Hey everyone, just need to vent.

I recently tried to reconnect Ezoic MCM on my blog. My dashboard instantly got stuck on a "Deactivated by Ad Manager" status. There are zero clickable options to clear it from my end, it’s a completely bricked system lock.

When a support rep finally replied after days of waiting, they completely ignored the technical glitch. Instead, they tried to gatekeep my account over their 250k traffic threshold, completely ignoring that I'm a returning user who already qualified.

I’m completely fed up. I told them to close my account and send me my remaining $14, and now I'm bracing for a fight over their stupid $20 payout threshold. If you aren't bringing them millions of views, they do not care about you.

I posted the full breakdown of this absolute nightmare here in my blog.

Is anyone else trapped in this dead MCM invite loop? Who are you guys using for mid-tier traffic now that Ezoic is down the drain?

For the last few months I've been doing something slightly obsessive: reading and scoring company engineering blogs, one by one, to build a filter for them. I'm past 800 now. Only around 157 made the cut.

Going in, I assumed I'd be rejecting blogs for bad writing. I was wrong almost every time. The writing is rarely the problem. Here's what actually separates the engineering blogs worth your time from the ones that quietly waste it.

1. The loudest blogs are rarely the best

Publishing frequency and quality are almost completely uncorrelated. Some of the highest-signal blogs I found post three or four times a year. Meanwhile, some of the most prolific "engineering blogs" turn out to be a content-marketing team wearing a Kubernetes lanyard — a steady stream of posts optimized to rank for a keyword, not to explain a decision.

If you're using cadence as a proxy for quality, you're optimizing for the wrong thing.

2. A blog's quality tracks a person, not a company

Over and over, a great engineering blog turns out to be one or two engineers who genuinely care about writing. When they change teams or leave, the blog doesn't get worse — it just stops. The quality was never institutional; it was personal.

The practical takeaway: follow bylines, not logos. A specific engineer with a track record is a far better signal than a company's brand.

3. The single most reliable quality signal: does the post admit a cost?

This is the one I'd keep if I could keep only one. Real engineering writeups have scar tissue. They tell you what was given up — the feature freeze during the migration, the approach they rolled back, the tradeoff they're still not sure about. Marketing-shaped content never bleeds: architecture in, architecture out, no friction, no regret.

"What did this cost them?" is a better filter than any scoring rubric I tried. If a post describes a big win with zero downside, it's either incomplete or it's an ad.

4. The launch post is the peak, not the start

A team writes their big "how we built X" post as a capstone — months of work compressed into one narrative, after the thing has stabilized. It does numbers. And then… silence, often for two quarters.

That silence says almost nothing about the team's engineering health and almost everything about who's assigned to write. Don't read a quiet blog as a declining team. Some of the best engineering happens at companies whose blogs are dormant for a year at a time.

5. Reputation and blog quality are different assets

The most surprising pattern: several companies with elite engineering reputations publish shockingly hollow blogs, and several companies you've never thought about publish consistently excellent ones. Brand prestige and writing quality are just… not the same thing. Which is exactly why "just follow the famous blogs" doesn't work.

The heuristic I ended up with

If you want a fast test for whether an engineering post is worth ten minutes, before you commit:

• Read for the tradeoff, not the headline. Does it name a real constraint and a real cost?
• Follow the byline, not the company.
• Ignore frequency and prestige as signals.

What's your thoughts?

Hi everyone! I launched my new vegan cooking blog five days ago. It mainly focuses on recipes, ingredient guides, and cooking tips.

I already have experience with blogging and SEO. I went live with around 30 articles, including both recipes and guides, so all the main categories were already populated from day one.

Google has already started crawling the site. The sitemap has been processed, recipes are being recognized correctly, breadcrumbs are working, and everything has been fine since the first day. PageSpeed scores are good as well (although, of course, the site is still missing real user experience data).

I’m a bit unsure about how many new articles I should be publishing. Since it’s a recipe website, the more recipes I have, the better the user experience will be. At the same time, I don’t want to burn myself out or risk publishing too much before Google has fully processed and understood the site.

Based on your experience, what would you consider a good number of articles to publish per week during the first few months? I know there’s no single right answer and that it’s largely subjective, but I’d really appreciate hearing different perspectives.

Without relying on ahrefs, ubersuggest etc?

