**Based on some feedback that I have received on this post, I am going to overhaul the Universe to give it a completely different look. This of course will depend on the time I have to redo the whole thing. In a nutshell there is a feeling that the Universe is not easy to navigate, and while I may feel differently, perhaps that is because I am seeing it through rose tinted glasses. Hopefully once I have reconfigured the site it might be more pleasing to everyone. If there is a general consensus that the Universe is a detriment to the amount of visitors that each site gets however, I have no problem with ending the project and I will turn the site into some other venture.**
So I have received a few emails regarding the update status of THE SPANKING UNIVERSE. In a nutshell, the Universe automatically updates based on how much traffic the site gets. Right now the Universe is only getting between 500-600 visitors a day and that is why it is slow to update. At least two times a day I manually update all links so that they refresh with the latest updates each blog has posted because quite frankly, it isn’t getting the traffic I had hoped for so far. Out of the 138 blogs that are listed, 112 of them only send on average between 0 and 3 visitors per day. Now when the Universe does automatically update it selects from the 26 blogs that DO send substantial traffic to the site before it updates the others. This blog alone for instance sends one in eight visitors that the Universe gets.
I will continue to plug away in building more links that the Universe gets coming in, and that will mean that I will probably be proactive in inviting other spanking blogs to join in. Of course I will also continue to manually update the Universe as much as I can so that everyone’s latest posts are showing in an adequate time-frame. Hopefully one day the site will get enough traffic to run automatically all the time.
You may have noticed as well that I have created a new site where I am featuring selected movies that are available to watch online. My personal belief is that online streaming will be the way of the future and I am getting on the ball now. In today’s update I feature a vintage spanking film featuring the one and only, Kiri Kelly, starring in an old movie called “Hitchhiker Spanked”. I will also add screencaps to each update though for today’s film I won’t be able to add the caps until I get home from work tonight. You can check out the new site by clicking on the link below, and as I have mentioned many times already, not only am I promoting the site but I have also been a paid member for 6 months now.
RICHARD WINDSOR’S SPANKING FILMS
And real quick to finish off here, on Pixie’s new picture archive she features a picture of her bottom after yours truly has spanked it, and the post is titled, Satin and Salad 🙂 Click the link below to see the pic.
SPANKING PIXIE’S PICTURE ARCHIVE
I know some of you wanted the rant, but to be honest with you I watched a movie instead last night. ’44” Chest’ starring one of my favorite actors, Ray Winstone.
Richard, perhaps it would help if the display formatting could be streamlined so it’s clearer what link goes with what. As it is now, the listing for each item seems rather split up.
Good of you to persevere though, with this.
And, as you say, more incoming links can’t help but lead to more traffic, that will in turn feed back to more traffic for the participating blogs — a kind of “virtuous circle”!
Karl,
I’m not sure I have noticed the problem to which you refer. On the Universe the name of the blog is listed, and right next to it is the title of the latest post. I allow a certain amount of text under each update so that blogs are separated.
Is anyone else unable to see which post belongs to which blog?
It is indeed hard to read, Richard.
The stylesheet should be updated for easier reading / navigation.
If you need help, drop me a line (as usual *g).
Cheers
Chross
Have to admit I am a little surprised to get this feedback. I honestly thought that the Universe was as easy as pie to read, the blog is listed and right next to it is the latest updated post.
Well no worries Chross, I can read and amend HTML code pretty well myself, so I will play around with it and see if I can’t make it even easier to read for you all. There is a limit on what I can do because it is a pre-written program, but I can manipulate a part of the code.
Prefectdt,
Maybe once I play around with the code you will see an improvement. If you wish for me to temporarily remove your blog until I update it with some changes I have no problem doing that.
I just checked my stats from the last 3 months on one of my sites compared to the same timeframe last year and indeed, the links I am getting from two of the sites you mentioned are both down 600 visitors over a 3 month period. The difference is though, the site (spankingpics) actually received 11,000 more visitors per month over the last 3 months (110,000) compared to the same time last year (69,000). So I’m not sure if the Universe had any effect on the reduction of links coming from those other sites. In fact the Universe sent double the amount of visitors I lost from those other sites.
I’m guessing your site is still linked to Bonnie’s and Tanherhide for people to see an update?
