Yes, it’s Rugby-Talk.com’s birthday today!

On 28 July 2009 a number of us packed our goodies and left the place where we previously discussed rugby, because it was’nt pleasant to discuss rugby anymore. Our discussions there was marred by terrible fighting between bloggers, by racial slurring and racial abuse and it was a shambles, to say the least.

We had our own “THING” in mind and amongst us there were 2 IT guys, myself and a chap called Ed-The Lion. We immediately started a temporary blog where a few friends continued to discuss rugby, whilst I started constructing our new home, Rugby-Talk.com.

At that stage web design was not my strong point or my expertice, but as an avid and accomplished coder, I set to work and chose the WordPress platform after proper research.

I signed Rugby-Talk.com on at the Web Hosts, Bluehost.com in the States, as it looked like they would provide a long term stable hosting scenario. I installed WordPress on the webspace and created our SQL Database and then started making use of one of the many free WordPress Themes out there (one which was quite adaptable, namely the Atahualpa Theme).

Soon we had a little Rugby-Talk Logo going and the bare essentials as far as Plugins are concerned and on 13 August 2009 we placed our FIRST ARTICLE and our FIRST PAGES and the site went live, with initial bloggers like Grootblousmile, Pietman, SuperBul, Supa Die Bloubul, KingPaul, Ed-The Lion, AB, Cuzzy, Kwagga Robertse, isigidi, Koos, SA Barbarians & K9.

We were a group of friends, no more and no less… who shared a love for rugby.

Soon some of our other blogging friends joined, whilst some other folks deliberately shun Rugby-Talk.com because they had not seen eye to eye with us at the previous website, from which we had migrated.

In no time Rugby-Talk.com got busier and busier and the public out there started to become aware of us.

None of us were journalists, but we soon adapted and we got better and better at playing rugby journalist, whilst our content soon expanded and started improving, due to pure hard work and a passion for our game.

On 31 October 2009 I decided to start measuring Page Impressions on the website and applied a Plugin for that measure, which we still use to this day, 11.3 Million Page Impressions later.

Some more Plugins were added as time went on, some were kept, some were discarded and some were replaced by better ones as time went on and as our experience grew. We have even written some of our own unique Plugins and features now.

We soon outgrew our Web Host, where we experienced serious CPU Throttling as well as other issues due to our busy nature and the traffic we started generating… and it was time to move on.

We moved to HostGator.com, to their smallest available Shared Server Hosting package, but what a hectic move that was! I remember our migration so well, because we were off air for 4 days! The migration process happened whilst we had not yet fully grasped the concepts of Domain Transfer and Renewal, Name Server Pointing and the time delays caused by Propagation of the website on the new Web Host Servers.

Before we knew it, our first and second birthdays had come and gone and some of the initial bloggers had moved on, replaced by a host of new friends.

The website kept growing at a steady pace and soon enough I realised we would have to go to an even bigger hosting package at HostGator… and since then we have upped that package twice more.

After a few years we had mastered the basics and had everything well-covered and had already applied and been accepted for Accreditation with some of the South African Rugby Unions.

Our entrenched policy of respect, no politics, no racism and no discussion about religion worked like a charm and the word soon spread that Rugby-Talk.com was The Friendly Rugby Website & Discussion Forum. Our growth started accellerating… it became an exponential curve!

In 2013 it was apparent that we were becoming a threat to existing competitors and in 2014 we overhauled the last rugby blogging competitor, when he abandoned his loyal followers. A lot of those loyalists were our friends from years before and it was only logical for us to embrace them and to welcome them here at Rugby-Talk.com, which we duly did.

Early 2014 also saw the need to code and design our own unique “Look and Feel” and webdesign and not to make use of 3Rd Party Themes anymore. Once again I jumped to accommodate… by now a seasoned web designer for clients and to the public, and an accomplished coder in the Scripts and Languages which are commonly used on the internet, namely HTML, PHP, CSS, JavaScript and I also was quite adept at managing SQL Databases. I am now also miles down the road and with huge experience on a number of Webdesign Software Platforms.

Rugby-Talk.com’s new Logo saw the light, we started acting as sponsors to some worthwhile rugby and other causes… Business Cards, Posters and Marketing Material was ordered and all the ducks were placed in a row to start with a Commercial arm for Rugby-Talk.com – to cover the expenses which up to now had been carried solely by myself.

A Marketing Team was assembled, appointed and instructed – consisting of 3 experienced Advertising Gurus with a combined 57 years experience in the Advertising Industry. Initial Rate Cards, Marketing Material and Business Proposals were prepared and just recently the first feelers were sent into the market for the first Adverts to be placed on Rugby-Talk.com.

More development had to follow to code the Advertising Backbone of the website, which has to make proper provision for full Statistical and Measuring Analysis to be applied and presented to Advertisers and initial trials had to be done, which have now been completed.

The start of this week finally saw the Marketing Team going out to the world out there, to market our product. It has to be reported that initial progress has been exceptionally good.

Today on our 5th birthday, Rugby-Talk.com’s Marketing Team managed to sell it’s first official R 15 000.00 worth of Advertising space and there is already another R 198 000.00 in the pipeline. It is baby steps from here forward but Rugby-Talk.com now has the potential to become a powerhouse in the Rugby Media world!

All of this would not have been possible without pure dedication, countless hours of hard work and without the invaluable input and contributions by so many people.

As a community we need to praise and thank our Authors here on Rugby-Talk, for the brilliant content and we need to recognize and appreciate every single contributor, subscriber and reader of Rugby-Talk.com who have made this website and this community what it is.

But what is Rugby-Talk.com to me and to you?

Hopefully the joint happy answer is that it is our Rugby Home and Haven, where we enjoy our rugby passion and where we take rugby news to the whole world!

Here’s an invitation to all out there, join up with us, register with us, talk rugby with us… and enrich your rugby experience!

One again a pleasure to let you know what’s potting here at Rugby-Talk Central!

Regards,

Rudi Geldenhuys

(Webmaster grootblousmile)