Been planning this for a few months now. Call it what you will: a reset, a reboot, a change of direction, a new beginning. Whatever the case, it's long overdue. I'm not sure when I first noticed; probably began when I started to review the couple two-three thousand archive entries I'd posted since 2002 (as well as a similar number of comments). Couple that with some Google Analytics that showed I'm averaging almost 6,000 hits/month -- the vast majority of them coming via some search engine or another -- and I realized that I wasn't happy with a good chunk of the content I'd published. Oddly, the longer I've been doing this, the less I'm looking for a wider audience. I don't necessarily want PageRank. I don't want to be the number one search result for this that or the other arcane topic I happened to write about in the fall of 2003, maybe, some one off comment I'd made that now generates gobs of nearly useless traffic to deep archive pages.
This, along with a few other things in my life, has needed a good de-cluttering. So I deleted everything.
Check that. I copied everything to my local PC, and then deleted it from www.robertkbrown.com. Kept all the entries and comments in my original MovableType database, and have created this brand-spanking new one for future use. I'll maintain a personal record of this past five years of history -- both good and bad -- while Google's bots will eventually figure out that the trail of broken links I've just littered across their results pages no longer exist. Their cache, too, will eventually be cleared out. And the next couple of weeks before the end of summer, then, will allow me to put together a more focused plan for these pages.
It's a fresh start.
It's a good thing.
This, along with a few other things in my life, has needed a good de-cluttering. So I deleted everything.
Check that. I copied everything to my local PC, and then deleted it from www.robertkbrown.com. Kept all the entries and comments in my original MovableType database, and have created this brand-spanking new one for future use. I'll maintain a personal record of this past five years of history -- both good and bad -- while Google's bots will eventually figure out that the trail of broken links I've just littered across their results pages no longer exist. Their cache, too, will eventually be cleared out. And the next couple of weeks before the end of summer, then, will allow me to put together a more focused plan for these pages. It's a fresh start.
It's a good thing.
I deleted one of my old personal blogs a few years ago, and damn it felt goood.
Gulp. I miss it. It feels very strange to come to this page and have all the old stuff missing: Pix of kids earning belts, Cancun vacations, grilling, leukemia memories, Orcas Island, political comments about that f'ing cowboy and many more -- all gone.
You have every right to do what you will with your content of course, but it feels like a pin-sized black hole opened up in my universe and swallowed a tiny bit of it.
Thanks for all the good writing over the years.
Tim. Thanks for commenting -- I'm still wrangling with templates, and didn't notice your comment until just this morning. I very much appreciate your kind words, and I share much of your sentiment.
Truth be told, many of those photos, anecdotes, and family stories are the reason behind the reset. An abundance of personal information isn't necessarily the best thing to have readily accessible through a quick and easy Google search. As we begin to educate the kids about being smart about being online, I want to set a good example for the kinds of information it's best to share with the world.
I'll figure out what these pages will represent in time. More writing, to be sure, and photos, and politics. Not planning on disappearing altogether.