Obviously, the site itself costs a considerable amount of money to maintain. There is a huge amount of data online already and I'm adding more constantly. The many thousands of hits per day I get over all of the site's web pages and CGI scripts amount to a great deal of bandwidth used, which I pay for. Then there are the domain name costs, the online time it takes to update the site on a regular basis, editing and formatting submissions, development of the site's extensive CGI timeline engine and other technical issues of a similar nature.

So the site's expenses really are significant - it amounts to an astonishing number of dollars in real costs over time for a site that is completely free to its users and offers all these resources.

The site costs are primarily covered by the google ads you'll find at the right hand edge of each page on the site. When a visitor to ourtimelines.com browses over to one of these advertiser's sites by clicking on an ad at right, ourtimelines.com earns a few pennies.

Now, I am not asking you to rush over there and begin clicking -- please don't do that. Keep reading instead! I would ask that you not click unless you see something that you are actually interested in. That's because if you do just click the ads to get me those few pennies, the advertiser's advertising budget is used for no purpose, and that means that (a) they won't get good performance from their ads and (b) that they will eventually stop advertising which I definitely do not want to happen!

What ask instead is simply that as you browse ourtimelines.com, you take a moment to look at the ads and consider what they're offering. Perhaps you'll find something cool; perhaps not. I know most people tune ads right out. If, as a personal favor to me, you would make it a point to at least try try not to tune the site's ads out, that's all I can reasonably ask. And... if that's not convenient, then I can live with that, too. The site is here for everyone's benefit, and I know some people are too busy to surf around. You're welcome here anyway!

In some (rare) cases, people prefer to donate directly to ourtimelines.com. In that case I accept donations via paypal, and if you would be so kind as to contribute a dollar or so to the site, it would be very much appreciated. I'll make sure your name (and website, if you'd like) are listed in the "Donors" column on this page. To donate via PayPal, just click below:

One last point. Please keep in mind that while the site is free to you - it is not free to me. It costs me money every day (sometimes quite a bit, because it is very popular; it generates thousands of timelines for visitors on a good day.) When people link to the timeline form, they miss a lot of other goodies I have on the site, which in turn reduces the site's income.

So please, avoid linking to the timeline generation form. I'd appreciate it if you visited all of the site's pages, and look over the various things I have here for your benefit. Link to the home page, instead.

Thanks for visiting!