I recently conducted a blogging case study (completely by accident) and decided it would be fun to share my results here with everyone.
About this time last year, I started adding new blogs to my bookmarks list. These were blogs that I enjoyed reading and covered a wide variety of topics: personal, technology, financial, etc. Basically just stuff that I was interested in.
I have tried to keep constant with most of these blogs over the past year, but I didn’t have enough spare time to visit each one every day, every week or even every month.
So, fast-forward to present day. A couple of days ago, I decided to check back in on some of these blogs and see what all I had missed in the past few months. To my disappointment, many of these blogs were either no longer updated, or simply no longer existed at all.
Last year, I added a total of 62 blogs to my bookmarks list. As of just a few days ago, over 25% of these blogs are now defunct. By defunct, I mean either A) the blog has not been updated in the past 60 days or B) the blog no longer exists. So why are a quarter of the blogs I use to visit no longer around?
That’s a good question, and there are probably several answers. I would suspect several of these blogs jumped into existence simply to make a quick buck. As the owners soon found out, making money online takes a lot of work. Others probably just got tired of not being successful - and by that, I mean not having a strong following. Updating a blog is not much fun when nobody ever comments on your posts. Still others may have become too busy in their personal life to continue updating their blog, which is fine.
But, for the life of me, I don’t know why people just totally abandon their sites! If you don’t plan to update it any more, make a post saying so! You at least owe it to your readers to explain why you won’t be updating the blog any longer. I have seen this countless times in the computer hardware website scene, and it’s a real shame. I have seen countless sites (really good sites) come and go, with no explanation. One day, they are seemingly doing great, the next day, they cease to exist or are simply left for dead.
Have any of you seen some of your favorite sites come and go? Or perhaps you are guilty of abandoning a site yourself? Speak up, let’s hear it 
