As we traverse some of the most volatile and dangerous times in modern history – the traffic for this specific survival and preparedness website has fallen to a few visits per day. Thank you for stopping by!! The reasons for the traffic dropoff are many with the most obvious being I simply do not put out content that people are interested in. That’s certainly a possibility. Other potential reasons include Google’s shadowbanning and the like, suppressing the type of content I put out due to their own agenda priorities. Yup – that is possible. It’s also possible that the technology used within this website structure and “build” creates issues for those wishing to access it. Many people use mobile devices to browse the web and this site may not be very “friendly” to the algorithms that decide where to rank it for those trying to find information on survival/preparedness.
So – what’s next? The main purpose I have a web presence and put forth the effort is to reach like-minded folks. I truly enjoy it. If – and it’s a big IF the structure of the website and/or the site itself is being blacklisted I could possibly change some things in the backend to alleviate or improve the situation. Basically – a major overhaul.
Another option is to change and adapt to trends within the preparedness genre. While preparedness has grown in popularity how people view preparedness has changed. Rather than seeking content on “survival” and “preparedness” folks are often going in the direction of “homesteading.”
Another distinct reality is that this form of media is just not as popular as it once was. Video and multimedia has taken over and blogs are going the way of the simple book. Sad – but true.
You tell me. What interests you? What do you want? What changes would you like to see?
I’d appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment and give me your thoughts.
Take care all –
Rourke
With the pending changes in “the Administration” there may be some changes in “site self regulation”. So what may be a problem now, may not be in 3-4 months.
I am at a point in my life journey that I like to hear of people’s victories, the progress they are making toward self-sufficiency. I have more than enough “toys” (it has not stopped me from buying more though).
I actually prefer blogs (written content) but then I’m probably older than most of your audience.
Thanks JP. I’ve had some conversations with Kass(Maine Prepper Girl) and she has told me several times we should be documenting our work on the property, around the homestead, and the preparedness efforts we are making. She is much smarter than me and I should have been listening to her.
We’ll see.
I think there are so many channels, blogs, websites, and especially You Tubers all telling us about preparedness and homesteading, We get overwhelmed sometimes and need to take a break. Not for actual preparing, but from sensor overload. As everyone’s budgets get tighter and tighter, just the lists of products, equipment, etc, are out of reach for some of us. I own a couple of smaller wattage solar generators, and am inundated with the sheer numbers of them being pushed by other channels, most I can’t afford, that I start tuning them all out. Just My thoughts.
Thanks Vicki. Good points. I’ve recognized the same thing. Like others I get on YouTube and watch/listen to videos and sometimes visit preparedness websites. I’ve changed to openly watching probably 5-6 YouTube Channels and also unsubscribed to several due to their pushing certain products and having content that seemed to be unrealistic for common folk – like me. I’m right with you Vicki.
I’ve seen comments on some of the other YouTubers I follow that their viewers have dropped off significantly. I don’t know if something’s happening behind the scenes, people are being lulled into apathy or relaxation after the election, or Vicki’s right and there are just too many out there.
I’ve always liked your pages because you post a mix of everything. We get to see your “new” home, the grandson, how-to’s, and various survival items that you’ve personally used. I hope that doesn’t change.
For myself, I’m mostly interested in food storage and making do with the household goods I have at hand, but I enjoy reading all of your posts. There’s always something new to learn.
Rourke,
I have been following your blog for several decades and I love it. I had a blog myself once, however age and circumstance had me stop posting (mostly due to the data mining that was going on with the “freebie” blog sites) … Other trends I have noticed, past and present are: when a republican gets into the Presidential office, “preparedness” seems to wane, why is beyond me since no political party is really “by the people, for the people, of the people” and the world in general seems to spiraling towards self-destruction … homesteading seems to be going by the wayside as well, probably because it is labor intensive and I fear we humans have gotten too lazy and or developed a phobia of doing manual labor …
Not to mention that there are numerous other “crisis” that can cause us humans to feel like we are in an “end of the world as we know it” situation – which don’t even need to be global – a regional crisis could occur (look at North Carolina) … I remember the “great northeast blackouts” of 1965 and 2003 … and let us not forget The Carrington Event, which was the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history, peaking on September 1–2 1859 (during solar cycle 10). It was caused by a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun (nature’s version of our human created Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) “bombs”). It created aurora displays that were reported around the world. It also damaged telegraph systems by causing sparking and even fires at telegraph stations. Thank goodness there wasn’t any electric grid and wireless technology then.
