20 Years of Blogging with WordPress

They say the first 20 years of blogging are the hardest. I’ve had a lot of hard years in the Blogosphere, hard years here in reality, but as this milestone was creeping up I put in a lot of effort into getting this blog prepared. My blog has officially been running on WordPress for twenty years.

The very first couple posts have been deleted over the years. Actually a lot of posts have been deleted over the years. However there are still posts from September 2005 and I know I was living in Prince George British Columbia when I first installed WordPress. I was encouraged to start blogging by the Sauder School of Business or perhaps a guest speaker they brought in. I’m sure they’ve come to regret that advice. I’ve made peace with it, I think. Even in the last few months however, I was tempted to take my whole website down as I’d grown so frustrated with my web host.

Happy Blogiversary

This is not my first blogiversary post. In fact this domain has been online since 2002. As a result I celebrated 20 years of maintaining a hobby website and blogging about the hobby of miniature painting and miniature wargaming a few years back. That was a popular post in a very niche portion of the Blogosphere. I personally chose the best post or most representative content from each of the years my hobby website had been online.

Google Analytics I was forced to retire but Google Site Kit has risen to take its place. So although I don’t have as much data as I’d previously analyzed when choosing relatively popular blog posts, I do have data I can analyze. I came up with the idea of using the internal link structure of my blog, with one internal link being one vote. That was the fundamental insight Larry and Sergei originally had building Google. Using this methodology I was able to determine which blog post was the most popular from each of the twenty calendar years.

A picture is worth a thousand words

I’ve written too many words on this blog. This is why I can delete half of them and few people noticed. However, when doing my previous anniversary posts I was reminded of the importance images play in blogging. In the olden days bandwidth cost relatively more money, now you can get free image hosting and although I complained a lot about web hosting recently, given that I’m less popular, my images get stolen and hotlinked to less. I am not even sure my anti-hotlinking solution survived the change in web hosts, I haven’t tried to test it. I just don’t have the energy to always fight the good fight anymore.

However for both the retrospective on my miniature painting and my collection of the best travelogs I’ve posted I came to appreciate my collection of images more. I have plenty of smaller resolution images hosted on this domain. And I do load the featured images into WordPress itself but I have the original higher resolution images in Apple Photos going back to 2002 and I can put up higher resolution photos on Flicker, so that is what I’ve tended to do in recent years. As a result old posts can get new higher resolution images and for your blogiversary, it really helps to have had something photogenic to blog about.

Alas given I went with a mathematical methodology of selecting the next twenty blog posts they are not always as photogenic as miniature painting or traveling.

2005: Baidu China’s Search Engine

Although this blog was started in British Columbia, it was done so with an eye towards my upcoming exchange semester at Tsinghua University in Beijing. During that time, for my international business class I toured and interviewed staff at Baidu. This was my first blog post that became popular outside my circle of friends and acquaintances. That was about as viral as a visit to a Chinese Internet startup could go twenty-five years ago, but is nothing by today’s standards.

Google took down the old Google Analytics website. I exported my data, but now it would be more work to graph my website becoming less popular over time. I did find an old graph from Google Analytics showing traffic from November 16th 2005 to August 18th 2013. As to what is popular now or back then you’ll also just have to take my word. The post about visiting Baidu did get shared and read even though it predates Twitter and most every other social media network. After twenty years I am still directing people to read about my visit.

2006: Better Blogging

A number of my classmates also went on exchange and of course there were a number of students at Tsinghua who started blogs. But I self-hosted mine and the Chinese government never blocked Muschamp.ca, they did however block many, many websites including Blogger. As a result, some people lost access to their blog, at some point after experiencing all this, I gave some thought to how to blog better.

2007: CFA® Level I Candidate

After finishing my MBA many potential employers asked me if they hired me, would I enrol in the CFA Program. I of course said yes, even though Finance was not my specialization at business school. Eventually I just paid the fees myself and became a CFA Candidate. I really did want one of those better jobs business schools are always promising, for various reasons it did not happen for me when I graduated from the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.

2008: Converted

Either not much happened in 2008 or too much happened in 2008 or perhaps 2008 was a year that has been heavily edited on my blog. However on August 17th, I saw Bob Log III and Scott H. Biram play at Pat’s Pub in the notorious Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. The show was great, Scott even chatted me up, probably because I was wearing a Bloodshot Records t-shirt, his record label at the time. Also at the time I was working at a non-profit in the Downtown Eastside and we were trying to revitalize the then poorest postal code in Canada.

The fact that this was the most linked to and thus popular post of 2008 did surprise me, but calling this a popular blog post is really stretching the definition of popular.

2009: FREE CFA® Level 1 Study Materials

Not only is this next post the most popular blog post of 2009, it is the most popular blog post I’ve written of all time at least according to Google. Every day people find this post and click on it in Google’s search results. The fact I used a cringeworthy clickbait title just shows they work. The fact I spent years as a CFA Candidate and gave away study materials I made for free is a character flaw.

