It is hard to believe that today is the One Year Anniversary for Leisure Freak. The time has really flown by and it has been a great experience. I think back at how I always wanted to learn how to create a web site and how intimidated I was at the prospects of doing so. It isn’t as hard as I thought it would be but boy was I naive about the wide world web and how everything works. I have to admit that it is a lot of work but it must be fun because time blows by without even noticing it.

Today I have 35 static pages and 70 blog posts. I am sure to some that isn’t considered a huge accomplishment for a first year but for me it is huge. My goal was to create a site that explains how I retired young and my awesome passion driven lifestyle and hope that it could be found by someone on the internet where they find useful information for their own journey. I did get off to a slow start after initially signing up to reserve the LesiureFreak.com URL address and loading up the Word Press theme to start learning what needed to be learned.

Blogging.

I initially didn’t plan on having a blog. I was planning on building a static web site because that is what I had wanted to learn how to do. In fact, I really didn’t understand a thing about blogging before starting this site. That is another thing that I have learned about and in doing so also finding out what I had been missing.

There is a wealth of information to be found on blogs and I had just never been introduced to it before starting this journey. Most of my personal searches were to the more institutionalized sites giving the same old and tired traditional content. What I enjoy most about bloggers is they are actually doing what they are writing about for the most part.

Unlike some financial planners who have never retired telling people how to retire early. I have also been blessed by other bloggers reaching out and offering me advice through leaving comments and replying to me. I do really appreciate that.

Site Traffic and Being Found.

It is amazing to think back to the early months how I could Google, Yahoo, or Bing Leisure Freak or my tag line, Retire Early and Often and not be found in the search results. Then one day there I was somewhere around page 10. Now at least when looking for Leisure Freak or Retire Early and Often I can be found on top of page one. I am sure there are those reading this that think big-whoop but like I said I didn’t understand what it takes to be found until after I started this adventure.

As to Leisure Freak’s site traffic, that is another story. Although it is slowly growing it is far from impressive. I really do appreciate my followers and those who happen upon my site and spend some of their time reading what I have written. I plan on writing away and hope that in doing so I will gain a bigger readership someday. If not then I at least have done and learned something that I wanted to do and learn.

Jack-Hole Hackers.

I have learned a lot recently about the Jack-Hole Hackers of this world. I didn’t think a little site like mine would attract so much attention but there for a while it was relentless.

The funny thing is it didn’t happen until after I decided to add Google Adsense to LeisureFreak.com. I knew my traffic was low and the thought of making any money or even hitting the $100 minimum threshold may take months if not years but I was anxious to see how it worked. Soon after activating the ads I noticed frequently repeating Russian and Chinese dating site ads.

I still only had minimal clicks when looking at WP Jetpack Stats but I finally decided to dig deeper into Google Analytics and there I found hundreds of daily clicks from guess where of the world? I added an anti-hack plug-in and I was surprised to see hundreds of daily login attempts to my wp-admin. Good thing I removed the user “Admin” after first setting up my site and my password is over 15 digits long.

Google Disappointment

I found out I could block those dating ads and shortly afterward with only receiving a couple of ad clicks since Adsense activation I was notified that Google deactivated my Adsense account and banned me from ever using it again because they detected invalid activity or activity dangerous to the program. WTF!!!

I have no idea what happened. I didn’t violate the no self-clicking rule so with nothing to go on all I can say is I am done with google. At first I was embarrassed and bummed out about it. Then after researching the issue it seems lots of people get the bump with no explanation and warn there is no sense wasting your time appealing it. I moved from being bummed to being ticked off. I am over it and now over them.

The hacking activity lasted about another 3 weeks after that and has since stopped. Is it a coincidence that all of that started with adding Adsense? Maybe some of you can comment on that for me.

Looking Forward.

I have added 5 new static pages over the past week. I plan on concentrating on building the static site I always wanted to do. I also want to blog one to two pages a week. I do find it difficult to do while I am on my current early retirement side hustle but I will do my best.

Thanks to my Readers.

Again I want to thank my followers and readers of the Leisure Freak site. And as always, I do appreciate all who care to leave comments. Thank you all for making my One Year Anniversary for Leisure Freak the great experience and adventure it has been.

Leisure Freak Tommy