The great Yorkshire website

Three years ago this very day, the Ayup website took it's first steps into the World Wide Web. It was a bit of a lively start, and featured a links page to all the best websites in Yorkshire. It had about 1,500 visitors in the first month (it gets way more than that each day, now)

It wasn't a long link list at the time. I surfed in myself not long after and found quite a mixture of stuff. The big links page rapidly became an online in joke - how big can this page get without collapsing under its own weight.

Over the last six months Ayup received emails saying "Enough, already!" urging the gang to break up the famous monster links page that sat at the heart of the website, eating up URLs like Jabba The Hut in Star Wars.

But yesterday they got the chainsaw out and broke up the old links page into sections. End of an era. The big ol' Ayup Surfboard is no more. There must of been several thousand links on there last anyone looked.

The other recent feature of this site that's caused a stir is the Nifty 50, which for the first time gave us all a glimpse of where all the Internet traffic to do with the county is really going.

OK, most of the local netheads and silver surfers couldn't give a hoot about Yorkshire stuff. But for those of us with a north eye on local matters the list was mighty interesting.

The most amazing site on the 50 was to be found right at the top - up there with the bigshot football teams and the behemoth University sites. It's a site that was founded across the pond by a Yorkshire lass who was helping run a car lot. Who wanted to get a site together where people could chat about the things that mattered in an accent that was instantly recognisable.

That site is now one of the most popular chat sites on the net, and is growing all the time. Its role in promoting the county and bringing tykes together is fast becoming legendary.

That site is the Yorkshire Posts.

Back in 1999 the site was being run from the back of the old Polar Motor website - and grew from there. Folks joined because they found the site on the search engines, or were drawn to the uncomplicated, down-to-earth friendly tone of the place, and the welcoming nature of the regulars there.

Quickly it found its place as the leading place on the net for Yorkshire people all around the world. It's the International flavour of the site that attracted attention, as it became clear that the quickfire conversations going on were between folks in Texas and Brussels, Toronto and Melbourne. Barnsley and Bridlington.

We all knew about the Irish Diaspora. Well here emerged the Yorkshire one in all its glory. For the first time there was a place on the net that encapsulated Yorkshireness on a world stage. The highly paid Quangle-wangles at Yorkshire-Forward may have the millions to spend on building an international profile for the county, but the real work was and is being done at The Posts on a daily basis.

The Yorkshire Posts (no relation to the newspaper, which is struggling to make a decent impact on the net for all its staff and resources) is now seen to be the leading website on the net when it comes to promoting the image of the county. To some its a good read every morning, to others its a place to meet friends across the globe, to still more its a soap opera that's far more engrossing than Emmerdale or Corra.

Its a piece of home for folks who haven't sent foot in the county for thirty years. Its a way for people in Yorkshire to connect with their global cousins. And its a place where Yorkshire pride and Yorkshire personality really shines. What being from Yorkshire really means.

This site is still running on the funding of a few private individuals and remains completely independent. Everyone concerned with the site is an ordinary member of the public. No-one is making a living from it.

So now its time for the Yorkshire purse-holders to start giving this site the respect it deserves, and to back this up with funding and support. The page views of the site - well over half a million a month - say it all. This is quite simply the most important website in the county when it comes to promoting what Yorkshire is all about - locally, nationally and internationally. It's a very special site, and happily there seems to be no end to its growth and popularity.

Drop in and say hello at yorkshireposts.com. And come on you journalists. Write yourself a proper success story.

Blogga.

2002, then...
Ayup's had another great year, and December nearly broke the hit rate record. The last three months have been awesome and now we're neck and neck with the Yorkshire Post according to Alexa, which is pretty cool.

Just wanted to say thanks for dropping by- specially you regulars. You know who you are. We really do appeciate the support! I know it's only a website, but our mission to provide a site that doesn't bore for Yorkshire seems to be paying off. So come back soon. No flipping.

Northerner.