One of my earlier websites was called WhatIsSprayPaintArt.com. The site was intended to promote spray-paint affiliate products while showcasing artists’ work and giving visitors ideas. The name described the general subject, but it was also constructed around something I imagined people might search for. Looking back, the “what is” part feels clumsy. It makes the … Read more
I once broke one of my own websites while using FileZilla. FileZilla allowed me to access the website files stored on the hosting server. I was following a tutorial about removing folders left behind by plugins that had not deleted properly. The idea was to remove a few unwanted folders. Instead, I deleted important plugin … Read more
Seeing your website receive more impressions in Google Search Console usually feels like progress. An impression means that one of your pages has appeared somewhere in Google’s search results. Even if nobody clicks immediately, rising impressions can suggest that Google is discovering more of your content and beginning to test it for different searches. That … Read more
An all-in-one website platform is often the easier starting point for a complete beginner. It reduces the number of accounts, services and support teams you must coordinate while you are still learning how a website works. Separate WordPress hosting can cost much less and give you more choice and control. The difficulty is that you … Read more
Starting a hobby website can sound far more technical than it really is. You hear about domains, hosting, WordPress, themes, plugins, email, security, backups, SEO and analytics. Then someone mentions FTP or SMTP and it begins to feel as though you need an IT qualification before you can write about gardening, fishing, model railways or … Read more
AI Mode can gather information from many webpages and combine it into a useful answer. But what happens when it moves beyond summarising those sources and begins diagnosing a problem, ranking possible causes or deciding what someone should do first? That question matters to hobby website builders. If AI can answer every hobby question by … Read more
I recently needed to have a double-bed mattress topper washed. It was too large for my domestic washing machine, so I searched online for a nearby launderette. I found one reasonably close to me and visited its website. At first, everything looked promising. The website said the launderette was open from 8am until 8pm, seven … Read more
Google AI Mode can do something traditional search results could not do nearly as well. It can take a complicated real-world problem, break it into smaller questions, gather information from several sources and assemble the pieces into what appears to be one complete solution. That is the clever part. But a series of experiments on … Read more
In an earlier experiment, Google AI Mode recommended a true-crime book as a birthday present, identified nearby Birmingham bookshops and confidently suggested that I could collect the perfect book. The problem was that it had not confirmed whether any recommended title was actually in stock. That raised a broader question: Was AI Mode mainly struggling … Read more
Google AI Mode can do far more than answer a simple factual question. It can interpret preferences, search across different topics, combine local information and present what appears to be a complete solution. But does it always verify the final detail that makes the solution usable? I ran a simple test involving a birthday present … Read more