Microsoft announced officially today that the next Windows operating system that had been codenamed Windows 7, is actually going to be called, wait for it…Windows 7. This will be the first time that a Windows OS will have the same name as the codename. On the Windows Vista Blog, Microsoft’s Mike Nash says that they chose the Windows 7 name partly because this will be the seventh incarnation of Windows.
This is brilliant news for Martin and myself, as we’ve been running www.windows7news.com since Feb 2007. The site has been doing quite well for traffic and even though there hasn’t been a lot of news or even much of a buzz around Windows 7 until today, it has still been generating more daily traffic than this site for the last couple of months, and traffic has doubled today thanks to the announcement.
My plan behind registering the domain so early was to try and get a headstart on other sites in terms of building up SERPS, and it seems to have worked, with the site ranking #2 on Google behind Wikipedia. I actually registered a few ‘Vienna’ sites, but literally the day after registering my domains Microsoft changed the codename to Windows 7 – luckily I managed to get a refund! The site even ranks #2 on MSN and Yahoo and it’s quite weird seeing traffic from those search engines in stats as my stats are normally dominated by Google.
Because of other demands I asked Martin about 6 months ago if he wanted to go 50:50 on the site because I didn’t have the time to ensure the site reached it’s full potential. It’s been fun running a joint site, and pooling our collective expertise going forwards is sure to deliver dividends. We’ve done well in terms of getting traffic to the site and SERPS. The next key stages I think will be add more sections to the site, increasing the traffic further, and increasing the level of monetisation. Hopefully if we can continue to increase the traffic we will be able to attract some serious blue chip advertisers.
Even if the Windows 7 site doesn’t generate the kind of income that allows me to quit my day job like Martin, it’s definitely going to be fun running the site over the next couple of years!
