This is the kind of thing that is a horror to a blogger who aspires to build some kind of following or audience. You work hard and beg, beg, beg people to link you and when you first start out many people oblige.
Based on this you imagine the growth will continue. It seems logical. You continue write quality content… the readers are there but what happens, or at least what happened to me, is I hit some kind of peak and then the people started taking the links down. (Saturn / Neptune, support eroding)
At first this was painful to witness. I asked people why they thought it was happening and the consensus seemed to be, I’d gotten too large. It’s as if people will help you get up but they won’t help you stay up?
I don’t know if this is right or not, I am just relaying my experience. I can tell you I hit a peak and then people started removing links.
When I started writing about the soldier, they REEEEEEEEEEEALLY started removing links. It was mind boggling in some ways, eye opening in others.
The fact people want to dissociate themselves from soldiers is obvious. Don’t want to be caught dead supporting anything or anyone military which gives me a crick in the neck because I am sure these same people don’t want to go out there and fight themselves. I sure as hell don’t! I think this is manifestation of the culture trying to stamp out / repress Mars but get this…
While my traffic is higher than it has ever been, the number of people who link here is down by 1/2 and well on it’s way to being down by 2/3! Tell me that isn’t shocking?
If you happen to be one of the few who still support me, I just want to thank you… and your balls. Because by God, they still read.
The way it’s going I am going to be the most popular blog no one links to on the entire internet. Too bad (for people like me) they don’t give out points for NOT pandering or I would be loaded for bear right now.
As it is, I risk extinction because if enough people remove links I will fall into google oblivion which would be quite a shame because the things the soldier and I are expert at become more important to know all the time.
But I think this is very interesting from a sociological standpoint and I can come up with several hypotheses.
For example, I doubt other astrology bloggers will have a different experience then I have over time, even if they pander all day long.
What do you make of this?
Well, Cassi, I appreciate that but I’d tell you the facts… how I really feel.
I will do whatever I can to keep this blog going, that much is obvious but if this blog is meant to go down, it will.
As I just wrote re: my daughter… sometimes no matter what you want the universe trumps your will.
I have a history of losses that would boggle most people’s minds. Anyone seen the Top 10 Sources of Astrology News lately? 😉 2 years of work – disappeared. Read me on xanga lately???
So anyway, when I see support eroding while I consistently do my best.. well lets just say I have seen the pattern before.
Oh yeah, and then there is my book. I have no idea why I even wrote it!
Hey! I was just leaving and saw this What the **.
LOL Giving up is not an option. Hmm let me help, give me some suggestions and maybe something can be done to turn this around. Any type of business always goes through those rolling ups…and downs. The thing is to ride it out. But NEVER,never , never give up! Geesh! I’d be glad to help in trying to promote your blog for you.
Okay I’m really leaving now…………
Hi Elsa,
Just reading this post. So what exactly does this mean?
“While my traffic is higher than it has ever been, the number of people who link here is down by 1/2 and well on it’s way to being down by 2/3! Tell me that isn’t shocking?”
People who have blogs are removing your site as a link? But, straight on connecting with you from a browser is up?
Elsa, Have you asked any of these people, [person to person], why they de-linked you?
Is it possible that, in some cases, it was not intentional, as in, some links just become dead of their own accord over time and they need to be fixed?
akasally – yes. They are hiding their association… don’t want to support me in public.
Do you have an icon or something people can use for a link?
Loonsounds, there are 100 of them, I don’t know who all. I really don’t have time or inclination to try to figure out who because it’s not important to me.
I can tell you I lost links in droves writing about the soldier… swearing (?) and especially during the election. People were so polarized, I imagine I was considered to be on the wrong side (by both sides) and so NUKE!
It doesn’t really matter. As long as I write a blog, it’s going to be whatever I want and if Saturn (the public) votes thumbs down, I will leave the stage. What I will not do is come up a facade or try to conceal my personality.
Er… as if I could.
falconbridge – kiddie star signs has one on her blog you can lift, thanks. 🙂
Also… to badger people about a link they removed seems in very poor taste… very bad manners. It’s like chasing someone down the walk as they are trying to leave your party, saying, “Hey! Why are you leaving?”
It puts them on the spot and I don’t care anyway as I don’t take hostages, LOL. 🙂
Hi, Elsa!