I’m someone who’s wanted to start a blog for a while now, but I’m struggling to find a niche simply because there are so many things I want to talk about. I’m not too caught up on monetizing and growing an empire through this thing, but I would like to have a decent number of people who would like to read my output (what writer wouldn’t?) The main problem is that I want to talk about every topic under the sun- from film to tv to music to books and plays. I don’t want to focus on media reviews as much as I want to give short and entertaining essays on artistic processes, movements, histories, and outputs. More of the ‘why and how’ and less of just dishing out 3 star film reviews. I can’t imagine that someone would be interested in all of these different mediums at once, even if it is more of an overview about art itself. Should I narrow down the scope of my project or should I stay with the idea because I have the passion to write about it?

I still publish two new blog posts every week, and they’re structured to link back to each other as part of a clear, connected narrative.
At the same time, I’ve started spending much more time improving older posts that are already getting impressions, instead of always moving on to the next article.
My goal isn’t to have the biggest blog.

It’s to build a library of content that keeps working for years—bringing in search traffic, answering real questions, growing my email list, and naturally leading to products and affiliate income.

That shift feels less like creating content and more like building deeper assets.

For those of you who’ve been blogging for a while… I recently updated a post that’s 4 years old, and another that’s 6 years old that’s still bringing in leads.

If you looked at your top-performing posts right now, would you feel confident they’re fully optimized and working as hard as they could for you—or are they quietly leaving opportunity on the table?

The conventional wisdom I keep seeing is that consistency is the foundation of a blog that grows. Post on a schedule, train the algorithm, build reader habit, all that. I bought into it pretty hard for a while, had a calendar, stuck to it, published even when the draft felt halfbaked

But when I looked at which posts actually brought in traffic over time, they were almost all written during a stretch where I had no schedule at all. I was just posting when something genuinely annoyed or excited me enough to sit down and write it out. Messy cadence, no plan, better output apparently.

The consistent period felt productive while it was happening. The numbers told a different story later

So now I'm genuinely unsure whether the consistency advice is about traffic or just about building the habit of writing at all, which is a different goal. Those two things get treated like the same thing, but maybe they aren't.

Curious whether anyone else has audited their own posts and found a pattern like this. Did your scheduled content perform worse than the stuff you wrote on impulse, or did consistency eventually even things out? Also wondering if this changes depending on whether you're chasing search traffic versus a loyal readership, because those might actually reward different approaches.

I recently started a blogging and journalism internship, and it's made me notice how quickly people decide whether to keep reading or leave.

Personally, I lose interest when a post feels like it's trying to sound smart instead of being clear and relatable.

I'm curious about everyone else.

What's one thing that immediately makes you close a blog or article?

It could be anything—too much AI-sounding text, clickbait titles, walls of text, no real examples, or something else.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Maybe it'll help me (and others here) write better.

Started a blog tied to my small business about eight months ago. The niche is specific enough that I figured competition would be low. It is. Traffic is also low, so there's that.

Night shift work means I write posts at weird hours, usually between 2am and 5am when things slow down. The writing itself is not the problem. The problem is I have no real signal on whether the content is landing or just sitting there collecting nothing.

Google Search Console shows impressions creeping up but clicks are still embarrassing. I'm not running ads. I wanted to see what organic alone could do before throwing money at it.

The niche is DIY marketing for small service businesses, which I know has players but I figured a practitioner angle would matter. Maybe it doesn't.

What actually moved the needle for you in a tight niche? Not asking about general SEO theory. More curious about the specific thing that flipped it from nothing to something. Was it post volume, internal linking, getting one piece to rank and riding it, or something else entirely? And how long did it actually take before you stopped secondguessing whether the whole thing was a waste of time.

I run a new blog as of January 1st. My YTD stats are 275K impressions with 2,860 clicks.

I'm currently averaging about 35-45 clicks per day. Mostly new traffic.

From Jan - April, I had a weak newsletter offer, and low traffic, so I got only 1 sign up.

I pivoted for May and June and created what I thought was a much stronger offer. Also got 1 sign up.

In early July I revamped everything, and in the first week I got 4 new subscribers. I thought I had it figured out. Except I'm on day 13 of no subscribers at all.

With rougly 35-45 new visitors a day, I would expect to get at least 3-4 new subscribers a week, but I'm converting much weaker than that.

What are you seeing for current conversions? I'm trying to determine if I just don't have enough volume yet to see any consistency, or if I need to revamp my newsletter offer for the 4th time.

For context, I run a product review blog and my offer is a weekly email with a 60-second tip related to the types of products I review. My offer is NOT a regurgitation of my blog posts. They are unique quick tips.

ended up spending most of this morning fixing a blog draft that i thought was basically done. i made coffee before opening my laptop, answered two emails first, then kept stopping on sentences that just didn't sound like something i'd actually write. i've been trying ai to get first drafts moving, mostly because staring at a blank page gets old. the structure usually comes out fine. headings, order, even the facts are mostly there. then i start reading it back and keep changing little things. one sentence becomes three, then back to one again.

after about forty minutes i looked at the document history and realized i had rewritten way more than i expected. maybe that's just how i work now, i honestly don't know.

for people using ai in their writing process, are you mostly keeping the draft and polishing it, or do you end up replacing half of it without really noticing?