Being 70+, I have homesteaded in the past, lived in a city and “farmed my patio” and now I live in a semi-rural area with my daughter’s family, as I just am not capable to do all that I used to do … I also have tons of food allergies and have grown and or purchased organic since the 1970’s … I have to because I am just horribly allergic to all the herbicides, fungicides, pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, and also most of the “newfangled” food additives.
That said – I am old school: I prefer to limit my technology and store hard copy … your blog is one of the sites I have routinely printed your posts and filed in a 3-ring binder …
This is because I remember storms (earthbound and solar) that have caused outages and interfered with technology – I should know because I was an IT person from 1974-2012 … plus the more wireless the technology – the more places it can be interfered with and “break” it … better to have hard copy handy as a backup rather than “google searches” and internet videos …
We must all remember a generator will only last as long as you have fuel to feed it and if there is a widespread electrical outage the internet, cell phones, even satellite phones will most likely be non-existent in 3-5 days, not to mention any personal computing digital documents and the devices that let us read and or print them.
Anyway, I would focus on self-reliance and self-defense coupled with how to form a tight knit, sub-community of likeminded people where one lives. None of us can go it totally by ourselves in this world, so a good, solid small group of people with the same goal will make any crisis that comes our way easier to not just survive, but thrive through and beyond it. And it won’t matter if the crisis is local, regional, national or global …
As I stated earlier I have “farmed” my patio in a big urban city and was able to produce enough basic nutritional food to sustain myself in the case of some crisis. I had alternative cooking (again on the patio) if need be … I canned and dehydrated without electricity … At that time I was using a cast iron hibachi grill for all of this and I utilized my walk-in closet sized storage area for charcoal, candles and other such “necessity to life” things. I also had a good defense strategy and plan with my neighbors in case of riots and the like.
I hope you can get around the internet censorship and keep posting and may God continue to bless you and yours always,
TNT
Thanks so much TNTCrazyLady. Your mentioning printing pages and storing them reminded me of a simpler time when I used to get copies of a magazine called “SURVIVE.” I would go to my dads office with him on the weekends and I would copy different articles. I tried to make two copies and three-hole punch them. I placed them in two separate binders and gave one to my brother. Now I store tons of books, guides, and manuals on hard drives – with a select few pieces of information in binders. Agree on the hardcopy backup. I keep what I can.
Regardless of what I decide to do I’m not going anywhere. I’m just looking at what I can do to connect with more people and “spread the word.”
We shall see.
Thanks again for haring all of that.
Looking forward to your “Coming Struggle Series”. Whether hear or YouTube, I guess it does not really matter the medium. Looks interesting
Thanks 3rdMan.
Do the site for you, don’t try to tune it for a specific crowd or theme of what the current fad in preparedness is because that’s just being phony. Tell us about things you’ve done or are doing to become better prepared, tips that may help others, giving encouragement to keep going when I’m already seeing people stopping because Trump won and now everything is okay.
Lastly, Do it at your own pace.
I check out your site every day looking for new posts. Whatever you decide, I’ll still be stopping by daily.
Appreciate it Bruce!
I first encountered you when I purchased the Paladin books on a drive Then I subscribed I enjoy the emails I get but I rarely visit your site because I don’t purchase many things But I do value your presence and information If you were to disappear I would miss it but I’m not going to spend money simply to help keep you around Just being honest Best wishes!
Thanks Dave and appreciate the honesty. I’m not looking to charge for me to stay. I do have a membership area and have some that donate a bit each month to help support the efforts. I’m really just looking for ways to connect with more people and expand the audience. Thanks again.
I have been with you from the beginning I think… my emails go back to 2014 or 15 I think…maybe before a different name back to y2k. I’ll watch or read whatever you are putting out… I love the canning and homesteading ones even though I live in town and can’t “homestead”, but I still can up a storm!… I also love the survival videos and have ordered from your store several times. I love the prepping videos… and have been a prepper my whole long life… but can always learn something new as prepping is an ever-changing thing with new stuff coming out all the time… I also love watching the journey that you and MPG are on and watching it evolve. But I also see many getting complacent, because Pres. Trump won, and they are not so scared and think POTUS will fix it all… And I truly believe he is going to try his darndest to do just that, but our nation is so divided and has gone to hell in a hand basket…. but I believe there will be a lot of “bumps” in the road on the way to trying to get it “fixed”. But John … you do what you have to do for you and yours… we folks are just along for the ride and to learn along the way…. always Deb from SD
Thanks so much Debbie. I see the complacency already and so many seem to think the reasons to take logical and common sense steps towards preparedness suddenly disappeared on November 5th. We shall see. Regarding my own plans – I’ll mae a decision soon and will announce here in the pages of 1776. I’m not going to stop sharing my thoughts on survival and the world today.