I recently applied to Google AdSense for this website. I had it running on Bernard Walter, making maybe a total of three dollars over the course of half-a-dozen years. It was something, I suppose. My application was rejected due to “low quality content.”
Ouch.
While that stings, there is some learning to be gained from it. ChatGPT gave me some insight.
For as much as I want my blog to be a place that people come to to read up on whatever’s going on in my head, it’s more a place I go to to figure out what’s going on in my head. It’s a public forum in which I engage with my own thoughts. There isn’t a clear focus, a smorgasbord of ideas, feelings, and ramblings. I haven’t found any clear direction with it.
Personal blogging in this way is no longer popular. The medium has become almost invisible to the internet. We’ve moved away from the plain, mundane, sometimes humours stories other people want to share about themselves, and now look toward quirky, informative, and quick videos. The messages are likely much the same, but the delivery is vastly different. We’re simply not spending the time reading.
I don’t really post links to my blog posts, like I did in the past for a short while. I have anxiety around saying something I shouldn’t or getting flack for something I want to say. I don’t have enough confidence in what I write to believe that other people will find it useful in some way; I don’t quote myself on Instagram stories. I can’t ground the fear or anxiety, but I can certainly feel the effects of it.
What could go so wrong if I were to share? Nothing did in the past. So what if not every post is perfect or lengthy or cohesive? Something may ring true with someone, somewhere, at some time.
I need to reassess and redefine what this blog is to me. What my current definition is, I’m unsure of, but I need to be clearer about its purpose going forward. In all likelihood, the content won’t change much, but how I feel about it and the reasons I write could, and should, be made more explicit, if only to me.
This blog isn’t full of low quality content, so much as it’s filled with content of great importance on different metric. I just need to start believing in its real value, even if Google doesn’t.
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