2010: Blogging Difficulties

As alluded to at the beginning of this blog post I’ve overcome a lot of challenges while maintaining this blog. I’ve been threatened with arrest and expulsion. I’ve been contacted by lawyers including those from the CFA Institute. I’ve had my web host go out of business, but that might have been before this blog existed, but I’ve also had my web host be acquired twice. I have had to deal with hackers, spammers, hotlinkers, intellectual property thieves and other unsavoury characters. So I’ve definitely encountered some blogging difficulties.

2011: My Top 10 SEO Tips

The first post I thought was the most popular of 2011 was a bit of a surprise but then I checked the data again and apparently some people really care about search engine optimization. I used to know a lot more about it and I used measure my online popularity more carefully, but at some point I stopped caring about popularity and search engine optimization instead focusing on Quality, trying to write posts that were timely or better still timeless. I’m not always successful.

2012: Focus & Repetition

Besides the importance of your writing being timely or timeless, other things you should strive for if you want to blog better is focus and repetition. Indeed the secret to improving at many things is focus and repetition. This blog isn’t very focussed especially in the olden days, but after 20 years of blogging, I’ve definitely put in my reps alone at the keyboard.

2013: Blog your way to a better career (they really, really mean it)

Since 2005, self proclaimed experts have been exclaiming I can blog my way to a better career. Now after 20 years of blogging, I don’t want to rain on any parades but a lot of these self proclaimed experts, well their blog is long gone from the Internet but mine remains.

2014: So long Suzhou

In 2014 I returned to China. It hadn’t been exactly ten years but it must have been close enough. I always swore I would return to Beijing to see the Summer Palace in the summer. As a result, after visiting Beijing I headed South via the new fast trains. China had changed a lot, especially Beijing, but for unknown reasons my stop in Suzhou was the most popular on my blog using my methodology when I wrote this post eleven years later.

The above photo is actually from my second trip to Suzhou, not the one in 2014. Suzhou is often called the Venice of China and Marco Polo visited there in the twelve hundreds, hence the boat in the canal.

2015: Living in Shanghai

To the surprise of many, including myself I actually returned to live and work in China. This time I lived in Shanghai and I actually taught English again as I was assured I could get a better job quickly and easily. For the record I taught English in Shanghai for four years.

At least I have a lot of photos of Shanghai to choose from.

2016: How I lost over 15 kilos in 2015

This is a depressing post to be the most popular of 2016. I did lose the weight and I did keep it off for many years but now in 2025 I may have gained it all back and possibly more. Now I’m ten years older and have never really been the same since I had surgery. COVID and other injuries have also added up. None-the-less I still go to the gym and I think with some focus and repetition I could make progress again.

2017: Shanghai Tour Guide

I wasn’t actually a tour guide in Shanghai, but occasionally people would come to the big city and I would show them around. It was funny that I knew Shanghai better than many Chinese people, however I did live there for four years.

2018: Passed All 3 CFA® Exams

It took a long, long time and many, many hours of effort and a lot of focus and repetition but I did finally pass all three CFA Exams. I actually passed the last two in Shanghai. It isn’t a surprise this is one of my most linked to pieces of content, because of how much effort it took to achieve and how many setbacks I had to overcome.

I didn’t actually receive my piece of paper until 2022 as I had not yet met the work experience requirement in 2018.

2019: New Year, New WordPress

Once you finish studying for CFA exams you suddenly have free time. I was probably still looking for a new job, but I invested a lot of time upgrading and improving this very blog. It had been limping along on an outdated version of WordPress with abandoned plugins. So to start 2019 I gave it an overhaul. Lots of the people who write about their blogiversary discuss all the changes they’ve made cosmetically, but I haven’t made many as you can see below.

The image above is from the Wayback Machine and shows my blog from 2005, though it doesn’t render perfectly. The coloured boxes I drew to show whitespace are from while I was adjusting it. It is odd this is immortalized in the Wayback Machine. but you’ll also notice that my website is not fundamentally different from how it is now, at least on desktop computers.

My previous major change to my website cosmetically before that was in 2016. That was when I installed WPTouch and before that it last changed significantly in 2013. Which is the screenshot you see next. You can also see how my blog used to look on my iPhone below right when I installed a plugin.

2020: In the time of the Coronavirus

When I moved to Calgary I did not blog much. I worked a lot of long hours and even after COVID-19 appeared we just kept working. I was working from the living room of a one bedroom apartment I had rented in the Beltline. Eventually I bought my own place 300 metres away.

I double checked and under the methodology I established this was the most popular post of 2020, probably because it is the only one I wrote about living and working in Calgary during the Coronavirus.

2021: The end of an era

In 2021 I was in my new (to me) condo. I know this as I remember reading the news on Facebook, at this very desk I’m currently typing at. Rob Miller had given up trying to manage Bloodshot Records and had agreed to sell it. Certain record labels and the artists had a big effect on me. First there was DefJam in the 80s, then there was Bloodshot and Fat Possum in the 90s. Only Fat Possum is still be independent and under the original ownership, but it no longer exclusively releases hill country blues.

