Before you run out and set up your ‘own’ hermit crab care site, you need to cover some bases. I’m not talking about a blog or a photo site, I’m talking about a site to ‘educate’ others in the proper care of land hermit crabs.
First, you should have your own ‘house’ in order. This means you should have a fully set up crabitat that you have been able to maintain for at least 6 months. This means proper substrate, water, and most importantly gauges for temp and humidity. If your crabitat is lacking the necessities, who are you to tell other people how to set theirs up?
Second, you should have some experience under your belt. Not a couple months but a year would be ideal, this way you have experienced several molts and had a chance to observe your crabs behaviour. If you don’t understand the how and why of crab keeping, you can’t really help anyone.
Third, don’t steal from other sites. This means don’t steal content (words, articles, FAQ’s) or images. If you are too lazy or incoherent to write up care instructions in your own words, don’t steal someone else’s hard work. Instead offer a link to reputable sites. Stealing content and images is illegal and can get you into a lot of trouble. Ask permission and often it will be granted so long as proper credit is given. Don’t hotlink images from other sites either, this will get you into trouble.
Fourth, make sure you know what you are talking about. Ideas and facts on hermit crab care have changed over the years. As more is learned about hermit crabs through research and care, information is updated and myths are dispelled. If your site is using inaccurate information you are helping no one.
Fifth, your site should be well laid out, easy to navigate and easy to view.
Basically, there are so many crappy sites out there claiming to be the ‘expert’ in crab care, that it does nothing but confuse people, cause bad information to be spread and directs traffic away from quality sites. If you really want to help crab owners, find a reputable site and direct others to check there for their questions and concerns.
Some reputable sites are:
www.crabstreetjournal.com
www.hermitcrabassociation.com
www.landhermitcrabs.com
www.hermit-crabs.com
www.epicureanhermit.com
www.hermitcrabsrus.com
Several of these sites have forums, emergency email and images.
Coming soon
www.coenobita.org (research and study site)
As you can see there are already several high quality sites available. If you can’t improve on what’s already out there, don’t waste your time.
Creating a blog to share your crabbing experiences and pictures with the world is a great way to show off your crabs and help direct others to trustworthy sources for care and information.
I have several great sites linked from my blog, all of them I feel are useful sites and worth taking a look at.
I’ve seen many sites come and go in the past couple of years. Mostly kids trying to create forums and such. These rarely succeed. Forums take a lot of work and promotion to build a membership base. If you can’t offer something better than what’s out there, no one is going to use your site. This ends up being a wasted effort that could be used more effectively towards research, education and involvement with existing communities.