I don’t see a banner on top of your front page saying “IF YOU LIKE THIS BLOG PLEASE LINK IT”. It should be there, blunt and unapologetic. Quality content deserves strong promotion. You should also design unique and recognizable banners that people can put on their webpages if you haven’t done so already. Or, have them made for you.
BTW, I found your blog by googling “suicide astrology”. Came up with this nice video of you saying how you weren’t afraid to die and how you romanticize death. Good first impression. Made me bookmark you. How about you select 10-20 of your posts and make a “Best of” or a “Best of 2008” or “Best of 2009” list (or all three of them) and ALSO put it on your front page? First time visitors will appreciate those. Hook them with an immediate offering of your best work.
Cheers.
Have a link on my blog, but like Satori said, not many people going to my actual blog…most people read from their sub list. Have you set up a Facebook page? Trendy, but there are a lot of groups on there.
Hi Elsa! Is your book for sale somewhere?
OK, Elsa, maybe a questioning might not be, like, all that classy as you say, but I am not so sure that one notification of a link-dead link would be a badgering … and it might bring some percentage of them back [if it was a mistake to un-link you, which I think it may have been in some cases]. Sorry to be ignorant of blog and techno stuff if I am being, tho.
Now, as far as your talking about the soldier, you have been talking about him ever since I’ve been on the blog which goes back to Springish 08 I think. It doesn’t seem like you just suddenly started talking about him more than before, so I have to wonder … why do they choose now to go? But I guess maybe you are wondering the exact same thing.
XenoVega that’s a really good idea – top posts. I am severely limited what I can do though because I have no tech skills and the people who do that work for me are incredibly busy, unpaid and just built me a message board and the astrology community a “Astro Dispatch”. I just can’t tap them in these times… and keep my friends!
On the links, I do beg fairly consistently.
satori… this is to the best of my knowledge:
All links count. Links from higher trafficked sites (with a high google ranking) count more but I have no idea how much more.
See, here is the thing… the issue.
Right now I get quite a bit of traffic from search because I have a decent google ranking (4, it used to be 5). This is imperative because I piss people off all the time, don’t I?
I do! And while most of them come back… it’s very important new people find me so if lose the google ranking this blog will just die on it’s own simply because I will kill it with my personality, LOL.
In which case, who knows?
I really think the universe takes care of me. I am just going to continue to do my best and of course, maintain my integrity.
I got a man who will drive me to the salon to get my hair dyed blue when I am old. I don’t need much more than that.
This is a PUBLIC (Saturn) blog. The public can support it or not as they please. I think my rebel incorrigible voice is important but I could be wrong about that. I could also just be way ahead of my time. Henry was.
This writing is a legacy. My kid(s) will take it up.
I’m not doing as much blogging as I was when you started this website. I’ve always plugged you and as long as you’re here I will continue to point people in your direction.
I wonder how much is normal attrition. It seems normal to have people drop away and to need to gain new support as they do.
This bothered me so I had to do some research.
Every astrologer that I read on a regular basis has you linked either as Elsa Elsa, Astro Dispatch or both.
The only one that links other people but doesn’t have you linked, had a comment to the effect that those astrologers had linked this person’s blog, so they in turn where linking them.
Two blogs didn’t have links to anyone.
Now what this all means I don’t know for sure. But the people I like have you linked.
Tam, I just posted another blog about this… and those are some good people who still link me. I explained this in the next post..
Speaking of the book, i have often wondered why you haven’t posted snippets of your book on the blog. Have you explored rendering the book in PDF format and selling it as download file? Something else about search results, there has to be relevance between information on linked pages. In other words, having an astrology paged linked at fluid dynamics page is not going to help search results.
Thanks for this timely reminder: I erased my entire blog yesterday as I wanted to start fresh with my artwork. So my email and everything is there now. I haven’t put my link list back up, but I will soon. Right now everything is clean and empty and I’m starting at it in a stunned state until tomorrow.
(and of course with Mars in Aries opposed Pluto I highly enjoyed burning everything).
How odd…I don’t really blog anymore (and what I do write, no one reads), but I make it a point to link to posts of yours on my facebook. 🙂 I’d be shocked if many people clicked thru, but I figure it’s worth it. Everyone should be reading you, in my estimation.
