MyParenTime's Family Community Thanks You for 24 Amazing Years!
Our Story...
MyParenTime began in 1997 as one small website on the free service, Angelfire.com. It was created by one mom... me. I wanted to create a website that offered all kinds of information to parents. I wanted to share information on anything and everything. I wrote numerous articles and provided information on a lot of different topics, but when I started to get requests to advertise, I knew I had outgrown Angelfire and moved my website (which consisted of articles, checklists, and child safety), to it's own domain. This is how my 4 websites were born.
MyParenTime.com started offering ads throughout the website, which had begun to grow. At the end there were thousands of pages filled with articles on parenting, children & family, health, education, safety, internet-related, and business & finance, many fun online games, calculators, BBT Charting, Breastfeeding Guide, Hints & Tips, special reviews, movie reviews, book and product reviews and more. I also published my own Hall of Shame, listing information on copyright infringers, of which I had my share of. I also published an informative page filled with information about spammers and Joe Jobs, which I also personally experienced. It definitely was a learning experience.
MyParenTime.com was mentioned in books (print & digital), newspapers (online & print), magazines (online & print), television & movie sites (online & print), radio (online & print), interviews, schools & educational websites, organizations, non-profits and various other resource websites.
A short time later, a few of the sections outgrew MyParenTime.com, so I moved them to their own domains as well. PrintableChecklists.com offered hundreds of free checklists and I created checklists for free at the request of website visitors. Years later when it was apparent that other people were stealing my checklists and placing them behind the walls of their own paid membership websites (some still in existence), I created a separate section on PrintableChecklists.com and began charging a nominal fee for those premium checklists (at most $2 each). I also created 2 checklist books, which were sold for a short period of time (My Babysitter's Checklist & My Dog's Checklists & Journal). PrintableChecklists.com was mentioned in numerous places through the years - in books (print & digital), newspapers (online & print), magazines (online & print), television (online & print), radio (online & print), online articles, and numerous organizations.
StopSexOffenders.com was my child & family safety website. It contained numerous articles, child safety tips, family safety, safety for women, survivor and stalker information, and so much more. It also offered a lot of good solid information from well-known safety experts, who graciously allowed me to share their knowledge on our website. My website was mentioned in numerous places, such as books (prints and digital), magazines & newspapers (online and print - reporters would call for interviews), radio (online & print), television (the website appeared in the top 5 in search results on an episode of an Oprah Winfrey show, with Dr. Phil as guest), organizations and online directories and numerous websites. The website was also listed on the Office for Victims of Crime website, provided by the US Dept of Justice. StopSexOffenders.com was the very first website to publish a "National Sex Offender Registry" online... and all that was, was a listing of state sex offender registries, all in one place. In 2005 when the official National Sex Offender Public Registry (NSOPR) was created (and renamed in 2006 to the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website (NSOPW), StopSexOffenders.com's link was removed from the US Dept of Justice's website and replaced with the official national sex offender registry. I published a print-on-demand book titled, "I Know Safety," a book for parents to read to their young children. It contained rhymes and information on how to help keep children safe. I also offered a Child ID System, published sex offender registry news, and at this time still run a Facebook page with 55,000 page likes.
JupiterParents.com was created to provide information to moms from all over, and more specifically, moms in Jupiter. It held numerous informative articles, some provided by the Jupiter Police Department, and even had a section for Chef Emeril Lagasse to share his children’s cookbook and some of his favorite recipes. Some other features this website offered, was a Community Guide with Community Happenings, a Pet Love Area, checklists, photos of the Jupiter/Tequesta area, a website and ad designing service, and a Fun & Family Friendly Guide. There were also movie reviews, a Home Business area, and Childcare Guide. In addition, it offered news about and things to do in the area.
I also had a website for writers, which was the 4th website in the community. This site was dedicated to helping aspiring writers get published online, both adults and children. It offered a place where visitors could submit their works -- poems, short stories, articles, and other family-friendly writings. I also offered a discussion forum for members (free to join) to discuss writing. But it was difficult for me to maintain all 4 websites, and in the mid 2000s, I sold my writing website to someone who kept the website up for quite a few years. Before I sold this website, I was receiving approximately 50 submissions each week from people asking to publish their works.
In 2005, Google introduced the “nofollow” attribute, which meant that anyone advertising on your page had to include “nofollow” in the link you provided from your website ad. Basically what it did, was exclude those advertisers from Google’s search engine results, and advertisers did not like that one bit. Since Google required “nofollow” in paid or sponsored links, if you did not use it and were found to accept paid advertisements without “nofollow,” Google would penalize your website and you could be left out of their search engine results. Who wanted that? I had to follow the rules. But as a result, I lost all of my advertisers, even those that had supported me for many years.
Before this time, I was able to support my community on advertising alone. At one time I had about 100 advertisers. But after these restrictions were put into place, I began to lose advertisers at an astonishing rate. After all of my advertisers were gone, I was barely holding onto this wonderful website community that I had built from scratch… and I did it for about 15 more years! I paid out of pocket just to keep my dream alive. But it's difficult to financially maintain just one website, let alone four. As it grows it also requires more space, which in turn requires more money for hosting. I also fought numerous copyright infringers. Each time I found my content being used illegally, I would send a Cease and Desist letter and need to follow up to protect my copyright, on all of the websites... and there were many over the years. It all got to be too much.
At the end of 2020, I decided to close the doors to the family and take a break from financial stress of the community. I let the hosting and numerous domains expire. I am thankful for the many years I have been able to remain online and enjoyed offering so much information to many visitors in the almost 24 years that the community did remain online. I am thankful for the thousands of emails I have received over the years. I am grateful to have had this experience, as it was great one. I had an amazing run, didn't I? Thank you all.