2022: Palawan, The Philippines

When COVID restrictions finally let up and I was granted two weeks vacation I made the somewhat impulsive decision to go to Palawan in The Philippines. It is definitely more photogenic than old screenshots of my blog.

2023: Apple M2 Pro MacBook Pro, Oh So Pro

2023 must have been another slow year in the Blogosphere. I probably worked a lot and decided to spend some money on a MacBook Pro. I’ve had a series of Macs going back to the original personal super computer which can be seen in a photo further below. I’m typing on the MacBook Pro right now, but I have it hooked up to two external monitors as shown below. Perhaps James Snape will be happy this was my top post of 2023. Who is James Snape and why does he like pictures of desks? You’ll just have to read on to find out.

2024: Redoing my blog taxonomy again

For the record I still haven’t finished redoing my blog taxonomy. Because I got so fed up with the performance of my website on my previous web host I ultimately gave up after getting it mostly revised. So although I haven’t changed the look and feel of my website much over the years I have changed the taxonomy on this blog multiple times. This latest taxonomy is hopefully my forever taxonomy as I’m down to seven categories and even though experts will tell you I have too many posts in the default unclassified category, most experts haven’t written as many blog posts as me or maintained a blog for 20 years.

Neither redoing my taxonomy nor changing web hosts made me popular. Neither did installing Yoast’s plugin and trying to follow their blog optimization guide. I posted some simple SEO advice above but I recommend focus and repetition over 20 years of blogging if you want to be popular, this also means you and your interests and your lifestyle can not change ever, enjoy!

2025: Finally bought an electric guitar

In 2025, I completed something of a lifelong dream, or at least an ambition I’ve had for twenty or more years, that was to buy a Gretsch electric guitar. I ended up getting a 6120 Nashville in Cadillac Green. Now I just have to stop blogging long enough to play it.

This sentence will make the text layout better with the Flickr photo, there is probably some way to fix the CSS but I just don’t have the time right now. Even after 20 years of blogging I’m still refining my technique.

Others who made it 20 years in the Blogosphere

Prior to writing this post I did a lot of preparation. This included redoing my taxonomy, the removing of no longer desirable content, and ultimately moving my entire website to a different web host. I also did some research to see how others marked 20 years of blogging. Few people end up doing so, especially sticking to one platform, one domain, and even one WordPress theme like I did.

• WordPress itself turned twenty in 2023, I found a retrospective on how it has changed over the years.
• Diego Elio Pettenò has used six different platforms in his 20 years of blogging.
• Julio Merino opted for a lot of graphs and screenshots for his 20 years of blogging, he too changed platforms and domains many times.
• Raymond Camden shared his lessons learned in 20 years of blogging, scarily I may have read his ColdFusion blog back in the day, he too has changed blogging platforms multiple times. He offers some advice that is similar to mine.
• James Snape celebrated his 20-year blogging anniversary by including an old desk photo. So in honour of James and using the power of Apple Photos I present to you below the oldest digital photo of my computer desk setup taken on June 10th 2002 before this blog was online and possibly even this domain! I still have most of that stuff including the LaCie CD burner and even the blue IKEA garbage can is still beside me. Neil Young of course continues to look down on me from above.
• The final 20 years of blogging posts I found was by Sam Willison. He opted for a retrospective similar to mine, highlighting influential posts he’s written over the years.

One thing I noticed besides never abandoning WordPress or even changing themes, was I did not care much to be popular. Or perhaps I like to think I stopped caring about being popular. Sure I measured things with Google Analytics and other services and techniques. And I did write multiple posts on improving your blog, often with an eye to becoming more popular, but that was as much for the benefit of others as myself. Long ago I decided to focus on Quality.

Unlike some of the bloggers I linked to above, I also didn’t lose any content accidentally, this comes from sticking with one CMS and obviously taking the odd backup over the years. The fact I’ve deleted hundreds of posts may shock people still reading down this far, but if those posts had a purpose they served it. Over the last twenty years I’ve gone through a lot and if some of it I no longer care to write about or maintain old webpages about, c’est la vie.

Hopefully the best content remains online at the same URL it was at for the last twenty or more years.

What’s next after 20 years of blogging?

If you read my previous post you’ll know I should be preparing for my next online course. It starts September 8th and we are expected to prepare by reviewing various material. I’ve put entirely too much work into this blog and doubt the ROI will be positive any time soon. I would like to have time for hobbies such as painting miniatures and playing guitar which is why I think hobbies are a good thing to focus on when you are blogging. I’d also like to take more time off from work to travel, something I will try hard to do next year.

In the mean time I really must wrap up this post. AI and generated content is more and more prevalent online, but I just want to assure you that I wrote all the text during the past 20 years of blogging. If you have thoughts on WordPress or blogging you can leave a comment below.

This entry was originaly posted on August 25th, 2025, it was last edited on August 26th, 2025 and is filed under: Rambles and tagged: Blogging, Blogiversary, WordPress.