Since it went up about 24 hours ago, the new server has been working very well and I’ve been very happy with the results. We should hopefully now be able to avoid the downtime and poor loading that plagued the previous two weeks, at least for a long time to come. I really want to thank Mentar for helping us get the server and Maestro for spending so much of his valuable time helping set everything up. It’s because of Maestro that everything got transferred over relatively smoothly, so I’m really grateful. I also want to thank my friend Patrik for providing a spot to host images temporarily while we were going through that period. For those of you curious, Mentar was the one who suggested and helped us get a dedicated server out of Germany that was significantly cheaper than the American solutions we were looking at earlier. It should be more than enough to allow this site to grow several times over.

That brings me to the second point of this entry. Instead of the $150 dollars I originally cited, the new server will cost 49 euros (~$63.28) a month. I’m delighted that it’s less expensive than I thought it’d be, but that’s still a hefty amount per month. Taking into considerations all the comments that everyone left when I talked about costs last time, the most reliable course of action was to add ads to the site. While I would have preferred to avoid them, the reality is that not everyone who wants to help out necessarily has the ability to send in a donation. I know this won’t make everyone happy – that includes myself – but I hope those of you who hate ads can try to overlook them. For those of you who love the site and still want to make a donation, I am indeed still holding a donation drive to help cover the costs since I’m not entirely sure how well the ads will do and since every little bit helps. I agree with all the people who said that asking for donations every month is a bad thing, so the goal of this drive will be to cover six months worth of costs. That’s a fairly lofty goal that I’m not sure we’ll meet, but that’s why we have the ads for support too. If you would like to make a donation, please visit AnimeBlogger’s Donation page .

I’d like to once again thank everyone who visits the site. It’s because of you, the reader, that this site has been able to grow so much. There’s a lot to look forward to in the coming months, especially in the spring and fall seasons, so I hope that you’ll stay tuned.

12 Comments

  1. I’d suggest not asking people to click on the ads since it’s against adsense rules to do so. They’re pretty picky when it comes to that.

    With the traffic that Random Curiosity gets, I’m pretty certain that you could turn on ads for a part of the month, and once you reach enough to pay for your servers, turn them off. I bet you wouldn’t even need to run them for more than a week or so. Just a thought since you say you don’t like having the ads there. You can probably set some switch that turns them on and off.

  2. I jus wanna say thanks for all the hard work! I’m only 16 and don’t have a credit card and stuff so i can’t really help out. So whatever you have to do to keep the site running is fine with me. Thanks again!

    yuki
  3. Glad to know the server move went by smoothly. I will be donating soon enough Omni, don’t worry. I will also click the ads just for the hell of it. Quick question, though: Where are the ads? Are they up yet? I’m just asking because I don’t see any of them but since I have quite a couple of extensions for Firefox that remove ads and ad-removing software on my computer, it’s quite possible that they are being blocked. So…are they up yet?

    -Karasuhebi

  4. Well at least you can still keep the site though donation. Don’t worry much I’m sure a lot of people will support this site,(Sorry I can’t donate living in different country, low money exchange) just as long as your ads won’t go to pop-up and virus thats very bad. But I’ll say trying to earn enough to last for 6 month is hard, thats like $300++ right? Try to ask more people for donation I’m sure it’ll be alright. I’ll be supporting you and all us who read your blog, Gambatte.

    Setsuke
  5. Karasuhebi: the ads are between the text body and the comments. They are quite unobstrusive, and are text links with brief descriptions. There are also “sponsored links” on the right column af the poll of the day and search box.

  6. LOL I seriously did not even notice those ads there. Your site looks as sweet as ever =] Maybe I’m just blind, but it hardly detracts from your wonderful site. Congrats on the server change; must have been a lot of stress and careful planning, so I’d just like to say that I appreciate all that you do for the fans. Long live.

    allie_*
  7. Hehe, sauber Mentar 😉 Deutsche Server sind halt die besten 🙂
    Hoffe nur du hast nicht 1Blu genommen (Gott die sind so *******!!!)Host Europe z.B. rockt^^

    Anyways, I myself as German feel happy 😀 Hope the new Server will run for a LONG time^^
    Don’t care about the ads, my browser blocks them anyways (although, nyah, that’s better not said here..)

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