As regular readers may be aware, I have recently changed the design of the site. Very observant readers may note - once this 301 starts working correctly anyway - that the web address has changed: from http://thewagnerian.blogspot.com to www.the-wagnerian.com (and to all Internet marketing gurus who are shaking their heads no doubt I simply like the hyphen - call me old fashioned). The reasons? Three really:1 - Its shorter
2 - At some stage I intend to move to a better CMS then I am presently using. Having a personal domain now will make that far easier in the future. If your wondering, that simply means that I should be able to offer more advanced features to you dear reader - allowing better access to Wagner information. I have not implemented this yet as I wish to take much time with the design. One would hate to have the issues being suffered by those poor "techies" over at the ROH's ticket booking service - who have my genuine sympathies.
3 - I hate the increased censorship of the Internet based on political motives and demands. This may take a little explaining to those unaware of what has recently taking place with blogger sub domains.In essence, Blogger has introduced Country Specific URL's redirection for all BlogSpot domains. To explain this I will use the following example:
Till recently The Wagnerian's web address was: thewagnerian.blogspot.com. However, as of a few days ago the web address that you, dear reader, would see at the top of your browser would be specific to your country. So, if you lived in the USA it would be: thewagnerian.blogspot.us; in the UK thewagnerian.blogspot.co.uk; in India: thewagnerian.blogspot.in.
Now, while this might not seem much of an issue, one might want to investigate the reason for this (what is known as a country specific 302 re-direct). Let us thus ask Google themselves:
TW: So tell us Google, why did you go to the bother of making these changes?
Google: "Migrating to localized domains will allow us to continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law. By utilizing ccTLDs, content removals can be managed on a per country basis, which will limit their impact to the smallest number of readers. Content removed due to a specific country’s law will only be removed from the relevant ccTLD".
TW: Freedom of speech? Well that sounds a worthy cause and reason. Thanks for that google.
Google: "Your welcome, Now you must excuse us as we still need to spend the billions in our "patents war-chest" that we made from censoring, on-demand, the Internet in China.
TW. Your welcome and thanks for...hang on a minute...!
In essence, the recent change by google means that should you have a blog who's content is a subject a particular country dislikes then google can simply block it from being viewed in said country. A little oversimplified but in essence that's the rationale. As I said, while there are "workarounds" for this at the moment (a simple piece of code after ones heading tag in ones template should suffice) the entire thing leaves a rather nasty taste in ones mouth and ( like advertising and "sponsored posts" - e mailers take note) is not something I wish to be part of. So please, excuse my little idiosyncrasies.
Anyway, so what does this name change mean to you? Nothing at all, assuming I have done this right. Any bookmarks, feeds, links etc should work as normal and be redirected.
If you do have any problems please let me know and I will attempt to correct. If you should happen to have a link here or a book mark then it would - should you get the time - be appreciated if you could update to the new address, which is: