My online chess activities and chess websites started in 1999. "GilaChess" nickname was coined a year later. Being the only cyber source for chess media was kinda lonely and when Stonemaster's website did overtake me in traffic (for a couple of months), I was more than happy :)

old video from 9 years ago...


However today, I am not at all interested in being the top chess website or have the highest traffic.

The main reason is because it is no longer challenging. All the other chess blogs are basically inactive or dead. Stonemaster used to be my main competitor in terms of traffic for many years until the website too died. Stonemaster has migrated to using CerdikCatur blog instead but it is not a website and the difference is clear when significantly less people know about it. Also, even during the years where blogs like Hairulov, Stonemaster, Gilocatur etc were active, my chess blog may or may not have had the highest traffic but my chess portal certainly did because everyone went there before going out to the other blogs. It is true even today as catur.org is by default having the highest traffic because it acts as an index to other chess news. I welcome new chess websites to take over as the "top chess website". That is why I am happy to see new actiivies from people like AIChess, ABChess etc.

One misconception I want to clear is that people think I make a lot of money from ad revenue from my chess website. I wish that was true. However, the revenue stream was good many years back when GilaChess.com was active and had no problems under Exabytes. Today, it's a struggle to keep all my websites afloat with the rising cost. Thankfully catur.org is still active enough to cover the cost of webhosting.