Big websites now dead (due to company decisions)

All the webs I created for a huge company are now dead)

[explorador]

Intro:several years ago I had a job at some big local media company (they own radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, print businesses, marketing research, etc.), I did digital work (photo, editing, and some software development). The web was growing exponentially, and the iPhone didn't exist, yet, but cell phones started to become a big part of the market.

The first website: they (the company) had an "expert" developing one key website (traveling), and they invested a lot of money there. I knew the guy, no bashing intended... he wasn't such an expect, but he was considered as such because he was actually very good at selling himself as a product and as a guru. You may not be surprised that the web development got stuck, and the guy put the company on hold because he was receiving business opportunities along this path. It's amazing how people who are so demanding accepted this treatment by him.

I got involved: by that time I already had my own personal website solidly positioned, somehow related to the stuck company website, so, we talked at my department to ask for "that" website to be handed to us. It happened, and I created a whole new website from scratch with the full support of the company. We were given a few months to show results, and we did, we were climbing search engine positions fast and received email comments every week (about 5 human written emails per week), this jumped to 5 daily on average.

Backfiring? it was just one website growing strong, and as a result of our good work, the company gave us eventually 4 other digital realms, being 5 in total. The funny thing is, despite showing more ROI, the budget was cut to the minimum. I didn't mind, I received a promotion, my own office with AC, really cool, and a raise, but we became "the most productive website operators on low budget". At least they paid me to travel for some years.

How big?the websites grew reaching 7K daily visitors (the original one, the largest), and similar numbers for the other websites. Magazine content was being published, I took care of the SEO, and personally crafted the articles myself for the travel website (I was also the one traveling). This website then was translated to english, german and italian, even wrote the code for a forum.

↑ This is no ego trip, it's context, and I'm not worried that people here at WebmasterWorld may see this as an ego trip, why? because I'm ABSOLUTEY SURE others around here have developed LARGER websites with eve more daily traffic. And probably, they won't be surprised by what happens next.

The problems: after some years going up in numbers, suddenly everyone wanted a piece of the cake to manage the traffic, the design or the direct advertising. Suddenly we didn't speak about writing content... no, everything became about power struggles between different departments, and yes, some were proposing to replace me with some fancy "gurus" who had absolutely no experience with anything alike.

I wrote the CMS, and later when I began planning my exit from the company, we had a bitter conversation about how things could be managed without me, and I got lucky that we all agreed that MY CODE was MINE, not theirs. So, I migrated every single page of every single website to Drupal, so others could take my place in the future. The company had other digital properties with lower traffic operating on WordPress <--- and it was a total nightmare of hacking and internal server error constantly despite searching for better servers.

Now, get ready for what happened next.

[explorador]

I left the company, I absolutely hated how they were "trying to manage the websites", they were making a lot of mistakes and listening to no one.

Me, telling them "this is not going to work", was constantly taken as if I was trying to refuse other interactions, I guess you understand how ugly this could get. Long story short, they put a guy in my chair who couldn't do 1/3 of what I was doing (no ego, just a description of the situation).

The fun begins:
Now, gone, outside, I visited the websites monthly, or at least a few times per year (sometimes more). At times, I would find internal server errors or -not found- "accidents", and the traffic went down, every year fading from the search results. The websites became weaker despite having the support from the company and a team of people writing stuff for the magazines (ending on the websites too).

Then... the newspaper crisis hit the world, major companies were having issues to keep their newspapers online, and this also affected this company. They had to let go A LOT of people, some injustices were made and the company shrunk.

One by one I noticed their websites disappear, all of them except 2, the largest ones (that also became a brand on their own).

Finally, the travel website was killed, only one website remained.

A couple of months ago this last website remained stuck, frozen, not just the same content: FOREVER LOADING.

And today, they removed it.

Not a single website remains.

I'm surprised by how things can go wrong, I mean... Ħat this level!, multiple departments and lots of people "working together" with some pretty decent budget for years, and instead of making things better, they make them worse. For context, keep in mind some webmasters on their own, or with a small team have been able to build larger projects and stay online for longer periods of time. Now the company remains only with the newspaper website.

This feels weird, a mix of sadness... and a bit of joy!

[engine]

Thanks for that story of success to failure.
From what you described, whoever was in charge wasn't really taking charge: tail wagging the dog.
The publishing business has changed to an almost new type of business, and change needs embracing.
Over many years of working with many businesses I've seen it before.
That mix of sadness and joy is completely understandable.

[not2easy]

Building a site (whether your own or for a client) is a task that takes up time, effort and talents, carefully arranging all the parts required and making it work as expected. Others working on the same task do not have the same insight as to what and why that went into it so it is easy for them to break the parts and make your work seem less valuable to the client. That's on them and whoever told them to change things, but it can feel like a personal assault when it is more likely just incompetence. It is a shame but it is on the owners, not on you.

[Martin Potter]

Is it really joy or just some small degree of self-satisfaction?

But there is nothing wrong with self-satisfaction and you are entitled to it. You knew what you were doing and you did it right, while others did not and they failed in the end, in spite of your best efforts to help them while you were there.

[Kendo]

suddenly everyone wanted a piece of the cake to manage the traffic, the design or the direct advertising - everything became about power struggles between different departments

I have seen this too many times. People in management wanting to take control over what they have no clue about. For some we migrated the site to WordPress and others just collapsed due to the lack of everything that was needed - all they now have is a Facebook page.

I no longer work on client websites - the last one being for a bestie who retired last year - his games import/wholesale business was purchased by his main competitor, ie: a happy ending for all.

[explorador]

Engine: Thanks for that story of success to failure.
From what you described, whoever was in charge wasn't really taking charge: tail wagging the dog.
The publishing business has changed to an almost new type of business, and change needs embracing.
Over many years of working with many businesses I've seen it before.
That mix of sadness and joy is completely understandable.

Exactly. Here, we have discussed delicate topics like... how to make certain changes to a website while preserving the link structure. Then you see people like in this company forcing migrations to systems that won't work while also killing every single link... they just don't know what they are doing.

I can understand the industry has changed a lot and there is a lot of competition, but a company with such budget surely could have done better.

It's funny, back in the day I could contact different businesses to arrange a visit FOR FREE, and I would receive special treatment. But then, doing the same ended in discussions, rejection, etc., I got better results avoiding the name of the company and just saying it was for a travel website (along with my name), sure there was some social exhaustion. The company was a local leader, until they lost their crown.

[explorador]

not2easy: Building a site (whether your own or for a client) is a task that takes up time, effort and talents, carefully arranging all the parts required and making it work as expected.

And when it's built and fully working, every one wants a piece of the cake, as if they could change the shape of the website into whatever thing they can imagine and still retain the traffic.

not2easy: but it can feel like a personal assault when it is more likely just incompetence. It is a shame but it is on the owners, not on you.

Yes, it felt like that. I guess due to personal knowledge and experience I knew what was going to happen, and they didn't. But then, it's sad they just refused to listen.

[explorador]

Martin Potter: Is it really joy or just some small degree of self-satisfaction?

But there is nothing wrong with self-satisfaction and you are entitled to it. You knew what you were doing and you did it right, while others did not and they failed in the end, in spite of your best efforts to help them while you were there.

Joy because finally those sites are dead!, and self satisfaction because nobody could replicate what I did there.

Thanks, there is nothing wrong feeling that.

[explorador]

kendo: I have seen this too many times. People in management wanting to take control over what they have no clue about.

Exactly.

kendo: For some we migrated the site to WordPress and others just collapsed due to the lack of everything that was needed - all they now have is a Facebook page.

Back in the day someone was hired as an "expert", and convinced the company the future was Wordpress. They begin migrating all the websites to Wordpress (except those 5 under my wing) only to see every single website failing due to overloads, and still continued. All those websites had marginal traffic, not even compared to the big 5.

I could never understand how a team of people could insist on doing something when it was evident it didn't work.