I created a Facebook group linking people to the Elsa blog. Anyone here with Facebook, join and promote! Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=55756835094
i appreciate what you do Elsa, you’re not afraid to speak your mind about topics potentially considered taboo and challenge perspectives and that’s what makes you unique. i do link to you from my livejournal, but that’s a very small site lol.
wow- plethora of ideas here… a line of visuals
xeno- button for ‘linking’ right smack at the top. dan-a button for pdf teaser for book- with option to buy. button to connect to yr videos.
just ask the computer guys! make them alot of food to go… italian style. flagerantly bribe them.
you know over here in italy, they have a program at the end of the year with an astrologer and alot of stars (one representing each sign)and it is a couple of hours long…on the main channel- just incredible how mainstream it is- it would be like NBC, or something hosting a three hour astrology program- main themes- outer planet movements… just thought i would throw a random thought out there!
I find it hard to believe that other bloggers are deliberately dropping links due to their non-support for the military. Really? I think this is just way off! I’ve been reading this site on and off for probably a couple years now, and there are things that occasionally piss me off … but not once has it been because I hate soldiers and can’t stand your blog because you are dating a military man.
Besides, didn’t you have plenty of posts about the AMF guy or Special Forces guy over the past few years? This military theme is not new.
Others here have raised some valid alternative explanations for the drop-off. Another reason might be the ‘fights’ that break out here with some frequency, much more than on any other (astrology) blog I’ve read elsewhere; maybe that turned some people away. Who knows? Without feedback from some of the folks who have stopped linking, without evidence, it’s just speculation.
About the book: I agree with Dan. Why can’t you self-publish/publish online? (And why was it shelved in the first place?)
Laura, the AMF is the artist and SF guy is the soldier. I really have no idea… these are the things I speculate.
They are guesses but they are educated guesses. We’re talking about 100 links here so I doubt they all have the same angle.
It’s not really the point. The point is, if I lose my google ranking… if I wake up one day with ranking of 1 which is exactly what will happen if the links continue to disappear, it will be the end of this blog. And whether people don’t like the soldier… or they don’t like me or they don’t like the fights here is completely irrelevant.
Regarding the book if my blog goes down, I will probably pursue publishing it??? Right now I am doing this and I just don’t have any energy to put towards that end. I also might write a screen play which I threaten a lot.
You get the idea. If this blog as it is is not salable for whatever reason, I will try to make something that is. But at the moment I am trying to sustain this blog… I am just telling you it might not be possible.
When people pull out, withdraw their support things drop – it’s a law of nature. What some may not realize is if this blog goes down it will take others with it because the traffic strongly supports the traffic to other blogs. It will be like turning off their life support however – I am not a failing company requesting a bailout!
If I am meant to fail, I would like fail and just hope it comes quickly because these other things I have invested in to no end… Well it’s a lot of energy gonnnnnnnnnnne.
Thank you, midara. 🙂
And one more thing..
The conflicts on this blog are about 10% of what they were in 2005-6. Boy, HQ and I had ourselves a time dealing with THAT.
This blog represents almost 10 years of honing a skill. There is a depth of knowledge (and breadth)here that is real (Saturn) if not apparent (Neptune).
Elsa: Right now I get quite a bit of traffic from search because I have a decent google ranking (4, it used to be 5).
I hate to say it, but I think this a pretty normal experience… at some point in time Google changed it’s ranking formula and virtually all sites that were formerly solidly 5s and 6s (such as mine) are now 4s. It’s rare to see an independent astrology site with more than a four. At the same time… after all my efforts in getting higher placements with Google over the past couple of years… my search results appear to have just recently improved (somewhat).
As for links… I think they are undergoing a slow and tortured death… as many sites no longer feature links (for swapping links) to other likeminded sites… in the early days it used to be that one hand washed the other… nowadays everyone wants something for nothing… I’m often asked for links from folks that have no links to offer me…
I did discover during the political season, that during the one month that I featured a front page endorsement link for one of the candidates (his name rhymes with Coma), my report orders dropped to zilch.
Will join Facebook group and will be happy to link when I start my blog.
aml I know, I love Paolo Fox– I watch every year on RAI International 🙂
Thanks Miranda, for the FB group. I joined it. 🙂
Regarding links, Loon – links don’t really wear out or get messed up over time. If they’re coming down, it’s because people are taking them down.
