Changes to Frugal Simplicity’s Frugal Blog
Yesterday I started making some changes to my Frugal Simplicity blog site. This frugal blog has been around, as a blog, since about 2007. Before that, it was a regular website, since about 2000. Over the years, a lot of posts became filled with dead links, dead ads, and old posts that are no longer relevant to us today. So, it was time for me to do a major cleaning up of the site.
And clean I did. And cleaning I am still doing. With so many frugal living posts over the years, it will take a while to go through all of them and see what’s relevant and what’s got to go.
During the cleaning, the first thing I changed was the way the URLs to the site were presented. Instead of having a URL with the date in it, along with the relevant keywords for each post, I changed it so the the URL would only show the relevant keywords and took the date part off. In doing that, it also changed the links to every single post on the blog.
So, if you got to the site from a search engine and it took you to the 404 Not Found Page, the way to most likely find the post you were looking for is to just removed the date part of the URL. For example, if you were looking for frugal living tips in the search engine, and saw this link, http://www.frugalsimplicity.com/2010/11/19/frugal-living-tips-2, and clicked on it, it would take you to the 404 Not Found Page. To get to the page with the updated link system, simply remove the dates and the last slash mark … in this case that would be 2010/11/19/ … making the updated URL http://www.frugalsimplicity.com//frugal-living-tips-2 … But even this updated URL still goes to the 404 Not Found Page, so the next obvious thing to do would be to remove the number 2 and the dash before it from the end of the URL, making it http://www.frugalsimplicity.com//frugal-living-tips … and here we have a live link and a live frugal post. Most URLS would only require removing the numbers and the slash as I mentioned first. Once the search engines catch up to the updated URLs, this won’t be an issue.
Also, you can just go over to the top right column in the search box and type in what you’re looking.
I’ve made it easier for readers to subscribe to the blog feed. At the top, in the Nav Menu, there is a SUBSCRIBE link that opens to a page for you to put your email address into. This gives you a morning email (when there are updates) with the title and link to what’s new on the site. If there’s not an update the day before, there will be no email.
Readers can also now get their frugal living tips on Kindle. This post, http://www.frugalsimplicity.com/frugal-simplicity-on-kindle/, gives the information so you can sign up. It’s easy and simple! When there are updates to the frugal blog, you’ll get them on your Kindle. It’s so cool! I totally love this feature!
I’ve updated the Frugal Specials page, located at http://www.frugalsimplicity.com/specials/ …. this page automatically updates itself as new frugal deals, freebies, and coupons become available. Lots of ways to save money!
The printable coupon page at http://www.frugalsimplicity.com/coupons/ is a printable coupon database that also automatically updates itself as new printable coupons become available. You’ll want to bookmark it and check it often. Who doesn’t love coupons?
The Free Samples tab in the Nav Menu now goes to FreebiesRock.com, another of my blogs. Rather than add the same freebies on various blogs, I’m streamlining things to post them only on the freebies blog.
The Frugal Books page at http://www.frugalsimplicity.com/frugal-books/ has been updated.
A couple of new features I am adding will be coming over the next few days. One is to start posting more coupon codes. These will be simple to use: just find the coupon code you want and click on the red button to copy the code to your clipboard and automatically be taken to the linked page to shop and use the coupon code. I totally love this new coupon code tool! The second new feature allows me to create coupons – this one I am still testing, but it’s such a cool coupon tool that I am sure you will love it!
The last change, and this is big one, is that I am going to start posting more in the first person… as in more personal type frugal living posts. In the past, the majority of my posts have been straight frugal living articles or posts for coupons, freebies, bargains, etc… but very little personal type posts. I’ll still be posting all of these, but also the personal type posts pertaining to frugal living, along with adding more personal type notes to the other type posts.
That’s it! Lots of changes, but hopefully all for the good. Let’s go out there and be frugal!
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