Why 3 GoutPal Sites?

There are three GoutPal websites:

1. GoutPal.com – a top quality repository for gout information for gout sufferers and their carers. A rich seam of carefully researched and cross-referenced gout information. Written by a fellow gout sufferer in a friendly manner, the website avoids medical jargon wherever possible, and explains it where unavoidable.
2. Gout Pal Interactive – still high quality, but with comments, questions, opinions and experiences shared by gout sufferers from all over the world. This is a hotbed of gout discussion and research with fast fulfillment for those seeking answers to gout questions. The dynamic nature of this site helps extend and improve the information on GoutPal.com.
3. Gout Pal Work In Progress – this site, of questionable quality, but keeping it real. Often, new gout information and ideas happen too quickly to integrate into GoutPal.com. Rather than lose them, they collect on this site. It’s exactly what it says – work in progress. Feel free to add comments on this site if you must, but I would much rather you take them to the gout forum.

So why 3 GoutPal websites?

GoutPal.com was my first serious personal website project.

At the time I had developed “company showpiece” type sites for existing businesses who were clients of mine, but these were little more than company brochures reformatted as websites.

I was anxious to move into web business development and learned of a development package called Site Build It (SBI or Sitesell). Aimed at developing personal websites that derive part time or full time income, I adopted this format zealously. As well as developing sites aimed at making money (in an enjoyable way of course), I decided to use the system to develop a gout site.

This was never intended to be a commercial project. As much for my own education as anything else, though hopefully generating a little income to defray costs. At the time, I had little commercial awareness of web business building, and fairly rudimentary technical skills. Sitesell included all the keyword research tools and support I needed to get me started. In a rush of enthusiasm for Sitesell prompted by one of the frequent offers of additional cheap sites, I added my gout hobby site to my portfolio, and GoutPal.com was born.

Against a background of general medical sites with a gout section, and snake oil salesmen touting their “gout cures” GoutPal.com, as the worlds leading dedicated gout resource, quickly became popular throughout the world.

At the same time, technical advances, particularly WordPress, and specialist keyword research services, started to take the edge off Sitesell. As this is a gout site, I’ll cover those issues in detail elsewhere, except to say that Sitesell remains a good service, but it doesn’t suit the technology fixated side of my personality.

I needed a better way of interacting with my readers, and decided to start a separate site – Gout Pal Interactive – that could include a forum and other ways to explore uncharted gout territory. After early technical issues establishing the forum, Gout Pal Interactive is now the ideal place for gout discussion and so much more. It acts as an interactive guide to help people find information on GoutPal.com. Equally important, it promotes new research and best practice identification that ensures that GoutPal.com continues to serve you with the best online gout information.

What started as a necessary decision to overcome technical restrictions is now a very clear distinction between the comprehensive gout information resource and the dynamic gout investigation resource. Though they will soon be served from similar platforms, I have decided to keep the clear distinction.

Somewhere in the story, I got totally bogged down trying to keep track. With gout information from new research, and my research into existing gout studies, I was sitting on reams of interesting useful information. There was a real risk that some of this information would never see light of day. I lacked time to format it meaningfully, or package it into existing formats, but much of it was extremely useful to anyone wanting to see the basis of gout research and my ideas for making it accessible.

In a flash of inspiration, I saw the need to add a third dimension to GoutPal. Being a huge WordPress fan^*, I opted to copy it all here. As time allows, I copy and paste, merge and expand, summarize and clarify, until it makes its way to GoutPal.com.

If you see anything that deserves some urgent attention, please alert me of your wishes in the gout wish list forum.

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^{*A huge WordPress fan – A fan who is hugely fond of WordPress, and a fan of WordPress who is huge!}