Well, that’s it. I’ve had enough.
Reliability matters more to me than $$$.
A loyal reader sent me an email wondering if I was OK, because this site had disappeared.
That was news to me, so I checked my site and it was accessible to me.
Then I tried a web host checker and it said my site was unreachable.
Looking at my traffic statistics, the # of page views had dropped to pretty much zero for the past couple of days.
After digging around for a bit, I decided the issue was something in the setup with Ezoic, the company serving ads here.
I disconnected it, and over the course of a few hours, the traffic came back.
Problem solved.
You might remember that this site was delisted by Google back in March… because of the same ad serving setup.
I’ve had enough of messing around with this. I appreciate the revenue that the ads brought – about a thousand $ last year – but it’s not worth this kind of hassle to me.
Moving on…
Two words, Steve. Thank you!
I got into blogging after reading a magazine article that said oe could make LOTS of money at it. This was about 15 years ago when blogging was HOT before the plethora of social media we now have access to. And I realized to my chagrin that one had to have HUGE numbers of viewers and clicks to make $$$. The fact that you were able to make $1,000 in a year is impressive. However…
I’m one of the people that was reluctant to see ads. Youtube has gotten pretty bad, even Amazon tv where I have to pay them to stop showing me ads. It’s a very competitive marketplace and I realize the key is monetizing one’s product but…
Somewhat weirdly, I can remember my first experience with ads came with my first blog posts in which I was asking, “Why am I blogging, why am I doing this?” and I started getting ads tailored to me suggesting mental health alternatives. This was also 15 years ago before mental health was a topic of much discussion. So it kind of jarred me and I said never again.
Ads or no ads, keep up the great work!
And again, thank you!
Eric
Hi Steve!
Glad the site is back! You aren’t the only one affected by these problems. For example, I’ve been unable to price flights on airline websites because the page stalls trying to load resources from ad servers.
Thanks for keeping the site going – I check it every day and always enjoy your posts. All the best!
Jeff
Hi, Steve-
Thanks for your blog – I do enjoy reading it. Ads can certainly be annoying, but they do help to pay the bills.
I never saw any ads on your blog, probably because I use Pi-hole. It’s a clever program running on a Raspberry Pi here in my home, which prevents most ads from even being downloaded to my browser, much less displayed.
Keep up the good work!
Peter
Building on Eric’s comment, I’m thrilled the ad traffic works. Getting compensation to the people doing the work is a challenge in this age. I love reading your work and see the effort you invest into creating this space.
I remember my “dam bursts” when I started paying WordPress to stop running ads on my site. In my case their ads were just weird and it felt, literally and figuratively, like a small price to pay to not have to suffer their “gut health solutions”.m (LOL).
-Chris
It was nice that you were able to generate some cash but I agree that usually the hassle is not worth it in the long run. Glad your site is still around, I check it often. I never saw any adds though. Your train shots from “ out west “ are so different from the shots I take aroung Montreal, the difference is incredible ! Thanks for sharing.