Happy Blog Birthday!

When I wrote my first post eight years and 1,578 posts ago, I didn’t have many plans for the blog. I had thought I would write about writing, editing, and publishing, and I have.

There are 193 posts in the Writing and Publishing Advice category, as well as 274 posts combined in Books and Publishing News, Author Interviews, Book Reviews, and Business (freelancing) categories. I’ve also posted about Blogging 162 times, and there are 177 posts in Lillie’s News and Events categories.

But almost half of my posts have been about other things important to me—there are a total of 772 posts in the Christian, Causes, Patriotism/Troop Support, and Lillie’s Musings categories. These include Advent and Lent devotionals, pro-life and anti-abuse articles, pieces honoring our troops and veterans, and posts about other topics I’m passionate about.

There have been many changes in the world of blogging in eight years. I didn’t get any comments for many months after I started, then for several years I got many comments on almost every post. Now I have a few loyal commenters, but most posts get few if any comments. People tend to post to social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, rather than on individual blogs today.

Another reason comments have declined is changes in search engine algorithms and policies. At one time, websites were rewarded in Google for having many external links. People left comments primarily to get a Page Rank 4 Do-Follow link to their own blog or website. Now those same links that generated rewards in the past now generate penalties, and webmasters are requesting links be removed.

One thing hasn’t changed, though. I still love writing posts and interacting with readers. I hope to be doing that for many more years to come.

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