IN 2007, THE AVERAGE number of visitors to the pages of InsideView have decreased from 1005 per day to 1003 per day (measured since 2003) while the number of syndicated visitors to the blog have increased from below 630 to above 740 on most days. Although there are several reasons for this occurrence (e.g., my blogging has decreased markedly and I've unfinished tasks related to changing the URL of the blog), some of the readers who might have arrived here in search of information about technical fixes now go to more prominent locations featuring the same content. That is, the potential viewers are finding my content in other places. This is not an unusual occurrence because once a mainstream article runs on some gadget, the copycats follow. If I offer a deeper explanation to a gadget reviewed by a glossy magazine, I expect my explanation to be lifted and reused somewhere else. It comes with the territory, although it's not very ethical.
I have set up a response to this copycat posting by going even further upstream than the copycats. It's easily done through the purchase of a redirected vanity name. So when I spotted my comments about Ryanair service reprinted in several places, I thought it was time to work out a domain name that captured the essence of the blog post. By using Ryanire.com as a redirect for people searching for Ryanair Complaints, I kept the blog post on the front page of a Google search. I've got vanity names that cover stun guns, mermaid sightings, toothing, and a host of other topics I've covered that have very little to do with technology but seem to attract a horde of interested people through these pages every day. I just wait for my content to be elevated to greater prominence when it's rebadged and then do the pointing.
At the end of the day, this little exercise is worth the $3 a year I spend on each of the throwaway names only if I arrest the downturn in daily visitors. It might be smarter to just post more items every day or to actually leave the Golden Vale more than once a fortnight and meet like-minded people who would return the favour by subscribing.
Damien Mulley -- "Ace Internet Marketing, how about not stealing my content?"
