ALERT! Changes coming to this blog!

Just so you are not caught off guard, I'll be making some changes to this blog in the coming days. The Feed URL will be changing over to FeedBurner, and the primary URL will change from a BlogSpot domain to http://blog.strongbackconsulting.com. The new address currently acts as a redirect to http://thejavablues.blogspot.com.

The reason for the changes are several fold:

1. This blog regularly comes up in search engine hits, whereas the company site only occasionally shows. The company site NEVER showed up in any hits before we changed the UI for it. We would like to increase traffic to the company site to increase our lead generation.
   
2. We will have better hit ratings on the Strongback website if this blog shares the domain name as well as the similar navigation as the Strongback site.
3. This move will allow us the flexibility to move the whole blog over in the future to an in house system (such as WCM, or Lotus Connections) should we decide to do so. Once the new URL and feed addresses have had time to settle in, its very easy to redirect the subdomains to new IP addresses on servers that we manage.
4. This move will greatly increase our SEO effectiveness.
5. The UI is dated and does not properly reflect the brand of the company that it represents (but it was MUCH better than the previous company site). Now the blog needs to catch up to the company site so that it better matches the branding, the theme of which is "Craftsmanship".
6. We've already removed the AdSense links on the site - as if I want to advertise for my competitors on my blog site! Now we have some other links that we would like to add or remove as well, in accordance with the brand.

So, please be sure to update your Feed addresses in Google Reader, Bloglines, Newsgator, or whatever you are using for your RSS/ATOM reader. Google assures us that the move will leave a 301 redirect at the old address, so we are hopeful that that is true. Just in case, be sure and update your bookmarks and reader configs just the same!