A few days ago I promised to write a post about why I stopped blogging for several months. It is a little bit of a long story but it made me learn a lot about how the internet works. I might not be explaining it 100% correctly in the technical bits, but I promise to do my best.
September/October got incredibly busy for me. I had a very difficult time finding the time to read at all, and with my uni coming in the way again, finding the time to post anything at all became a huge challenge. However I never forced myself to post just to 'keep up with views' and whatever - that's a mindset I do everything I can to avoid.
However, after about a month of inactivity, I opened up my stats page to have a look - I had a consistent amount of views daily, but when I had a look at the traffic source, all of the links brought me to third-party websites, including adult sites, gambling and some weird lawyer firm that felt sketchy in every way that mattered.
As far as I understood, when you get too few views, you get traffic through third party websites. However, nobody actually sees the blog - you get given fake views in order to keep traffic existent. In return, third party websites that pay to give you fake views are seen in your traffic source, generating, you know it! Clicks!
This absolutely disgusted me. Not only were the 'views' I was getting fake, but these websites were suddenly linked to a project I had been working on for years. I'm someone who has to be held back from sending rants back at those 'pay for views' companies to 'grow your website'. I find that idea to be such a shame - if you have a good site, account or any other form of media, you will get appreciation. That's how it works. Now I certainly do not have any huge accounts or big followers, but that's not what I'm aiming for anyway. I just really enjoy writing and posting photos and reviews - exchanging opinions about books is something I truly enjoy.
It took a lot for me to put my blog on private. I could not bring myself to delete it for the life of me, but at least on private I could keep it whilst it being inaccessible to such a system.
The 'break' was nice - I could read without feeling the need to review rereads (which I find redundant), books I didn't enjoy (which I find tedious) and I could focus on other things.
However, I recently read Shielded (make sure to look out for my review!) and truly wanted to write a review about this ARC. I've also recently had a study change - I am shifting from pure physical chemistry and astronomy, to general chemistry and journalism. I have thus been writing a lot more, which gave me a newfound energy to actually, well, write! I figured it was as good a time as any to open up my blog again to blog whenever I'd like.
I've really been enjoying writing again! I know I'm not 100% consistent, but I will do my best.
Stay bookish,
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