-Book dot Com was being spidered by 12-16 bots per day and it was getting lots of hits from Google. Film-Book dot Com had a Page Rank of 4, had over 658 modified images in 404 posts for people to enjoy, 78 (400-1700 word) Film Reviews, a fair amount of comments (in my opinion), and there were some cool links pointing to the site as well. I had put in countless hours modifying the php files of Film-Book dot Com, social networking, you name it. I poured everything I had learned and was learning about blogging into Film-Book dot Com. It was not the best or most high-tech film weblog on the Internet but it was mine. It was a one man operation, even though I sometimes said “we” or “our” in certain sections of the site. It was my baby. I had given birth to it and had established some good SEO with it. All of that ended on November 30, 2008.

Next week the second part of this series will be published.

In the mean time – a question for discussion:

• What sparked the birth of your weblog?

Please feel free to share that story below.

The remaining posts in The Fall and Rise of a Weblog series: The Situation, The Result, What was Lost, and What was Learned. 

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