Reflecting on 2013 for 404TS

Jason

10 years ago

2013 was a rough year for 404 Tech Support.

Beginning April 17th, 2013, the site traffic plummeted and has yet been able to recover. Along with the traffic went the site revenue, which took the site from being a self-sustaining hobby to a costly one. (I wrote more about that traffic swing in a previous article, so I won’t go into it further.)

Since ads weren’t bringing in much revenue, I removed them from the site. My hope was that the sped up loading time would help put the site back in Google’s good graces. It didn’t work. However, I was able to rely on the affiliate revenue from Amazon through Skimlinks to keep the site afloat. In September, Amazon forced Skimlinks to also cut off Illinois and other sites based in states with “Amazon Tax” laws. In October, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled on the law and declared it unenforceable. In December, Amazon invited former Illinois-based affiliates back, finally returning a source of revenue for 404 Tech Support.

To be fair, the biggest hindrance to the success of 404TS has been myself. I was busy taking classes finishing up a Masters degree in Management Information Systems. Now that I have completed it, I am trying to figure out how to invest my free time again. I haven’t been able to create the new content that I wanted to and the fun, interesting projects were put on the back burner. I’m hoping to get to even more of those now.

While this post is starting off really mopey about 2013, it should actually be coming off as really excited for 2014. 404 Tech Support received a site redesign in 2013 using the Canvas theme from WooThemes. The redesign makes the site responsive and is also faster to load and lighter. The site now emphasizes the correct content while allowing more frequent posting of simple content that is still worth sharing like infographics, videos, and other media. We also launched our weekly email newsletter for the technology headlines of the week.

As one final look back on 2013 as we forge ahead into 2014, here are the most visited articles of the last year.

Top 10 most popular articles of 2013