Happy Anniversary TAB!

Did you know The Automation Blog turned four years old last month?

And that during that time we’ve had over half a million unique visitors stop by, generating well over one million page views?

The reason all those people visited The Automation Blog is quite simple: They wanted access to our 500 free technical “how to” articles, and 200 free “how-to” videos.

Patronage

As our regular readers know, while I love technology and creating how-to articles and videos, I don’t enjoy taking time away from those activities to manage the advertising required to cover our free blog’s server costs.

That in mind, I want to take a moment to thank those eight awesome readers who have pledged $1 or more a month to become our patrons at Automation.Locals.com!

In appreciation of their pledges, I’ll soon be merging AutomationFiles.com and AutomationTutorials.com into a single new upgraded site where Patrons will be able to download their monthly “patron rewards,” as well as where anyone can sell automation related tutorials and sample code to our community.

The FTC

Speaking of funding, it seems that the FTC is cracking down on blogs that don’t make it abundantly clear that they’re receiving funding from Ads, and commission from Affiliates Links.

So to insure The Automation Blog is in full compliance, I’ve expanded our site’s footer with additional information to insure it’s very clear how our blog sometimes makes revenue from these sources.

Simply put, if you click on an Ad, or Amazon / Ebay link on our site, we may make a small amount of revenue.

And while only a tiny fraction of our twenty five thousand monthly visitors click on these links, thankfully the revenue has been enough to keep our site free and online.

The Future

I plan to write more about this over on my personal blog, TheAutomationGuy.com, but the short version is that I hope to continue to grow our library of over 500 free articles and 200 free videos in The Automation Blog’s fifth year.

Of course, how much I can add to either is directly tied to our funding, including if we pick up any sponsors or new patrons, as well as if any of you submit “guest blogs.”

So if you’d like to see us grow our free library of articles and videos in year five, don’t hesitate to contact us about sponsoring The Automation Blog or sharing a guest blog, or by becoming a patron at Automation.Locals.com.

And if you’ld like to comment on this (or any) article, feel free to do so in our free forum, automation.locals.com.

Until next time, Peace ✌️ 

Shawn M Tierney
Technology Enthusiast & Content Creator

Have a question? Join my community of automation professionals and take part in the discussion! You'll also find my PLC, HMI, and SCADA courses at TheAutomationSchool.com.

If you found this content helpful, consider buying me a coffee here.

Shawn Tierney

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