Blogiversary Number Nine
Posted on January 16, 2023 by Aywren
Today marks the 9th year of this blog’s original launch. One more year until it is officially a decade old – but first, I must get through year nine.
Last year marked the year where I broke away from WordPress as a CMS and moved my blogging content to a pure HTML coded site. This gave me absolute control over my content, how I kept it backed up, and where I choose to host it.
No longer am I locked into using WordPress.com, which has been a freeing experience. I no longer have to worry about them changing the plan I’m using, cutting the amount of storage I have, or having them pull the plug on my site for whatever reason they might choose to do so.
Unlike last year’s post, which was full of statistics and talk of Word Ad monetization, I have nothing of the sort to bring to the table. That’s because my stats are completely borked (though I still keep them), and I hardly look at them all that much anymore. Certainly not as often as I did back when I was using WordPress and Jetpack packaged all my stats in a nice little graph.
I also no longer care about whether or not this blog makes any money. I mean, I didn’t actually care all that much before, but now I care even less. Moving away from WordPress to my own HTML sites has cut my cost of webhosting significantly, which was really all my WordAds were going towards recouping in the end.
I was paying $7 a month for my blog at WordPress.com plus another $12 a month for HostGator to host the rest of my sites. Now I pay for a premium account at Neocities, which is only $5 a month, and that covers hosting for ALL of my sites in one place.
I also have a secondary account with Teacake hosting where I pay $2 a month to have a separate PHP database for things like comment forms – or anything I really need to have a PHP application for. All in all, that’s far less than I was paying for web hosting.
It’s been an adventure, and I’m not done rebuilding this blog yet. I still have years of content to reorganize and recode so that it matches the existing site. This is something I really want to finish before this blog’s 10th year anniversary. I have a year to get that done!
Last year, I also decided to fold my Ukulele blog back into this one – I’d tried to make it into its own blog several times, and it just didn’t make any sense. So now, that’s all archived here again.
Moving back to an HTML environment, which was my originally entry to the net so long ago, has been a timely thing, especially with the move away from things like Twitter and Instagram to the Fediverse. I genuinely hope to see more people picking up the tools to host their own net applications, or using individual-hosted solutions. I’d love to see an age of people moving towards making personal websites again. Or, at least, see a resurgence of blogging once more.
These things happen in cycles, and nothing lasts forever. That’s why it is wise to control your own content. Keep your own backups. Self host if you’re able.
The Web was once a place of creativity and individual expression, and it can be again. This blog is my own statement of shaking off business-owned Web, and taking my content back into my hands.
While it takes more time and effort to bring content to the Net with my own hand-coded solution, I’m willing to do it. That’s the direction this blog is going, and I’m excited to see where it will lead over the next year.
Here’s to many more!