The following was written by Tim Sullivan, CEO of The Generations Network,
Inc. and is posted here at the RootsWeb blog:
http://bigfile.rootsweb.com/newsroom/?p=111
As you know, The Generations Network has hosted and funded the RootsWeb
online community since June 2000, thereby maintaining RootsWeb as the
world's oldest and largest free genealogy website. TGN remains committed to
this mission and believes that RootsWeb is an absolutely invaluable and
complementary resource to
Ancestry.com, our flagship commercial family
history site. We believe in both services and want to see both communities
prosper and grow.
As part of this goal, we have decided to "transplant" RootsWeb onto the
Ancestry.com domain beginning next week. This move will not change the
RootsWeb experience or alter the ease of navigation to or within RootsWeb.
RootsWeb will remain a free online experience. What will be different is
that the Web address for all RootsWeb pages will change from www.
rootsweb.com to www.
rootsweb.ancestry.com. Again, the RootsWeb experience
is not changing.
The decision to host RootsWeb on
Ancestry.com is being made for one primary
reason: we believe that the users of each of our two main websites can be
better served if they have access to the best services available on both.
Simply stated, we want to introduce more
Ancestry.com users to RootsWeb and
vice versa.
Today, despite the fact that
Ancestry.com and
RootsWeb.com are the two most
frequently visited family history sites on the Web, only 25 percent of
visitors to
Ancestry.com visited RootsWeb in January 2008, while only 20
percent of visitors to RootsWeb visited
Ancestry.com (according to Comscore
Media Metrix). We think we will serve our users best by doing a better job
of letting them know what is available on both
Ancestry.com and RootsWeb.
Hosting RootsWeb on
Ancestry.com is the first step towards making this
happen, but we will absolutely look for more and better ways down the road
to advance this goal.
Hosting RootsWeb on
Ancestry.com will also make it easier for us to make
changes and improvements to the RootsWeb experience in the future.
All old RootsWeb URLs will continue to work, whether they are bookmarks or
favorites, links to or from a hosted page or URLs manually typed in your
Internet browser. We will have a redirect in place so that all old URLs will
automatically end up on the appropriate new RootsWeb URL. You will never
need to update your old favorites or links unless you want to. We have
worked to make the transition as seamless as possible for our users, and
this change should have a minimal impact on your experience with the site.
RootsWeb will remain a free online experience dedicated to providing you
with a place where our community can find their roots together. If you have
questions regarding this change please email them to
<mailto:feedback@rootsweb.com> feedback(a)rootsweb.com.
Thanks,
Tim Sullivan
CEO
The Generations Network, Inc.