AbyssUnderground - My first 'proper' website

URL: www.abyssunderground.co.uk
Established: March 2005

For years I had wanted my own website, just so I could brag that I had one (I was about 13 at that time). I started off with basic websites using Microsoft Word and FrontPage, but they were never quite what I wanted. I had used many free hosts and they were poor, and being at such a young age I couldn't afford let alone have a way of paying for hosting.

A few years later my friend (John - G4VWL) got me into real HTML coding over Amateur Radio (Amateur Radio was also something he got me into too). From that point on I was hooked and I never went back. As my skills developed, I discovered PHP and of course to run it I needed to have a web server. As I had no Internet on my own computer at that time I needed a solution, and that's how I found Abyss Web Server. It was perfect and just what I needed.

Once I had done some experimenting I came across a problem:-

What do I build a website about?!

At first I thought about myself but it's not something someone would find useful. I spent a long time thinking and then it hit me - I found it really hard to set up Abyss Web Server without help, so why not build a website dedicated to doing just that?! I got to work immediately and what you see now is the 4th incarnation of AbyssUnderground, but with much the same content from 6 years ago.

The Geeky Stuff

• Built using XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2
• Coded by hand using only Notepad and Photoshop
• All images are custom designed for the site
• All content is written by myself

• Gets around 60 unique visitors a day
• Has had 4 template changes in 6 years
• Was run from my broadband connection for 3 years
• While running from home it had a 99.6% uptime

• Has had basic search engine optimisation (SEO) applied by myself
• SEO increased visitors by around 20% after 1 month