There are many reasons people may link or unlink. But in mass, there are probably a couple dynamics in play – either the linker gets offended at something discussed here, or the linker worries their own audience will put off in some way. Either way, linking is a choice to publically associate yourself with someone else.
On the other linking questions, every link helps. Some things do help more. Links from sites with similar subject matter are weighted heavier. Links coming from highly traffic sites are weighted heavier. But yes, they do add up, and each one helps.
If anyone has questions about how to add a link, please do let me know and I’ll be more than happy to assist you.
Good luck, Elsa. I’m pulling for ya! 🙂
“If they’re coming down, it’s because people are taking them down. ”
Yes, and we’re talking about 100 links here but the queer thing is – the people still read!! So how offended are they really, hmm? That does not explain this in reality.
I am surprised no one locks onto the sociological angle here because this is much larger than me.
Hold on, I am lost here. Didn’t you say that Saturn Virgo was restricting people’s communication? That a lot of writers/bloggers aren’t blogging as often or even at all? I am wondering if you aren’t linked as much because they no longer have a place to link from to you?
Just wandering around here… 🙂
Well, your RSS *is* broken…
Broken where, Ivan? Works for me on the Dispatch, etc.
???
I have an alternate theory. My personal world came crashing down in October… My husband was fired for b.s. reasons four days after we got married. We’re in Michigan, where more than 10% of the workforce is unemployed. We have three kids between us (one mine, one his, one ours), and his ex-boss fought his unemployment claim. It’s STILL unresolved.
I reacted by drawing in. My own blogs decreased dramatically, contact with friends, net presence in general… Partially b/c I hate feeling like I’m leeching on someone else’s energy when I’ve got nothing to offer.
Maybe other people are doing the same thing. Maybe it’s a coincidence that the linkage dropped around the election, with the Soldier being a prominent blog feature. I’m a hardcore liberal after all, and his soldier-ness and that of his son doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
For right now, there’s been an upswing in my little world, so I’m back. If the shit hits the fan again, I might pull another hermit bit, because that’s just what I do. *shrug* So maybe other people are having similar situations and reactions… ?
Need a free tech-skilled astro believer? Run an ad on your site, what else 😀
Run ads in other places. Craigslist?
RSS is working fine on my iGoogle page.
What are the best ways to support the blog and help improve google rankings? I have benefited greatly from this blog over the years and am very happy to put some energy back into it to help sustain it. I think the facebook group is a great idea but what else specifically can we do? I’m asking Elsa and anyone else who has good technical suggestions.
Lupa as far as I know… you write original content and if people like it (link to it) this identifies it as quality to google which then assigns it a page rank that makes your content show up in search results.
If you lose page rank you cease to show up in search results which puts you is sort of a dead pool. I link to about 500 astrologers on the Dispatch, perhaps 30 of them link back to me. ::smiles:: People just don’t understand how this works, I guess. I am only able to refer them traffic due my page rank.
XenoVega, I appreciate your ideas and energy and I wish I could apply them but fact is, I would never ask someone to work for free and I have no money to run ads. I am paying off my daughter’s hospital bills and will be for a some time.
No, I really need the user to act here and thanks to everyone who has. 🙂
Also if you did put up a link, I won’t necessarily know it so if you can email me, I will ping technorati so it is found or you can do it yourself by going here:
stick the url of the page where the link is and this will ensure it is found. 🙂
Thanks
Huh, this page rank thing weirds me out. I was trying to search for “glittery hoo-ha” (it’s a joke term for “why a rogue romance hero would suddenly become monogamous), written up by an author…and my link to the dang thing on my links blog ages ago came up BEFORE that site. What the heck? That’s just not right priorities…
But anyhoo, back to the point: I don’t run a blogroll because I’d rather link to someone’s individual post when they had something particularly cool to say. Is that bad?
Jennifer, anything you do is appreciated but the straight facts as I understand them are this:
Page Rank is determined by number AND quality of links. Astrodispatch.com is ranked 4 so if you are linked there, that is a pretty good link.
A PAGE on astrodispatch.com such as this:
will likely have a lower page rank so the link is not a valuable.
But everything counts…
huh, well, my blog is old and dusty but i pinged it anyway. maybe that helps…. a little, at least.