Site news: Check out the new and improved Blog Peoria (and buy an ad)
I won’t have much time to blog today, so now is as good a time to mention some changes to The Blog Peoria Network.
For those who don’t know and haven’t been paying attention to URLs, the Peoria Pundit blog is part of an overall site called The Blog Peoria Network, of which I am owner and Webmaster. Many other blogs operate out of this site. A list is on the front page.
NOTE: If you haven’t visited the front page recently, you really ought to do so. It’s been redesigned, and I’ve created pages that explain and promote the site and describe the plugins, themes and other features offered here. If you are a reader of this and other blogs (and live in the Peoria area) and have ever thought to yourself: “Hey, I ought to blog about that,” then this new page will convince you to blog here.
The server issues that have occasionally knocked this site out of commission has been pretty much resolved. The hosting company placed the account inside a “container” that keeps the heavy database issues from affecting other sites. It’s not quite a virtual private network, but it costs about the same as a VPS would, approximately $50 a month.
Unfortunately, I did get hit with a $98 initial charge which, came out of the the money donated to pay for a year’s worth of hosting here. I’ve got enough left, I think, for one more month.
So I’m going to be making use of all the free time I have recently to drum up some advertising. There’s been some success already, as you can tell from the spiffy new links at the top of the far right sidebar. They are an economical way to get your business or service mentioned here. Details for paid links and display ads are here.
I hear from one advertiser that their ad really brings in customers, so it’s something that Peoria businesses ought to consider.
Of course, I still accept donations.
And in an advertising-related note, I’m no longer requiring members blogs carry Google ads. Nor do member blogs have to carry a Site Meter or a list of links to other member blogs. Nothing is keeping members from adding that list manually, though.
If you happen to still be using a theme that includes these things, you can pick any other theme, or continue to use the one you are using. You should know that these themes are older and lack some functionality, like sidebar widgets that let you manually ad and remove content from the sidebar.
The only mandatory content left is the menu bar at the top of the page. That isn’t going away.
