Site History

Neo Nutters of Neopia, the site you know now, began its days at a free website-hosting service on March 3, 2004. Created by Ari, our webmistress, it was simple and just for fun; it never was meant to become anything serious. The layout consisted of a simple template any novice coder could whip up in a matter of minutes and the site had only 3 pages of content. The site originally started out with the name "Neo Nuts." This was later changed to "Neo Nutters." However, "NN" was a rather ridiculous acronym for the site (and, as you may know, a number of sites are referred to by their acronyms), so it was important to change the name to what it is now: Neo Nutters of Neopia.


(NNoN's First Layout)
After a couple of weeks, the site began to steadily grow in content. Soon there were 20 pages of content. At this point, Nilla was hired to help out on the site. As the months went on the site grew. Soon there were over 50 pages of content and over 200 users visiting everyday. The site introduced a newspaper, forums, and updated pages. It had become larger than several sites that had a domain – yes, we were still on the free hosting service at that time! Kal was then hired in order to help with the ever-growing Neo Nutters of Neopia. Shortly afterward, Nilla suggested the acronym "NNON", and it was used as the official site acronym for a while, until Kal suggested it be changed to "NNoN". The latter remains to this day as the official acronym for Neo Nutters of Neopia.

Soon, the hits started to deplete and people stopped visiting. This was attributed to the sudden appearance of ads placed by the free hosting company. Something had to be done. So, on February 6, 2005, after almost a year of being on a free host, NNoN moved to its current location, neonuttersofneopia.com. However, the total amount of people visiting was still mediocre, even though the site had begun to post unreleased news. There was only one thing that could be done: get a new layout.

A designer and coder were hired to create a shiny, brand-new layout for NNoN. During the process, Kal agreed to merge his own Neopets fansite, NeoIsle, with NNoN, thus donating a fair bit of content to the site.


(NNoN's Second Layout)
On May 8, 2005, the new layout was released. Accompanying its release was a load of new content. By signing up for several new topsites, Ari helped boost the website's popularity even more. By June, hits had reached around 500 visitors per day! As news posting became better and more content appeared, NNoN entered 2006 with over 1,000 people visiting the site everyday.

NNoN began producing contests, topsites, quality graphics, and more. It became the envy of several sites which it had envied just a couple months before. As plots came and went, hits continued to increase. However, a bump in a road had emerged with the forums. The forums were crawling with bugs and were near collapse. They were for this reason shut down, to be reopened in the future.

The site continued to prosper with the minor issue of the forum clouding the striving perfection which the staff at NNoN wished to pursue. However, many things, including plot updates and other complaints, provided a simple distraction to working on the forums. As content, graphics, and news efficiency continued to grow, the forum problem was forgotten.


(The New Forum)
However, with the constant complaints, something had to be done. The staff worked hard to produce the new NNoN Forums, which were released on July 22, 2006. A Negg giveaway was held on the forums to celebrate its release. A discussion about the layout was introduced in the staff forums. We receieved many suggestions from our staff, including re-organizing the sidebar and de-cluttering the layout. In the meantime, Nutty Rainbow was released on July 30, 2006.

Over the next couple of months, NNoN functioned normally with few major changes. This was because the staff were working hard on a secret project (Walk Through Neopia) and a new layout. Walk Through Neopia brought forth the addition of over 150 new pages of content. As you can imagine, it was quite a job. By mid-December, the new layout was fully prepared for its New Year's 2007 debut. The sidebar had been re-organized, with far fewer links; game guides were listed in a new fashion; and, of course, Walk Through Neopia debuted.


(NNoN's Third and Current Layout)
On January 1, 2007, at midnight, the new layout and Walk Through Neopia was released. In those first few minutes of 2007, however, a small number of problems were discovered and quickly rectified. Within 10 minutes, the layout was in working order and ready to start a new year. The release was a big success, save for the broken theme changer on the homepage, a number of broken links, and that darn black line on the left sidebar that just wouldn't disappear.

We have been receiving over additional 500 unique hits a day since the release and all of those errors have been fixed. The new layout brought the third major department to NNoN - Walk Through Neopia - which has proven to be a revolutionary way to organize content.


(Nutty Commentary on 11/17/2007)
Things were pretty quiet around here for the next four months. So that's why we launched a department that deviated from the normal track - the Nutty Commentary, our Neopets commentary section. Launched on April 13, 2007, the topics written about vary greatly, as our commentary writers are a very diverse bunch with very different mindsets and opinions.

Over the course of the year, we have been adding a number of new features. Most of them are coded in PHP, which allows us to create more diverse features. On May 19, 2007, we released our Settings page; the day before, we had surprised our users with the "YOU ARE NOT PREPARED" Meepit. ;D

During Altador Cup II, NNoN steadily unveiled a revolutionary feature that we dubbed the Altador Cup II Portal. Users could select the team they supported, and after that, they would receive daily updates about their team's standing, matchups, and players right in their browser! The Portal was a success and we will be bringing it back next year with some improvements (assuming there will be a Cup next year!).

We launched Kalfd's Quests and the Nutty Points system on August 24, 2007. Nutty Points are the site's currency, which can be spent at the Nutty Points Store on various things!


(The revamped NNoN Avatars on 11/17/2007)
On September 8, 2007, we completely revamped our Avatars section. We renamed it to "NNoN Avatars" and now use databases to store the avatar information. The greatest thing about the new section? Search!

Nutty Rainbow was given a complete makeover on November 3, 2007. It was updated with a new layout and the images of the "Neopets 2.0" pets.

Today, NNoN is prospering and receiving a steady flow of visitors. Stay with us as we continue to make history!