RT in Wales: G4G has traveled the world through Ontgolf.ca, from Barbados to England, and from Scotland to Newfoundland. My travels will continue at our new domain.
Later next week, we’ll be announcing significant changes to OntGolf.ca. In fact, it won’t be OntGolf.ca at all!
I joined OntGolf.ca with my partner in the venture, Jeff Lancaster of Elevation Media, in March 2006, moving G4G over from blogspot. Since that point, I’ve posted 1,865 items on G4G, and had almost 6,000 comments. The site has been viewed by nearly 4-million people since that point, at least according to our Google Analytics software, with more than 13-million page views. Not bad for a little site that was meant to allow people to comment on golf courses and a blog that was meant to keep material I once wrote for PGATour.com from disappearing.
It is tough to keep a site like this moving forward, especially when it is only one of several things I do on a regular basis. But we’re trying. The new site has a much more memorable domain name, and we’re bringing back the same cast of characters, plus some new additions. Our equipment blogger, James McCarten, will have his own blog, in addition to contributing to the gear section, and “Fairway” Steve Waxman will continue to offer video insights into equipment as well. We’re also adding a “golf pool” blog, that will be run by someone new, who I will introduce next week.
But more than simply a new domain, the new site will also capture the best of the blogosphere, allowing for cross-category posts, making comments by users more prominant, and highlighting course reviews done by me and users on the site. We’re also hoping more people will register for the site to be able to take full advantage of some of the powerful features we’re adding. But I know that takes some effort — so I’ll be giving away a bunch of stuff, from cool golf hats that I’ve been hording to equipment and rounds of golf to encourage people to register.
Anyway, I feel like a tease, so I won’t go on and on. Needless to say, we’ll let everyone know of the changes when we’re set to make the switch. I’m sure there will be some hiccups along the way, but I think this is a great opportunity for us to involve our readers more directly in the site.
I want to thank everyone who has shown up to read the blog over the past six years, even those who think I’m full of it. It has been fun and the millions of readers who have shown up over that time have proven all the effort was worthwhile.
Congratulations on the new move…we wish you nothing but success RT!