I remember you saying that it took about a year for you to set this site up. Now obviously you're a huge Van Halen fan, but a lot of us are, and we wouldn't spend that kind of time with a website. I'm just wondering what your goal was when you started this site? Did you ever expect this many members? Did you think it would ever get to the point where you'd be making t-shirts? When VH makes an announcement, how many new members do you expect?

This site is easily the best I've ever been on. Keep up the hard work, it's appreciated.

Is this a secret?http://www.vhlinks.com/vhlforum/smilies/smile.gif

Glenn, I must have missed this thread and that's why I didn't reply to it.

Well I used to have a VH site for a couple years that was at http://www.fairwarning.com. It did mildly well, but it didn't look that great, and was really my first web site, and that was in mid '95 I think. But I did have a lot of stuff on it, so it was of some value.

Well I got the bug to start a new VH site last year, but I didn't want to do the same old thing that everyone else was doing, like the VHND, and the other fan pages. I discovered that there really wasn't a central place to go to find Van Halen sites and resources, apart from search engines like Yahoo! etc. A lot of times the searches were old, gave awful results, and the sites were usually non-existent. So I figured if I could put together a good source of VH links and other stuff sort of around that, like the discussion forums, the fan guitars, whatever I can come up with in the future. I love building web pages, and I really wanted to make VHLinks.com look like a professional site, like a Yahoo! or Lycos, that has always been my goal. So that continues to be my challenge is keeping up that high level of professionalism on this site since I'm really not competing against the other VH sites, as I don't really provide news, that's the VHND's job, or give discographies, etc. It's basically a links page, but it has become so much more than that because of you guys!

I thought we'd be fairly successful because we got great endorsements from Grant at the VHND and Brad at the Official VH Site when I launched the site back in late August of '99. They were very much behind the site and promoted it a lot, so I knew we were on the right track. No I never thought the discussion forums would ever come close the volume we're at now, I figured maybe we'd have 100 members by now, not almost 1,200!! The discussions forums were an after thought, I wasn't even going to have them, but in hindsight they have been the lifeblood of the site. I expect the amount of members to double when VH makes an announcement and begins to prepare for a tour and album. No I never thought I would be making t-shirts for a personal web site, but it has become so much more than that now. I still can't believe the site's success sometimes, it just shows how loyal VH fans really are. http://www.vhlinks.com/vhlforum/smilies/smile.gif

------------------
Webmaster
VHLinks.com - Your Van Halen Internet Resource Guide
http://www.vhlinks.com

Thanks for the reply Brett. Again, kudos on the site. It just gets better and better. It will be interesting to see just how crazy this place gets when an announcement is made. Cheers from Edmonton.

Brett,

This site kicks major hiney. Perhaps Van Halen will reward us loyal links denizens with free tickets on the upcoming tour? (one can always dream! ha ha)