It would be nice to know If you’re changing your domain (Sam, are you there?)
A few months ago —I can’t remember exactly when— I came across a post I really liked on the Discover section. It was about the ritual of listening to music on vinyl, and more broadly, about the richness of setting aside a specific moment to consciously enjoy albums.
If I remember correctly, in the piece the author described her Sunday routine for enjoying his/her favorite music and talked about some of her all-time favorite albums.
Their name was Sam, I know because of a message they left in my Guestbook shortly after I commented on how much I had enjoyed the post. The tragic part of this story is that the blog completely vanished from my radar, and unfortunately, our only interaction was through those Guestbook messages.
Since then, I haven’t stumbled across their blog again, and I’d be lying if I said I haven’t tried more than once to find it. Needless to say, I’ve been unsuccessful so far.
I really liked their writing, and in particular I’d love to reread that post I’m talking about, because my memory is terrible and I’m sure I don’t remember it as well as I think I do. I just remember that I enjoyed it a lot.
I like to think that Sam’s blog still exists and that they just decided to change their domain/URL, which is why the link I had saved in my bookmarks now leads to nowhere.
This is a problem I never thought I’d have, and the inspiration for this post comes precisely from this little anecdote and the fact that I recently changed my own blog’s domain a few days ago, without mentioning.
I’m not someone who uses RSS to keep up with the blogs I read. I tried it at one point but wasn’t a huge fan. Don’t get me wrong, it’s convenient, but I enjoy visiting the blogs directly, admiring the design and the unique ways people make their web feel personal.
Still, I know that many people do use RSS readers. Unfortunately, I only remembered that after I had already changed my blog’s domain. So it’s very possible that some people who enjoyed my writing now just have a broken link sitting in their RSS reader.
My point is: maybe it’s a good practice to give readers a heads-up a couple of days before changing your domain? That way we might avoid losing forever a blog we really liked.