February 14, 2026 @ 16:00 PM
After some trial and error, lots of research, and some critical decision-making, I have made some changes to ITS.
Categorization: Categories have been reworked (Roster & Players is now Players & Cap). Some were removed (Free Agency), some were added (Cowboys > Front Office), and some were split up (NFL > NFC East). Cowboys News is just Cowboys now, and Cowboys and NFL are top-level categories.
These adjustments were made for the sake of my writers’ clarity when categorizing new content, readers’ (you) ability to more quickly find the desired content, and to address a classification issue with Google (more on that next).
All navigation menus on the site have been updated to reflect the new structure, and I will be working on fully sorting all existing content into the new categories.
Branding: I have updated the site’s tagline. Well, actually, I’ve reverted the site’s tagline to what it was for the first 12 years of Inside The Star (during which time the site was aka CowboysNation.net, DallasCowboysNation.com, and BlueStarTimes.com). Gone is “A Dallas Cowboys News Blog” and we’re back to “The Voices of Cowboys Nation.” Why? Because we’re not a news site and we are @CowboysNation on the most popular social network for sports fans since 2009 (X).
Somewhere along the way, Google News (the service) was given priority over how we present ourselves. Google’s latest search algorithm update in October 2025 has made things difficult for us by drastically reducing our reach despite maintaining the same level of quality and quantity for years. They gutted us, and it happened overnight.
I’m fairly certain there’s been a rogue element at play since Sept 9, 2025 tainting our traffic metrics — bot abuse, specifically — and I’m working on that, but being classified alongside ESPN as a news site is inaccurate.
We have never been a news site, but rather a provider of Cowboys analysis and commentary from the fan’s perspective.
ITS is refocusing on its core purpose, the one that has guided our content for more than a decade. Maybe Google will classify us where we belong now, instead of measuring us against billion-dollar news corporations, and our reach will return to what it was several months ago. Either way, we’re back on target.
Also, I wanted to note that Richard Paolinelli and Mario Hererra Jr. have left ITS.
- Richard is a novelist and big things are coming for/from him on that front that need his full attention.
- Mario is likewise occupied elsewhere and felt his writing was getting too rushed for his satisfaction.
We wish them both all the best and look forward to working with them again some less-hectic day ahead.
November 25, 2025 @ 11:12 AM
It has come to my attention that two writers have been publishing AI-written content on the site, since as far back as May 2025.
I am disclosing this here because it has been observed and noted in various comments and replies across the web. Not understanding AI very well myself until recently, I dismissed it as the usual reader labeling of content they don’t like with the current trending dismissal (clickbait, fake news, false information, and now AI). Run a site like this for a few years and it’ll be crystal clear to you just how lacking in credibility those remarks are. But, it does go further on this one, I’m afraid.
Scope: No AI-generated content has been published on ITS, and never will be. I do not allow it. AI-written content, however, was posted. The difference is that the writers wrote the full posts, pasted them into ChatGPT for optimizations/corrections, and then published the result. They allowed AI to make rewrites.
Understand that my goal here has always been to help regular ole’ fans get into the Cowboys-sphere — think back to RJ Ochoa, John Williams, and Mauricio Rodriguez getting their starts here, among others. They’re here to write, not be techies or savvy Search Engine Optimizers. The technical side of things is a subject of study, but the writing is paramount.
The content in question will be corrected moving forward, and the writers’ AI practices have been addressed. All writers have been further instructed on the proper and acceptable use of AI with regard to ITS content.
Here is a list of what AI use is allowed here:
- Proofing: as a fan-run site, editors are a luxury we don’t often have. I can correct mistakes after the fact, but ITS is not my first priority in life. Using AI to make simple, non-rewriting corrections to spelling and limited grammar is fine.
- SEO Optimization: While most of our SEO is automated through my own programmatic processes (not AI), the content itself, including titles and formatting, cannot be handled in the same way. Writers here are free to let AI suggest optimizations, but they must limit it to suggestions only, not rewrites. Suggestions have to be implemented by a human writer, and must not be done verbatim (i.e., in their own words, not AI’s words). That AI use is fine.
- Topic Ideas: Look, it’s difficult to come up with post topics 365 days a year. That’s easily one of the biggest struggles of every blogger you follow. AI is a useful tool to find what’s trending at the moment. It’s just the nature of the beast. This AI use is fine.
While search engine algorithms have dinged us for me not catching this sooner, I hope that you will accept my apology and commitment to be more proactive moving forward, and continue placing your trust in us.
Sincerely,
Bryson T.
November 24, 2025 @ 10:21 AM
It seems I was able to stabilize the performance issues pretty well, though a bug or two still exist. Identification and troubleshooting is ongoing. Also handling some other things as I go:
- Making some tweaks to appearance, especially in dark mode. The Subscribe box mid-content is now styled to match our light AND dark mode colors.
- The site search has been revamped as of this morning. New system, live search, more relevant results.
- Cloudflare caching refinements.
I am also working on a bigger change for performance (both speed and SEO). That one will take some time.
October 5, 2025 @ 4:17 PM
Performance issues have persisted in some degree or another. Working them out one by one. Mostly stable now. Bigger issue is undoing the damage done in SERPs.
I added full PWA to the site with push notifications. It has slowed speed metrics for desktop, but increased them considerably for mobile. And that’s after just a couple hours. Will continue to monitor and see how the overall shapes up.
Automatic social shares of new posts to Bluesky have been funky. Awaiting a fix from the developer, but implemented a workaround in the meantime. Problem was that no URLs were going out with the auto shares.
September 17, 2025 @ 6:19 PM
It’s been about 21 hours now without further incident. Thankfully. I’m tired. haha. Enjoy the site, folks.
September 16, 2025 @ 3:28 PM
Something is still strangling the site. It’s a CPU game, and even with full CF Edge Caching and minimal traffic (:(), the CPU is losing.
September 16, 2025 @ 11:08 AM
Sorry for the site being so slow lately. WordPress may power more of the internet than any other platform, but it’s not perfect. For the second time, ITS has reached 10,000 posts in the database. WordPress has issues when the post count grows from 4 digits to 5 digits, causing major slowdowns for every page load.
The first time, two years ago, I created archives.insidethestar.com to shuffle off all content we created from Jan 28, 2009 to Dec 31, 2017, bringing us down to around 6,000 posts here on the main site. This time I took another approach that seems to be working well. WP thinks we have about 3,000 posts, but all 10,041 (and counting) on the main site are still available.
Unfortunately, almost two weeks of this BS has taken a toll on readership. We’re still here, still working at it, and it should be running a lot faster for you now (for us too).
September 7, 2025 @ 2:41 AM
The site is experiencing some issues. I’m in the process of redeploying to a new server to rule out misconfigurations and split the site from the DRSN database. Optimizing everything along the way looking for the source of the CPU drain. Some issues with the Dallas data center and Cloudflare masked underlying issues, so I’m working to suss them out. More to come when there’s more to say.
August 29, 2025 @ 3:31 PM
Many of y’all may not realize this, but I despise ads. A site like ITS doesn’t run on hopes and dreams, though. Thankfully, Mediavine (our exclusive programmatic ad partner) is rolling out a refined ad package that reduces the number of in-content ads you see. It is my hope that this setup becomes at least a little less intrusive.
There’s always the subscription option if you’d rather not see ads but still want to support the work we do. 😉
August 28, 2025 @ 7:13 PM
I decided to start this little system status page for the site. Sometimes, things happen that we don’t really have a solid way to communicate about with readers; social media gets some but not most. This will be our log of those things. Newest items will be at the top, and there will only be updates when there is something to share. Thanks. Bryson T.