… as highlighted in Alexa this week.

For those that know Befuddle.co.uk, with its mix of celebrity pictures, this may sound confusing but it’s history does involve drink … and lots of it.

Befuddle was formed in 2000 as a news blog of my weekly drunken tales. At the age of 25 I’d lived the student life and living in a new city, I liked to party hard.

So each Monday morning at work I’d always have some new drunken stories to tell of the weekend before. I’d tell my close colleagues and then jot it all down in an email and send my tales around.

The stories went down well so I thought I could benefit from a wider audience, so I went on to launch a website, with an aim to include “humorous drunken stories”.

The name ‘Befuddle’ came about as I’d built the home page but had no idea what to call my site. So I sat and flicked through the Collins dictionary in 1999 looking for good and appropriate words. The word ‘befuddle’ hit me and stuck. It explained exactly in one word what my new website was all about. A quick search and the domain was available. A few months later, I’d launched my first blog on 1st February 2000.

I submitted my new site to the search engines and Yahoo was the big player in those days. I thought “Food & Drink” was the most appropriate category as alcohol was going to be the running theme throughout each story.

Within a week Befuddle was listed as a ‘Yahoo Pick of the Week’ and immediately following I was featured in national and local newspapers.

Befuddle hasn’t looked back since. It still has nothing to do with food though.

19th March 2007.

Befuddle Limited was born. After owning the Befuddle domain since 1999, there was really only one name I could name my first company … Befuddle.

I’ve not really looked after Befuddle (the website) very much in the last few years. You can never tire of looking at drunk celebrity pictures but it just wasn’t always a very profitable venture.

Befuddle had a shopping page of its own all those years back. From the small amount of commissions earned I thought it would be worthwhile creating a shopping affiliate based directory. Trolleyed.biz was then born. I liked the word “trolleyed” as it had an association to “befuddle” and shopping.

However, it wasn’t much a success on Google but it still made daily profits so I concentrated on that site and not Befuddle.

In early 2006 I decided it was time to take Trolleyed to the next level, so I bought a domain name, which I was surprised wasn’t already snapped up and started work on my latest site Shop Codes.

Shop Codes had an excellent start from it’s February launch and enjoyed a particularly good Christmas. Several of its pages were number one on Google for those key shopping months.

Now in March, the traffic has slowed but the potential for Shop Codes still grows. It includes 90 exclusive discount codes, which I believe to be the largest collection in the UK.

So, that’s why Befuddle Limited was born. I’ve great faith in my latest shopping site and I still love the Befuddle name. Maybe they can be brought together in some celebrity shopping portal in the future. Befuddle still attracts thousands of visitors each day but Shop Codes is the new kid surviving with its few hundred.

The Sun, Saturday, February 19, 2000. Page 11

“RAY Theakston, 25, of Leeds, has launched a web-site devoted to boozy tales at www.befuddle.co.uk”

And so the story begins …