If other bloggers are having the same problem though then I will certainly consider removing the Universe altogether. Of course I have to keep the name as I paid for it, lol, but I can turn the Universe into a promotional hub if I have to and actually make some money off of it.
As long as I have the time when I get home tonight I will readjust the blog template. The program itself is a little harder to adjust though, but once I have read up on it then it shouldn’t be a problem to reconfigure.
I agree it’s hard to read. There should at least be a space between one blog and the next. At present, the space seems to be in the middle so it’s hard to determine which description goes with which blog.
A reader of mine told me that when he clicked on the title of my post, or [Link], he went directly to the comments box, not the post. Clicking on the name of my blog takes the reader to the blog okay. Is this something you can adjust?
I used to get a reasonable number of hits from SU, but since it underwent its Blogger attack and was recreated in its present form, I get far fewer. Chross is still my main source when I’m featured, and bookmarks (direct traffic) are my main source when I haven’t appeared on Chross for a while.
Hugs,
Hermione
“I’m guessing your site is still linked to Bonnie’s and Tanherhide for people to see an update?”
Yes it is but I suspect that many of the visitors that used to use these lists are now using The’ Universe instead. I doubt very much if they will go back to using the other sources because a blog is no longer listed on The’ Universe. So please do not remove my blog, unless you are offended by it or something like that.
Like I said, I have enough numbers to be able to take the hit to the stats, when The’ Universe does not list a post but imagine if you where a new blogger, with a few dozen readers, who suddenly sees a large chunk of your traffic disappear. This could be very disheartening, especially if you had not worked out why this was happening and might just presume that it is because people no longer like your blog.
The Spanking Universe is a great facility and I hope that the glitches can be worked out, please do not think that I am trying to criticize it. I am just trying to pass on information on what I am seeing from my end and theorizing on the effects in an effort to increase the information that you have about this situation.
Best ‘o’ luck with fettling the site, I hope that it all works out in the end.
Prefectdt
Hermione,
I will look to see what I can do. For now I have removed the {Link} at the bottom of each update. I only left that in there because some blogs such as Doonstar only ever post picture updates so there is no text to separate the blogs. In regards to posts being linked straight to the comments, I’m afraid that also happened with Bonnie and I haven’t been able to work out why yet. The two of you are the only ones that this currently happens to but I will try my best to change it.
Prefectdt,
No offense is taken, I will try my best to find a solution that is appropriate for everyone, and if I don’t succeed then I will scrap the plan as a bad idea and people can go back to finding their spanking links the way they did before I created the Universe. If the site is a detriment though to the traffic that blogs get, then that is really counterproductive to what my original plan was, and that was to get bloggers MORE traffic.
My experience so far with the newer blogs has been that they welcome the Universe, mostly because they have to go through hell or high water to get more than a dozen blogs to link back to them.
I’ve made a few edits to the output page, I just need to put a separator in now between each blog and hopefully it should be more pleasing to the eye. If need be I can also remove all text from underneath each update so that it only shows the name of the blog, the time it was updated and the title of the post.
Richard, the changes you made have improved the readability considerably. Great!
Some good feedback, hopefully this will help you Richard!
& a great taste in actors too…Ray Winstone (he gets offended if you pronounce his name Winston and not the correct “Win-Stone”)
If any Brit actor deserves a bigger break, it’s him. Proper “geezer!”
Watching “Nil by Mouth” still gives me the shivers!
Wow. Oddly enough, Prefectdt’s concerns could be a good explanation for why my own hits have been dropping steadily recently. I don’t have a link on the Universe, but I do have several links on sites that belong to the Universe, such as My Bottom Smarts and All Things Spanking mentioned above. I’ve watched hits from these blogs drop dramatically, and have been wracking my brains to figure out why. I had thought that maybe it was just a natural downswing in blog readership across the board.
Thomas,
Did you experience the same type of drops when you created your own Bloggers network? I would imagine that the drop is comparable if that is the reason that other blogs are no longer sending as much traffic your way.
When I left you a message asking if you wanted to be a part of the Universe I didn’t hear back so I didn’t push the issue, but I will tell you what, this week I am going to start adding lots more blogs to the Universe, regardless if they don’t care so much to return the link. At the very least you should benefit from the traffic that the Universe sends your way.