A couple of days ago I wrote a blog article expressing some complaints about the Dickinson Press newspaper becoming an online newspaper.  One of my complaints was that the online newspaper keeps showing the same old articles day after day, with very few new articles.

My main complaint was that the owner of the Dickinson Press now wants everyone to pay in order to read their online newspaper.  I am not about to pay to read the Dickinson Press online, because in my opinion it is no longer good enough to pay for, and I don’t want to pay for anything on the internet.

This past week, I was surprised to see that my blog website’s statistics show a doubling of views.  I was trying to figure out why, I didn’t think that any of my articles were better than what I usually write.  Then, I thought that maybe because people are stuck at home due to the coronavirus, they are bored and spending more time on the internet.

What has happened, is that people are staying home and using the internet more, and in trying to find things to read about news and current events in Dickinson, like me, the Dickinson Press newspaper online has blocked Dickinson residents from reading any more newspaper articles until they sign up for a paid subscription.

Because my blog website is one of the only other internet sites besides the Dickinson Press that writes stories about Dickinson daily, more and more people in Dickinson are reading my articles because they are free, and because they are blocked from reading Dickinson Press newspaper articles without a paid subscription.

The owners, managers, editors, reporters, and advertising people at the Dickinson Press newspaper would never intentionally try to send more and more viewers to my website, but that is what they have done.

There is something that I have not mentioned before regarding my blog website.  Business owners, politicians, the Chamber of Commerce, Catholics, the Catholic Church, and associations in Dickinson, several years ago they began trying to bury my website.

I recollect that back in 2015 or 2016, either the Chamber of Commerce, some association, or business organization in Dickinson was hosting a several day seminar about online media optimization.  How to make your business website rise to the top of the internet search results.

It was not long after one of these travelling internet optimization salesmen came to Dickinson, that I saw a deliberate attempt to bury my blog website articles, specifically the ones about the Catholic Church.

People in Dickinson began paying consultants to get my website articles to disappear.  I found out at least four separate ways that this was being done, which I am not about to tell these steps 1, 2, 3, and 4.

I will say that one of the things that a consultant explained to the Dickinson Chamber of Commerce, is that there are many internet marketing companies that have a generic template, that they use to fill in the blanks about a city or town, and can be used to pose as an actual knowledgeable authority or news source for the city or town.

For instance, beginning in about 2016 and 2017, niche.com, bestplaces.net, areavibes.com, city-data.com, livability.com, and homesnacks.net began using all of my website “tags” and internet search terms related to Dickinson, in order to get their website ahead of mine on the internet search results.

To be clear about this, when I first started my blog website “Living In Dickinson, North Dakota”, for a couple of years my blog website would appear at the top of the first page of Google search results on any day.  For a couple of years, there were no niche.com, bestplaces.net, areavibes.com, livability.com, or homesnacks.net internet articles about Dickinson.

It wasn’t until an internet search optimization consultant was asked for help, that it was pointed out that there are many internet marketing companies that can be hired to pose as a legitimate news source providing favorable information about a city or town, to counteract negative news stories and reports about a city or town.

If you have ever read one of these internet marketing websites that pretend to have accurate information about a city or town, you will see that a generic template is used, and only generic, general, non-specific, favorable statements are made, such as:  “good schools”, “low crime”, “many parks”, “opportunities for recreation”, “good employment”, “friendly people”, whether these statements are true or not.  The people who wrote this information have never even been to Dickinson.

Because the Dickinson Press newspaper online has blocked viewers who do not have a paid subscription from reading their articles, and internet users in Dickinson have begun to look elsewhere for news stories about Dickinson, they have now found out that all of the sites like bestplaces.net, areavibes.com, city-data.com, livability.com, and homesnacks.net are fake, bullshit sites, written by people who have never even been to Dickinson.

I now have a renewed feeling of enthusiasm and purpose in writing blog website articles.  Because of the sudden unexpected crisis caused by the coronavirus and OPEC flooding the market with cheap oil, people believe that they were misled, lied to, not told the truth, kept in the dark, and were used.  They are ready to hear and take a look at what actually might be going on, instead of listening to lies and bullshit from places like the Chamber of Commerce and business press releases given to the newspapers that are reported as facts.