Andistars and a Difficult week...

My difficult week had nothing to do with the website(s) except that it kept me away from my computer. Well, partly I was doing my taxes which was difficult but happy because I owe less than I had expected and do have a little spare cash because of that. I think I'll save most of it for a trip next month. :)

Other than adding graphics to many of the pop music pages and starting a new domain (andistars.com) not much has happened. I am testing the andifashion.com domain and it seems to still be in the sandbox (or doldrums) because the one page I moved lost all of its Google traffic, so I won't be moving any others until it recovers.

New Andi sites.

I purchased the andifashion.com domain last August and began it as a new site when andilinks.com was banned by Google. But the sandbox kicked in and when andilinks.com was reincluded by Google in September I moved all the fashion/apparel pages back to their original URLs and they once again recovered their traffic.

But now it's February and I'm thinking that I may try moving some pages to andifashion.com. I've also purchased a new domain for pop music and it's generic enough that I could expand it to celebrities in general. Mostly these are insurance against andilinks being banned by Google again, I'd be perfectly happy to have everything on one site.

Anyone who's followed my postings at WebmasterWorld, WebProWorld, or Matt Cutt's blog know how strongly I feel about this.

It will be another week before the Pop Music site is live, I'll still keep the current pages where they are and simply post informative articles at the new site until the sandbox period has passed. The apparel pages are doing so well with Google I'm afraid to move them all at once.

Trimming the fat

After running the MyBlogLog software for 45 days I have compiled a list of the 35 most popular links on the home page and I will begin re ordering the categories and links based on this list:

1 Drudge Report
2 Slashdot
3 Red Ferret
4 Google Search
5 digg
6 del.icio.us
7 TV Listings (excite)
8 Google Video of the Day
9 the ONION
10 180 degree News
11 Daypop
12 AlwaysOn
13 Bandwidth Meter
14 techdirt
15 SciTechDaily
16 Back in Pajamas
17 BetaNews
18 Wired
19 Progress report, this blog
20 O'Reilly Radar
21 CNN
22 Blog Networks
23 FOX
24 GoogleNews
25 GGuide Cheat Sheet
26 Newsbrew
27 Google Blogoscoped
28 Mondo Times
29 Topix.net
30 traceroute
31 Flickr
32 details (link checking)
33 Disposable Email Addys
34 MySpace
35 FeedMeLinks

These are not the ONLY links I will retain but this list will guide me in my choices. There will be more apparel and pop music links replacing the deleted items. I'd like to keep the file size down to about 40KB, it is currently pushing 46KB.

Slow but sure progress...

I've been going over the stats from MyBlogLog for the past 36 days and I can see that the home page is going to lose many links because they were clicked just a few times or not at all. I may keep a small number that were not clicked simply because I like them or because they anchor a category, but mostly this will be a "people's choice" winnowing... After these changes are made I will add the MyBlogLog stats to some other pages...

I am also redesigning the apparel database and there will be more clothing links on the home page. I'm not sure how long this will take or when the changes will be reflected on the site, but there is definite progress behind the scenes. The apparel section will be getting a LOT bigger and better.

Andilinks will become a directory mostly for people who wear and buy clothing, though I will also expand the pop music section somewhat as well. My point here is that apparel industry people may visit and use the site from time to time for their own purposes but this will not become another Apparel Search site.

New Home Page

As much fun as I've had compiling the current home page I'm afraid that it is not going to survive in its current form. It simply is not pulling its weight as compared to the rest of the site, especially considering that it competes for the position of most trafficked page.

Many have said it is ugly and many are frightened or put off by the clutter. But I find it very useful and well organized and many others do as well, so I will probably continue it at another URL, but it can no longer remain the default page.

I have made a lot of progress--though it's probably not immediately visible--with women's wear and pop music. That will continue to be the direction that Andilinks takes...

I may begin a fine art site, but it will be entirely separate from Andilinks.

Redesigning Andilinks

So it's time to do an overhaul, not just a facelift. I'd really like to add some snazzy new technology but just redoing the appearance is my main goal at the moment.

I will be converting the layout from tables to css and that will be taking some time since I plan to continue updating the site and adding new pages while doing the redesign. Though the "look" of the site should remain uniform I cannot change everything at once, I've got to consider how Google reacts to the new design. I have heard about and experienced problems with the indexing just because of design changes. So I'll begin with just one or two pages and see how that goes. I have always begun new designs on the home page and I'll continue that practice.

I'll probably try some experiments there but nothing so jarring that you won't recognize the place.

I would really like suggestions but I don't expect much, I seldom get comments of any kind from people who don't want a link or have something to sell. I do get a lot of traffic though, I must be doing something right.