Last Thursday, at around 5pm, I launched a new site: its-not-its.info.* It's a single page, very simply and straightforwardly explaining the difference between it's and its, and when to use each.
It was completed in just a couple hours, from domain registration to debut. It was instigated by seeing one too many apostrophes where there shouldn't have been any. It's such a simple thing, yet so many people get it wrong. I pulled the copy together from my personal knowledge and reference books, designed a page and a masthead (yes, I used Times New Roman on purpose -- think of it as speaking in an authoritative voice), dropped in Adsense and posted it on a hosting account I already had. Linked it up on Twitter and tweaked it a bit overnight.
Thanks to Coudal and 37signals, the site got a few thousand visits in 24 hours. Add in Stumbleupon, and It's not Its has received more than 20,000 visits in its first four days of existence, and earned about $5 in ad revenue. It'll pay for itself in about a week!
So, next steps. My plan is to add Amazon referral links to grammar and style books, and to create a couple more similar sites: I've registered there-theyre-their.info, your-not-youre.info, effect-affect.info and a couple others. If I can keep the google-juice going, this little collection of sites should, at minimum, pay for themselves each month, and possibly make a little profit -- while helping dispell the confusion on some of the most tenacious mistakes in the English language.
*Why the hyphens? Well, itsnotits.info just didn't read quite right.
4 Comments / Leave a comment
Love the idea, Andrew. Keep 'em going and please earn a profit for restating the obvious to those it's not obvious to already.
What, no that-which-who.info?
Thanks, Justin.
Brad, I'll add that one to the list, along with lose-not-loose.info.
This is such a great idea Andrew. Just the other day, I received two emails at work saying, "your welcome." I was scratching my head.
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Andrew Huff is editor and co-founder of Gapers Block. He writes ...well, just about anything, for a living. Email him at a.huff@this domain. The site's RSS feed is here.
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