SMS Directory online since 2001
SMS Directory online since 2001 |
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TextMeFree is 10 Years Old..."Happy Birthday to TextMeFree.com"...TextMeFree - the free sms directory - is 10 years old on June 14th, 2011. And to celebrate, we're running a competition to let you win up to 3650 free sms credits from Localphone. Crazy! You'll also find a short-ish history of TextMeFree.com, if you're interested in that sort of thing. (Hey, you might be!) But first, an 'amusing' video birthday tribute to TextMeFree... You can find more videos from TextMeFree here...
Win 3650 Free SMS Credits at LocalphoneBecome a fan of our Facebook page...To celebrate TextMeFree's 10th birthday on June 14th, 2011, we're giving you the chance to win up to 10 years of free sms credits that you can use at Localphone (10 years, if you use 1 free sms credit per day - geddit!). So here's how the 'win free sms' competition works:
Simple. As. That. Become a Facebook fan of TextMeFree, and win! :-) * Full list of competition rules can be found on the Facebook page. ( Back to top ) A Short-ish History of TextMeFree...In The Beginning...Back in 2000, I had just given up my job as contract computer programmer, to try my hand out at (loosely) 'working for myself' as a web designer. And sending text messages from your mobile phone was starting to get very popular, too (especially in UK). At a cost, though, usually 10p a go. And that's when I discovered it was possible to send free sms text messages online, via a website. Not only were the messages free, but you could type the message - so it was much quicker to send. Trouble is, I could never find a good free sms site - I kept on having to go back to Google (the new search engine of choice for those in the know back in 2001), to search for a half-decent free sms site. ( Back to top ) Create What Isn't There - A Reliable Source of Free SMS Sites...So, buoyed by new-found website promotion skills a la HowIPromoteMyWebsite.com - and a desire to see how easy it would be to get a website onto the first page of Google for the keyword term 'free sms' - I decided to create a directory of free sms sites, and call it TextMeFree.com (my first choice domain, TextFree.com, was taken at the time). Eh, voilá, TextMeFree.com was born circa June 2001
And this is what the site first looked like around that time... TextMeFree - a few weeks old (2001)**
Note: You can see why I didn't become a web designer, though, can't you! Anyway, this is how the site's design changed over the years... ( Back to top ) TextMeFree - 4 years old (2005)**
TextMeFree - 5 years old (2005)**
TextMeFree - 8 years old (2009)**
( Back to top ) The Rise and Fall (and Rise and Fall) of TextMeFree...It didn't take long for TextMeFree.com to be on page #1 of Google for the term 'free sms'. And, via revenue sources such as pay-per-click search engine Espotting and, much later, Google Adsense, I had an every-increasing passive source of income. Yeehah! And the site was soon reaching several thousand unique visitors per day.
So I created more sms-related pages...And so I started adding more sms-related pages - ringtones (remember Jamster's Annoying Frog?), sms dictionary, sms poems, jokes and even, in 2010, lurve sms made its debut. I also started to optimise my pages too much for terms like 'free sms' - the ease of earning money with Google Adsense started to make everyone 'competitive'. ( Back to top ) Site crashes from Google (twice!) - yikesSo it was in Sept. 2005 - ah, I remember it well! - that my site got penalised on Google. Overnight, my traffic dropped by 70%, and so did my income. Yikes! (I know, this is NOT a good business model - tell me about it!) Thankfully - and possibly a forerunner of positive things to come (namely, my self-help site SelfHelpCollective.com) - I responded positively to this disastrous turn of events (I'd only just committed myself to buying a new home a month earlier). And this is what I did:
The free traffic to my site never fully returned, but the jolt to my system meant that my income eventually increased and increased until I started earning more than ever from TextMeFree. Earnings started to dip from the site as 'Adsense fatigue' took hold - visitors started either actively blocking the ads, or just plain ignoring 'em, tch tch - and the dip got worse recently (April 2011), as it seems to have fallen foul of the Google Panda update. But the site will recover, because the content on the site will improve (It's already improving - there are already new messaging apps being listed. Free SMS will soon be replaced by instant messaging done via mobile phones.) ( Back to top )
What next for TextMeFree.com?...Well, at time of writing, it's June 1st 2011. In 2 weeks TextMeFree will be 10 years old. And I, for one, am very proud that the sites still going strong. And in that time the following has happened:
But, as to what happens next right now, I guess I will continue improving the site, so I'm here in another 10 years time*...
* Unless, of course, I win the lottery. And then I'd be happy to sell TextMeFree.com - but only to a loving owner, naturally! :-)
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