The TroubleChute Basic Router
Yes. An example page is my most popular page. It even shows up as #1 on Google when searching for TroubleChute. Even sitting next to someone searching for my page, they click the first result instinctively expecting my channel - and it’s the wrong page.
My most viewed page, even when looking at the raw numbers
The funniest part is: This page does literally nothing.
Why does this page exist?
The TroubleChute Router Simulator page exists purely as an example. I needed a stripped-down version of a router for videos. Explaining port forwarding is tricky, mainly because there are many different router brands, models, and operating systems. It’s an incredibly confusing topic for newcomers, and I wanted to simplify it.
I looked at the 4-5 different models of routers I’ve worked with and created something that closely resembles a router, comlpete the ability to “add new entries” using a little Javascript magic. It was easy to make and served its purpose perfectly for videos.
I featured it in a port forwarding guide for Minecraft, I think it was, and without even linking the page, people had found their way to it. I received comments about the TroubleChute Basic Router, even after explaining that it’s a dummy page created purely as an example. Still, to this day, I receive comments about it “not working”. Of course it doesn’t work; it’s an example. I’m genuinely flattered that such a simple page appears so correct, meaning it achieved its job perfectly, but it is sad that some may reach the page expecting it to work - and give up on their port forwarding journey.
The page was not even linked anywhere over its first few appearances, in-fact I only linked it later in minimal places, if at all. People had watched the video, paused at the perfect moment, and manually typed out the entire thing. Only later did Googling for my channel name, TroubleChute, or the TroubleChute Basic Router actually return that page.
What now?
Well, there’s not much I can do other than add some metadata to reflect that it’s just an example on Google and maybe a warning with a cookie to say This page is just an example and does literally nothing, but the damage is done. For now, and likely for a long time: The TroubleChute Basic Router will appear before me when searching for me.
While I can remove it, there’s no reason. I’ve had someone reach out asking if they can use the page in a video as an example, and it worked perfectly well there. It’s great to have others even using it as well. If you’ve seen it in other videos, please link me, as I’m very interested in learning about where it’s featured.
In the future, I would like to extend it to maybe show more pages? Create my own router UI just for kicks? Maybe when I find time and have nothing better to do. Perhaps, someone can get some use from it, maybe not. I do also want to create a dark mode… Just because I can.
It was entertaining to see people complaining about its lack of functionality when it’s just an example.
