This new video series has been in the works for a couple of years. I was getting ready to launch it in the third quarter of 2011, but when Google drastically slashed the amount of traffic it was sending to this website in mid-July of that year, I put the series on the back burner. This is the reality of life on the Internet. Google controls the bulk of the traffic to content websites. They decide who gets traffic and who does not. Is it fair? Absolutely not. Is it reality? Absolutely. The sites that do exceedingly well in the rankings today are big sites that can afford staffs that specialize in search engine optimization, as well as those that use tactics that optimize their rankings. Smaller sites, particularly one person operations, are simply out of luck in Google’s new world order. Quite simply, they determine what you see.
Nearly two years later, I couldn’t wait any longer to launch. Lacking any major sponsors, I thought it best to take the project to Kickstarter to see how it would fare. After the first day or so, it’s attracted a wee bit of attention, but needs to see a whole lot more to reach escape velocity.
Ain’t Fuelin’ seeks to do what’s never been done in a video series before. We want to take a stream of used vehicles and apply proven techniques and technologies to incrementally improve fuel efficiency. We want to lead by doing. We want to do it all on video. And we need your help to make it happen.
As luck would have it, Google ran another “algorithm update” around the time our Kickstarter campaign launched for the new show. This change prevented even more folks from finding this website. There’s a lot of talk in the country about the harm caused by the Sequester in Washington, D.C. Now I can’t speak to that, but I can say, without any reservation at this point, that Google pushed me off the fiscal cliff.
The entire point of this website is not to make a pile of money from advertising – like so many sites aim for – but to help folks out. Transportation fuel is a huge chunk of the monthly budget for many families. We want to help folks tame that beast.
– by Daniel Gray
Interesting idea Dan but wouldn’t it be easier to just find someone with an old car to modify instead of raising funds to buy one?
@Car News – That may indeed be part of the plan as this proceeds. Keep in mind that we need to be ready for a vehicle with 200K miles to blow up on the dyno. Would you be willing to lend a car to the effort knowing that might happen?
That said, we plan to spend as little as possible to acquire the first mules …