I’m hoping that AFM readers will go check out her new blog, Downs With Debt, and offer her some encouragement. If you’re a blogger, I’m hoping you might send her some link love.

Thanks for reading.

Today marks the 7th onniversary of when I started blogging. I started off with a .blogspot blog called AllThingsFinancial. I moved to a paid hosting site in August of 2005 and changed the URL to AllThingsFinancialBlog.com. Several months later I was sued by First Tennessee bank because they owned the phrase “All Things Financial” and they demanded I cease from using that name. So, I changed to AllFinancialMatters.com and have been using that name for well over five years now.

It’s been a bumpy ride over the years. The blog grew steadily from 2004 through 2008 and then kind of wavered since 2009. I grew tired of simply blogging about personal finance topics as I felt I had already covered nearly all the basics. So, I got more into politics, which I’m sure has alienated readers.

It’s also funny that when I first started bloggin back in 2004, it was a very new form of publishing. I was probably one of 5 or 6 financial blogs at the time. It was so new that main stream media gave bloggers some coverage. Some of them made fun of blogging. Yet, it wasn’t long before main stream media started launching blogs staffed with their own writers. There was a time when articles about “The Best Blogs” focused on smaller blogs. Now they’re almost all about either company-sponsored blogs or blogs that are5. written by well-known people. All of this means, it’s a very crowded field and it makes blogging all the more frustrating.

I have always tried to adhere to the following principles in my blogging:

• Always tell the truth. That doesn’t mean I don’t make mistakes. But, I have never lied. That’s something I’m very proud of.

• I don’t allow sponsored posts UNLESS it is made very clear to AFM readers that the post is paid for.

• I don’t do affiliate advertising UNLESS it is made clear that I do in fact make something if someone clicks a link or makes a purchase. That’s why I always use the little “*” whenever I link to an Amazon book. Other bloggers approach this differently by saying, “Readers know I have to make money some way so I don’t think I need to tell them each time I link to something that makes me money.” I disagree but that’s just me.

• I tell it like it is. Yes, I’m a conservative and I hold conservative principles near and dear. I take a lot of flack for my beliefs. I don’t care.

• I have ALWAYS encouraged “adult” discussions. No name calling or childish behavior. Those comments that I deem offensive get deleted.

• I have ALWAYS published comments of those who disagree with me UNLESS the comments are offensive.

What does the future hold for AllFinancialMatters? I have no idea. I have been kicking around a few ideas to help the blog grow. I’m hesitant to do anything drastic because I like the general concept of the blog the way it is. I have considered bringing in different authors and going for a more “professional” blog. I’m not sure I want to go that route as this blog has always been very personal in nature.

All I know is that I’m not happy with my current stats and I think it’s ridiculous that this blog isn’t more popular than it is. This is my fault because I really don’t spend any time networking (sucking up) to bigger bloggers (most of whom I don’t like). In fact, I feel kind of cheated by the bigger bloggers who used this blog and other smaller blogs to build their base and then “forgot” about us once they reached the blogging stratosphere. Many of the bigger blogs no longer link to the smaller blogs and yet, the smaller blogs still link to the bigger blogs.

Frustrations aside, I do enjoy blogging. I have enjoyed meeting people over the years. I’m even facebook friends with several AFM readers. How cool is that? I’m very honored that I have readers who have been reading AFM for YEARS! Two readers I would like to highlight just because they add lots to nearly every discussion are BG and Jack. Their passion (they usually don’t agree on much…lol) makes for very interesting discussions. I have other readers who have contributed comments over the years. People like Stacey, Sam, Kitty, Russ, RA, Miguel, Dan, Traciatim, Evan, Jon, John, Harm, BD, and all the rest of you who make this blog worth reading. My readers are the best!

Here’s to another 7 years!

What (NEW) financial are you reading these days? Do any of them stand out to you?

Feel free to list a few in the comments. NOTE: I’ll have to approve each comment since they will contain links.

Apparently, the credit card I had tied to my PayPal account expired and I didn’t get the message because I never added the email address I have tied to my PayPal account to my new computer’s Outlook.

OOPS!

This was my first post.

This was my first “serious” post.

This was my first post at AllThingsFinancialBlog.com.

I went through my first nasty evacuation for hurricane Rita.

My blog and several other blogs formed the MoneyBlogNetwork (which lasted about 3 years before we decided to disband).

Things were great until I got sued over the blog’s name and url. With the help of Flexo, I changed the name and url to AllFinancialMatters.com and kept on trucking.

Blogging was fun until around 2008 when I started to get into a funk. It probably had something to do with my Dad’s passing, which was difficult. I’ll never forget the day he passed away and what I said at his funeral.

So here we are today. I’m back to trying to come up with new useful information and I’m trying to have fun doing it. I have met a lot of cool people over the years and actually count a quite a few of them as friends.

Here’s to another six years!

Stay tuned…the special blogoversary giveaway will go live at 7 AM (CST).

I sent the company the following email:

Thanks for the link to AllFinancialMatters’ content. However, when a blogger mentions another blogger’s work, they usually don’t republish the other blogger’s entire article–especially without their permission. Please take the post down.

Sincerely,

JLP
AllFinancialMatters.com

A few minutes later, I received the following response:

JL as a courtesy to you we have removed your backlinks and article from our website.

As a courtesy to me? Let me get this straight: you basically steal my content, I ask you to take it down, and you do so “as a courtesy to me?” Interesting.

Keep in mind that this same company helps insurance reps market equity-indexed annuities. Coincidence?

Anyway, all this leads me to ask the following question:

What do you think is a good definition for content theft?

As I mentioned above, they did at least include a backlink to AFM. My main issue is that they republished my blog’s content in its entirety WITHOUT first asking for permission (which I would have declined). In my mind, this is theft. I wasn’t the only one getting ripped off by this guy. I noticed that the bulk of his blog was other people’s work.

Thoughts?

I’m looking for orginal content. Of course I’ll allow links to your blog. I will not publish content for business websites.

Topics I’m interested in:

• Insurance

• Life planning

• Careers

• Investing

Basically, anything that has to do with personal finance.

My question to you is…

Which way do you prefer? Do you like something new at the same time every morning or do you prefer I post whenever? I’m not saying I’m going to change anything because I kind of like the new format. But, I thought I’d ask AFM readers what they thought.

“To help protect your security, Internet Explorer has blocked this website from displaying content with security certificate errors. Click here for options…”

Through trial and error I narrowed the error down to the Amazon.com content in my right sidebar. What I don’t know is WHY it’s causing the error message. All I know is AFM is not the only website experiencing these issues: KindleBoards.com

Anyway, I just thought I’d let you know what’s going on.

Very frustrating. Dreamhost was NO HELP whatsoever. Their “solution” to the problem was to simply disable my blog. Nice. I talked to several people who know more about this stuff than I do and they all said Dreamhost fell down on the job.

Anyway, my brother helped me out tremendously. He and his friend helped me find a new host and then they moved AFM. It went live an hour or so ago.

I know a guy who does some pretty sophisticated work in cyber security. He’s going to look at my security logs and try to track down who initiated this attack. It should be interesting to find out who it was and whether or not they were targeting AFM or dreamhost. I know I write some politically-charged stuff on this blog but I never thought it was bad enough to warrant a DDoS attack. I guess we’ll see (hopefully).

UPDATE: I just noticed that comments don’t work.

UPDATE #2: Apparently none of the internal links work. Stay tuned…