A little bit of history …

How it all began

In 2003 we started a futile search for the exact dates of the next full moon on the internet. We thought it to be virtually unthinkable, not to find immediately what we were looking for when entering something into GOOGLE. This is how the idea of the full moon calendar emerged. Relatively quickly, it became clear that poems, experiences and also background information about full moon could be conveyed. And especially at the time, there was nothing comparable available. So we decided to put it into action.

Which internet address?

Initially we were looking for a domain, but were unsuccessful. All domains with “vollmond” were already taken, although they were unused. It was also clear that we did not want to see anything other than the word “vollmond” after the “www” and in front of the domain ending. Therefore, we began writing to domain owners and explained our intentions. Amongst some negative replies and offers that were out of the question with regard to the asking price or modalities (for example renting with profit sharing), there was also a ray of hope. The owner of the domain “www. vollmond.info” was quite taken by our plan and made a very important contribution with his fair price of 150 EUR, so that the full moon website came into existence.

About the colour #000033 and bad photos

This colour number conceals the dark blue, which became to be the background on all pages and which was probably the first of all creative decisions. Next to the fact that the font was supposed to be white on a dark background. Parallel, we used the entire summer of 2003, taking pictures of full moon and over and over again we came to the astonishing realisation how black and dark a photography of full moon can be (in particular with an analog camera). This is how we drove around with the car at night, armed with the photo equipment, tripod and maxi cosy of our daughter who was still very young back then, in order to find suitable image motifs and locations. The whole trick about full moon photography is to not only portrait the moon by itself, but to include everything around it too … so, our picture archive grew and grew and the possibility to make the full moon website come alive.

Launch with delay

Originally, this website was supposed to go online at full moon. But neither on 12th August nor on 10th September 2003 was more than an announcement text to see – too many trifles and not enough time in the short and moonlit summer nights. Not until 29th September 2003 the path was clear to release the full moon website.

German full moon pages on 29.09.2003

From snail pace to quantum leap

The long time of a very slow and continuous growth followed. The GOOGLE and YAHOO placement simply did not increase in ranking, but at least the amount of visitors rose and more and more contributions (especially poems) were written. At some point, it was time: the full moon pages were linked and recommended by so many external websites that the placement for all enquiries with the search keyword “Vollmond” became better and eventually ended up as the number one. Since then, approximately 50,000 visitors are on the full moon site every month and about 70 % of them would like to know the date of the next full moon.

The look of the full moon pages has remained constant over the passed few years, with a few modifications, as you can see from this screenshot in 2008:

German full moon pages in March 2008

A new appearance

Since quite some time, it had been planned, expanding the pages in content (in particular the full moon calendar) and in connection with this, to also revise the design. The composition of this “three-dimensional” scenery with the scroll was quite the challenge, but ultimately worth the effort, as we keep coming nearer our vision of a complete full moon piece of art.

German full moon pages in April 2008

A very new appearance

After many years and a successful fundraiser campaign in 2022, we modernized the full moon sites in March of 2023, and optimized them with regards to security and data protection, and for mobile devices. We have preserved the appearance of the site and sorted some of the content a bit differently 

Full moon pages in March 2023

Cookie Consent with Real Cookie Banner