OK… I got it. Trying to run several different blogs on the site was a pain in the ass. Not just for me, but for you. Up until today I was running SE Tattler, Blogging Tips, and my “personal” blog on the same site and server, but on separate Wordpress installs.

The original logic was sound, I believe, but proved to be far more time consuming for myself as well as my readers.

Why did I try it? Well, it’s worked wonders for my political site, ConservaBlogs.com. Over at CB we have more than 20 Wordpress installs running on the same domain and server. Google is LOVING having each independent site with a different political niche on its own install. Each blog also has its own sitemap, and the search engine traffic is constantly on the rise.

In fact, it’s fairly safe to say that we’ll be breaking 90,000 unique visits per month over at CB from here on out. Time and time again I’ve posted a page that went on to outrank BIG sites like RealClearPolitics and ABC News within a matter of minutes. Some of those keyphrases brought an instead 900+ unique visits.

So in theory, I was going to try and replicate that model. But the flaw is that here at FVM, I’m the only blogger. Meaning, I personally have to populate all of the blogs with fresh content, and those of you who like to read what I have to say are forced to track feeds for multiple blogs.

Not very user friendly.

So, after getting an e-mail from a long time friend this morning which basically rebuked me, rightfully so, for trying to run this site like CB, I decided to spend some time today restructuring the entire site.

It’s a bummer because I just finished getting a design in place that I liked and was ready to work with. But it is what it is. This will be much better moving forward.

While the timing was bad because I had just finished up installing and customizing a new look and feel, it was good because the guys over at Daily Blog Tips just cranked out a great “earth tones” theme that fits my needs.

I think I’m going to stick with this one. I just finished importing the posts for the other blogs, and I’m currently cleaning up the category mess it caused. Once I finish that, I’ll start shaping the template to fit my needs and get everything up to speed.

This is good news for all of us. For me, it means I now only have to post to one blog here at FVM. For you it means you only have to follow one feed to get the goods.

I hope this helps. And I’m sorry for all of the confusion. It’s being sorted out.