First of all, above you can see an abstract photo that I shot a while ago, I basically shot a photo of LED lights. I uploaded already a similar one when I remember right, I do at least have several photos of the same scene that I didn’t upload yet. But now to the news…
Today I did import around 35 posts and 6 drafts from my second blog, the pure tech niche blog. Some of you know how I did struggle with two blogs, there are several posts about the whole issue on my blog. I gave the second blog another chance over the recent months, but how often I did that, and the result was always the same, I prefer one blog over two.
This is basically why I decided today, to hell with the second blog and then I imported all the technology or gaming related articles and guides to my main blog, the one you are reading right now. It’s the second and hopefully last time I published on the other blog to export it later to my main blog. If it doesn’t excite me a second time, it won’t a third time.
I published hundreds of gaming or technology articles here, that was always good, that’s what I want to do in the future again, I want to be able to write about just anything that comes to my mind. The technology articles always generated 98% of my several thousand page views per month, I am not sure why I wanted to try something in the same niche.
So, this is basically the news, I killed my niche blog a second time, all the content that I wrote for the other blog, all that is now hosted on my main blog again. Two blogs did really prevent me to publish things, especially because both blogs had a technology category. That means I always had to decide where to publish my tech related articles in the future.
Next thing is, I am very tired of my “diary” domain, I lately thought about it if I should rebrand. I think “diary” does sound either too playful or too childish, the “of” makes it just longer, and my name doesn’t add anything meaningful to the domain, it’s enough if you see my author name and bio below each post. I would like to get rid of the domain but…
To rebrand or not to rebrand, that is the question I need to think about. My domain gained a lot of authority and has good metrics, everything must be considered. Purchasing a better domain and doing a 301 redirect, that could be the solution but it’s still risky, I have to think about it. I think most of the domain power will carry over, but not 100%, that’s it.
The only change now, is that I will publish everything, really everything here again. If I rebrand, that is not sure yet, but I’d like to do that by the end of the year or beginning of the next year. That wouldn’t change a lot for you, it’s just the name, I do currently write a lot of ideas down, it’s not concrete yet. Just wanted to tell you my latest ideas or thoughts.
Diary of Dennis 
I would say do not re-brand. The name only sounds not okay to you for now because you are reorganizing your site, re-aligning your thinking etc. but you have established a name so keep it. I think that most of your reader think of you as Dennis. At least I do !
If it gets on your nerves, just in case, make the “diary of Dennis” smaller so that you other titles become even more leading than they are now. I think that you are in a transition period so be careful not to throw out what can easily stay and continue to be useful. Just my humble point of view.
You make some good points, I definitely won’t rush anything. I will wait a few months and if I still think that way, I might rebrand the domain anyway, if not, then it was a good idea to wait and to keep the old one.
You are right, inside WordPress I am known as Dennis, I think that would be ok, but to the outside (the visitors via Google), it’s probably hard to remember the domain name, although some huge sites like CNN (to mention one) linked to some of my tech articles despite of the domain name, but I am still afraid the domain is not “brandable” enough. The domain has 13 letters, I came up with some other names of 9 or even 8 letters, also more professional sounding… that is why I think back and forth at the moment. But yea, on the otherside, I achieved a lot with the domain, that means, maybe it’s not really a problem.
The real problem is that it is like a blogging identity crisis, one day I think I should continue with the domain, another day I think I should get a new one. This sometimes goes so far that it is preventing me from writing. You are most likely right, in this kind of thinking period, I shouldn’t rush anything.
I am very happy to hear opinions, this is why I published my thoughts about it. It seems I seek some answers, or impressions of others, before I do anything at all, because at the moment I am rather confused. So, thanks for your view 🙂 I won’t rush anything, it’ll take me some time to make a decision at all, on that way I can be clear enought about it later.