To website or not to website?

[Onix]

I'm coming up on renewing my hosting for my websites and other than the familiarity of having them, I'm debating their utility.

I've had the artifact.net for about fifteen years now. I've done a lot on it and through it, but is it really useful anymore? Should I just set up camp on DriveThru and not worry about website maintenance and blogging?

My biggest pull right now to keep the websites is that all my email addresses for my family go through them.

What do you think? Would I do better just sticking things up on DriveThru and letting go?

[kylesgames]

I mean, I keep my website even though I haven't used it for years.

Whether or not that's a strong endorsement of keeping, I don't know.

I will say that the ability to have domain-based email is nice, though largely obsoleted by gmail and its ilk.

[madunkieg]

Do you make and distribute games? If so, you need a website.

The following is paraphrased from a presentation by Brent Stirling, who provided the social media support for Ryerson University's DMZ Hub (Google it).

The formula goes like this:
1. Social media, like a well-maintained Facebook account that is updated regularly, tells people you have a product and directs them to your website
2. Your website contains more in-depth information about your games, and it directs to the online store at DriveThruRPG
3. DriveThruRPG sells your games, but can't be counted on to promote them, so a lot of good games get lost in the torrent of new products

Yes, advertising can still work, but this is all free if you have the necessary time and knowledge of how to use these sites. Social media champions short messages. This is good for grabbing people's attention and generating traffic, but it doesn't always lead to sales. The website can flesh out your games for potential customers, but you don't get much traffic if nobody knows to go there. Both of these work in tandem to promote your games and generate much needed sales (or free distribution, if that's your thing).

Unfortunately, I see that you've already chosen to give up artifact.net, so this is for anyone else who has a product they'd like to sell or otherwise distribute.

[Onix]

I haven't given up the URL, that's renewed and the hosting is still good until next month. What makes you think I already gave it up?

[Rob Lang]

Sorry for the slow reply, up to my eyeballs in nappies! Keep the website. It's much easier to reinvent something that's there than start afresh next time. Also, the Google crawler will work in your favour if the URL has been live for a long time.

If the cost isn't a nightmare then I'd keep it, sir!

[Rob Lang]

[Onix]

I think part of the problem is that my host has been slowly raising their rates which is kind of crummy. I've been debating switching hosts. In theory, I could back up my wordpress sites and then reload them on another host with better rates.

[Rob Lang]

Can you import all the way into the Wordpress host?

[Onix]

Do you mean switch to a free Wordpress site? I'm not sure, I hadn't considered that.

I don't think files get backed up in the Wordpress backups, so I'd have to shift all my linked files too. I'm not sure what a wordpress.com site would allow for files.

[madunkieg]

Yes, Rob is right, I went to artifact.net, not theartifact.net

If your server is too expensive, look into switching servers to host your site. Wordpress is one option (and a good one, because I've heard that if you modify the site address to include .wordpress, they won't charge you to host it) but far from the only option.

I took a glance at your site and downloaded the game. It looks a bit more complicated than the games I'm used to, but that's okay. I appreciate larger games more than lighter ones. Having a preset world allows you to explore more of that setting's niches, giving more depth to the gameplay.