David Condon Finds

This is a follow up to a previous post back in June 2025. When I wrote my original post, Why I’m Still Blogging – Even If Google’s New AI Might Bury My Posts , I was full of stubborn optimism. I believed that even if Google’s new AI Overview stole clicks, genuine human writing would still find an audience. A few months later… I still believe that. But it hasn’t been easy. The AI Overview Hangover Let’s be honest, AI Overview has hit small independent blogs like mine very hard. Even my main website David Condon Woodcraft is suffering a drop in traffic and that site is over 8 years old with significant google clout.  Affiliate earnings that once trickled in every month from my blog posts have almost completely dried up. My posts still get views, but far fewer than before, and conversions are practically non-existent. Many of these daily views seem to be from Bot traffic too, this post which asks Is My Blog Content Being Stolen by Bots may interest you. I’ve expanded and impro...

Lately I’ve been asking myself a question I never thought I’d need to: is my blog content actually being stolen by bots? Search engines like Google and Bing have always crawled websites, and that’s normal. But when one of my new posts here was hit nearly 900 times in just 24 hours, it didn’t feel like ordinary indexing. It felt like something else and it left me wondering if something is taking my work, where it’s ending up, and whether I’ll ever even know.

We’ve all seen it: “Delivery in 5 business days” on a website’s shipping page. It sounds straightforward, and when you place an order on a Monday, it’s natural to start counting — Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday — and expect the parcel before the weekend. The problem is, most people are counting calendar days , not business days.  Their “wish clock” starts the moment they place an order . In reality, things don’t always work that way and the clock normally only starts the following day after dispatch. I’ve seen this misunderstanding many times in my own business, and I’ll admit, I’ve been guilty of over-expecting a delivery or two myself. This is where expectations and reality start to clash. 👉 If you found this post useful or even mildly humorous, you might like my other business related post:  Why Irish Phone Numbers Confuse So Many People . I wrote this because I see so many mistakes on my website orders that I thought I could help those who are confused...

Seventeen years of self-employment has taught me one thing: working for yourself is equal parts madness and freedom. Some days it feels like feast, other days famine. And yet, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I could take a steady job, with the payslip, the pension, the clocking out. So why stick with a life that can be feast or famine? This post is about the daily tug-of-war between freedom and chaos and why, for me, the independence still wins in the end no matter the financial cost.  If you’d like to know more about how I ended up on this road in the first place, I’ve written a post with a little more detail here  about why I’m still self-employed . Maybe it is worth a read too.

Every so often, I feel the need to step back from my usual topics and write something that’s been niggling away in the back of my mind for a while. This post isn’t about woodcraft, or even the day-to-day struggles of running a small business, although in some ways, it’s connected. It’s about leadership and how those who are meant to represent us are often doing the exact opposite these days. Sometimes it looks like obliviousness, but more often, it feels like something else.

Introduction – A Changing Country I've been more than a little nostalgic of late due to all the current bad press in our country and indeed the rest of the world. I began thinking about my younger years and all the goings on of the past and how different life was ' back in the day '. After a bit of mental gymnastics looking over the last few decades, I keep coming back to the same conclusion: the 1990s was the last time Ireland truly felt alive. 

I’ve just crossed 10,000 views on this blog. For some people that’s just a number, but for me it’s a milestone worth celebrating. When I started writing here a few months ago (May 2025), I had no idea if anyone would actually read my posts. Now, seeing that five-digit total feels like proof that showing up consistently really does work. I wanted to touch on some of my early struggles on this blog so I've listed a few posts that may be of interest. I've also grown a bit as a writer and with that experience, my blogs have become a little better and easier to read. (I hope lol) 

What Went Wrong With My WordPress Blog Setup (And Why I Went Back to Blogger) When I decided to upgrade my blog to a shiny new WordPress site, I expected a bit of a learning curve — but not a full-blown disaster. What was supposed to be a simple migration from Blogger turned into a frustrating mess of DNS issues, vanished menus, broken templates, and a lot of wasted time. In this post, I’ll share exactly what went wrong with no fluff, how it snowballed into a full retreat, and why I’m back on Blogger for now. If you’re thinking of switching platforms, this might save you a few headaches. Be sure to read my post  Is Amazon Prime Worth it? after you finish here! Plain speak only!

 What Happened to My Website Traffic? A few months ago — and seemingly overnight — I started noticing my website traffic slipping. Not just a slow day here and there, but an over-the-cliff drop in clicks and visits. The posts that once brought people in — especially my carefully written affiliate content — just weren’t pulling the same numbers anymore and very few were actually following my links. I went from a modest traffic level and some small commissions to nothing at all. Be sure to read my other post  Why Google Ads Is So Hard for Small Businesses after you finish here!

Blogging in the Age of AI Overviews If you’ve used Google lately, you’ve probably noticed something different. Instead of clicking into websites, you’re getting answers straight from the search page thanks to AI Overview. Sounds handy, right? Maybe it is to the casual browser but for small creators like me, it’s a real kick in the teeth. Traffic has dropped to my website and new blog. Affiliate links don’t get seen and I have the Analytics to prove it. Product reviews and personal blog posts are being buried under summaries scraped from… well, blogs like mine.

Thinking of starting a blog for your small business? I’ve been there and I nearly gave up before I even got going. Like many business owners, I kept hearing that blogging would help customers find me, improve my SEO, and bring people to my door. It sounded great… but I resisted it for years. I'm not a writer, or so I believed. The idea of blogging was intriguing though, and deep down I knew there was value in it – I just didn’t think I was the right person to write anything worth reading. My old school teachers would probably nod in agreement.  Check out this post  5 Amazon Buys I Didn’t Expect to Love  for some great ideas after you finish here.