I’m currently in negotiations with a party interested in buying the criticalmas.com domain. I was not looking to sell the domain. They approached me. All the content would still belong to me. They only want the domain name.
Depending on how negotiations go, the sale may or may not happen. However, if it does happen, things will move fast. I’ll need to inform every one of my email change and I’ll need to figure out where to move all the content on this site. That could happen in as fast as a week, but more likely 2-3 weeks.
I put the probability of a sale happening at 50% right now.
Moving the blog means that all the links and bookmarks to this site will break. My traffic will definitely take a hit until the search engines find the new location. And it likely won’t recover fully for a long time. I’m OK with that, considering I would be fairly compensated.
Staying in Contact
So, how are you going to know where I am at should you visit this site and I’m not here? Including the page, you are reading now. Here are a few ways:
- Follow me on Twitter: @CriticalMAS I’ll make an announcement and pin the Tweet.
- Subscribe to the CriticalMAS newsletter. I still have to figure out the EU privacy rules. I’m hoping I get it right and it doesn’t impact my MailChimp account.
- Bookmark michaelallensmith.com or my GitPage. Right now both sites serve as project portals.
Next Step?
If the sale happens, I see a few options for this blog.
- I can move it to MichaelAllenSmith.com.
- Start a new domain and move it there.
- Move the content to Medium.com.
- Something else?
If you have an opinion on the best route, leave a comment. Medium is the only domain not owned by me that I would trust with my content.
Jim
May 17, 2018 — 10:17 am
@MAS
Good luck!
A) I wouldn’t use Medium as your primary location. While Medium is a great site, it seems better to own your domain as a primary host for your content. I don’t know if they have any restrictions regarding double posting on Medium and another site?
B) I think you previously had concerns regarding your current site address due to Google search autocorrecting to “mass.” So maybe the move will provide more traffic in the long run?
C) Are there any automated tools for redirecting internal links in posts to a new site (like a search and replace)?
MAS
May 17, 2018 — 10:25 am
@Jim – Moving to Medium would also be more work on my end and since time would be a factor, it may not even be realistic to move 1,000+ posts. I do like the community aspect over there though, but I’ve had mixed results.
Fixing internal links is easy to do.
MAS
May 18, 2018 — 7:24 am
@Jim – In regarding to [B], that stopped happening years ago. In fact, the opposite occurred. I started getting referrals from people looking for criticalmass. I could see it in the search queries as well.
Maybe some of my new readers in recent years visit with an ASUS Zenbook, where typing the same letter (in this case “s”) only results in one letter showing up on the screen. Ha!
Tim Steele
May 18, 2018 — 6:57 pm
I’ve had some offers for vegetablepharm.com, but no one wanted to pay what I thought it was worth. I figured 4 years worth of blog-derived income was fair, since I’ve developed the blog for 4 years. And each year that price goes up. I was also glad I did not sell-out because I’d probably never migrate the content somewhere else.
Good luck, I hope you hold out for the figure you think it’s worth.