CollegeHumor.com: what I have in mind
Sam, here's the longer version of what I mentioned.
1. The domain is a big asset, and right now it's broken
I looked up collegehumor.com in Ahrefs. Here's what it shows:
For comparison, that's a stronger domain than most media companies ever build. Those links took 20 years to earn.
Most of them are broken today. I tested this on September 3, 2026:
- https://collegehumor.com does not load. It times out. Nothing answers on HTTPS at all.
- http://collegehumor.com works, but it redirects twice (through signup.dropout.tv) before it lands on dropout.tv.
- Every old deep link (a video, an article, a show page like www.collegehumor.com/troopers) goes to the same place: the Dropout homepage. Nobody who clicks an old link gets what they came for.
Most links on the Internet today are HTTPS links. So most of those 500,000 backlinks fail. Google sees a domain that doesn't answer. Wikipedia, Reddit, and old blog posts all point at a dead end.
2. Three options
Fix it
NowMove the domain's DNS to Cloudflare. That alone makes HTTPS work again, and it's something your team can do right away.
Once it's on Cloudflare, it's easy for me to add redirects for the popular old shows, so those links land on the matching Dropout page instead of the homepage. For example:
| Old CollegeHumor URL | Sends visitors to |
|---|---|
www.collegehumor.com/troopers |
watch.dropout.tv/troopers-the-web-series |
www.collegehumor.com/hardlyworking |
watch.dropout.tv/hardly-working |
www.collegehumor.com/dinosaur-office |
watch.dropout.tv/dinosaur-office |
www.collegehumor.com/hot-date |
watch.dropout.tv/hot-date-the-web-series |
www.collegehumor.com/badman |
watch.dropout.tv/badman |
www.collegehumor.com/ and every other URL |
www.dropout.tv, in one hop |
This is the smallest change. It passes the link value straight to your show pages, and it stops the bleeding.
Put simple pages back
NextFor the old URLs that still get the most links, put a plain text page back on collegehumor.com. Each page has three things:
- What the show was, in a paragraph.
- The video, embedded from your own Dropout YouTube channel (the old CollegeHumor channel, renamed). That gets you the views.
- A short list of Dropout shows the visitor will probably like, with links.
I built two of these so you can see them. They're in section 3 below, or jump to them here: Troopers and Hardly Working.
Why this beats a plain redirect: the visitor gets what they came for, your YouTube videos get views, and the link value stays on collegehumor.com where we can grow it. We measure it with Google Search Console and Cloudflare Web Analytics (no cookies, so no cookie banner).
Build it out
LaterIf Dropout owns the old images and text, we can bring more of the old pages back and build collegehumor.com into a real asset again. I'd hold this until A and B show numbers.
My recommendation: A now. B next. C only if A and B show traffic.
3. Two sample pages
These show what Option B looks like. They live on my demo domain for now. On the real site they'd sit at the original URLs.
-
Troopers, which would live at
collegehumor.com/troopers. The Aubrey Plaza page on Wikipedia links to that URL today. -
Hardly Working, which would live at
collegehumor.com/hardlyworking.
4. What I'd need, if you want to do this
- A Cloudflare account that Dropout owns. Add me (nick@nickgray.net) as a Super Administrator. You keep ownership. I do the work inside it.
- The name of whoever can change nameservers at MarkMonitor. That's where collegehumor.com lives now. One nameserver change points it at Cloudflare.
I'd handle Google Search Console under my own account, unless someone on your team wants to be in it. Once I have the domain on Cloudflare, that part is easy.
5. What happens next
Those are the options I think would be fun. But we can do whatever you want to do. The easy first step on my side is getting the domain onto Cloudflare, so we can start to see real numbers: whether people are still clicking these old links, and which ones. From there, I'd love to build out a few of the Option B pages as a test.
Reply to my email or text me. This will be fun.
Nick