As you probably have noticed, the blog has been moved to a new domain: BeardMonkey.net, instead of the old BeardMonkey. WordPress.com (You will just be redirected to the new domain when typing in the old). It makes the URL a bit more neat, but that is not the main reason why I did it.

The main reason should also have been noticed by regular visitors. It allowed me to turn on WordAds, the WordPress offered option for showing ads on my site. What it means in short is that I will be able to make some income from the efforts put into this site. Now please note, that with ‘some income’, I am not talking big bucks. What I hope to gain is around 100,- per month optimistically, so far from enough to make a living out of, but a nice compensation for the many hours I have put into this website, and I hope you can all understand my reasoning as such.

As I have mentioned before, this site started out really small, but has grown considerably over the past year. More work was steadily put into it, and the articles started to attract ever increasing numbers of visitors. I have now come to a point that enabling the Ads can get me something back for that, and people in my surroundings suggested I should do so. And why not?

What I do want to be careful of is that the main purpose of this site stays unchanged: Informing other players about as many topics about the game, out of my own passion for playing it. I do not want to ‘shell out’ for the money, and I hope you do not see it that way!

So what do the Ads look like? Well, there are 3 ads displayed throughout the blog:

1. Underneath articles
2. A banner on top of the page
3. In the sidebar

Number 1 has always been there, even at the old address, I simply didn’t get paid for it. So for 1 nothing has changed for the viewer really. Number 2 is new, but I do not think it is hugely annoying or detracts from the website feel that much. Number 3, in the sidebar, is in my opinion the most annoying one, and which does sort of damage the look of the website, but for me personally not in such a way that I’m immediately inclined to remove it. Plus I do not really make use of the sidebar, so I guess it should be possible to sort of ignore it?

It is however also very important to me how you, the viewer, thinks this looks. Of course, it is not as neat as it used to be, but is it really too distracting to enjoy the website like you used to? I hope I have conveyed my reasons for doing it and hope for your support in my decision. But if you really feel it hurts the website, I could tone it down a bit.

So in conclusion, if you have any remarks about the changes, be it positive or negative, please let me know in the comments. Thanks you so much in advance, and happy Hobbiting!