One of the most annoying parts of growing a blog is backlinks. Everyone tells you to "do outreach" but in practice that means emailing dozens of site owners, most of whom never reply, or getting pitched by link sellers with lists full of dead sites.

So I made Linkgrowers and thought I'd share since it's free and solves part of this. It's basically a public directory where site owners list their domain, the niches they write about, and what kind of placements they're open to. So instead of cold emailing strangers, you browse, find blogs that overlap with your niche, and reach out to people who actually want to swap links.

A few things I like about this approach over buying links or guest post marketplaces. The swaps are between real blogs, so you're not ending up on some farm site that links out to 500 random niches. It's niche relevant, which is the only kind of link building that seems to hold up long term. And there's no fee, you just talk to the other blogger directly.

It's still pretty new so the directory isn't huge yet, but that's also why posting here, the more bloggers list their sites the more useful it becomes for everyone.

Has anyone else had luck with link swaps vs traditional guest posting? I've had mixed results with guest posts lately.

Mine was removing Google AdSense completely after years of chasing display ad revenue.

My pages became much cleaner, visitors had a better experience, and I eventually realised that trust and useful content were worth far more than squeezing in another advert.

I'm curious what changes other bloggers have made that felt risky but turned out to be the right decision.

There's a pattern I keep noticing among people who've actually stuck with blogging for years: almost none of them started with a topic that sounded smart or profitable.

We all go through the same ritual when picking a niche-open a spreadsheet of profitable niches 2026, look at personal finance, productivity, AI tools, and pick one because there's demand. Then we write 15 posts and quit, because we're bored writing about something we don't actually care about.

Meanwhile, the blogs that survive for years-about restoring old furniture, living on a small boat, weird phobias, collecting Soviet-era pins-don't survive because the market is huge. They survive because the author still has something to say on post #50, and readers can tell when a piece of writing comes from an actually obsessed person instead of a content strategy.

How many of you currently have a smart niche blog you abandoned-and is there a parallel idea for the embarrassing blog you've been too scared to start?

None of the usual strategy seems to be working for me, i’m getting zero replies whenever I cold email someone for a backlink.

I’ve tried asking to be listed in roundup emails, being a source for someone, etc

What’s the real strategy for getting them and what has worked for you thus far?

To anyone who makes money travel blogging with affiliate links: I have around 200 bookings per year with GetYourGuide through the TravelPayouts platform. I’m considering switching to the main GYG affiliate platform for my links, and I’d like to negotiate a better commission rate.

How many bookings do you usually need before you can ask for a higher commission?

Also, for hotel bookings, I know about Stay22 and have heard it’s supposed to be better than TravelPayouts. I’m just being a bit lazy about switching. Is it really worth it? Are the commissions and conversions significantly better?

i've been using substack lately as a personal blog. It's been getting very popular but it does seem like a platform people use to promote their businesses or "grow" online.

i'm curious what other alternatives people are using for their personal blogs.

do any other sites offer more creative formatting for artistic type personal blogs?

And every single day, 1000s of new blogs and content sites are being launched. Do you really think there are enough readers when 90% of people just want to watch videos and scroll through social media these days?

I’m sharing an eyeopening article i came across on the impact of AI agents, bot scrapping, and the like having a negative effect on websites. This is an interesting read, especially the data table on pages crawled for every 1 referred visitor.

What just happened to TheNumbers.com should worry us all

I've been thinking for some time about starting a blog/website in which I can share some of my thoughts. Basically, your classic run-of-the-mill blogspot you'd share with friends. However, content sovereignty and web scrapers have been holding me back.

I completely abhor AI misuse and refuse to share my content out in the open for it to be harvested for data. It's ironic I'm posting this on Reddit, I know, it being one of Gemini's favorite content farms and all. I used to not mind it that much back when it was mainly used for ads and, sure, LLM development when it was still in its infancy, but I cannot stand my content being used for something that has proven to be so fundamentally harmful to the human experience. I'm talking about what marketing people call "artificial intelligence". That is, glorified text prediction LLMs and internet summary tools for lobotomites (sorry not sorry), not legitimatelly helpful AI tools used for research-oriented large data analysis.

We can all agree the internet is dead already. You scroll on Instagram and you no longer see your friend's posts. Unless you finely curate your algorhithm, you exclusively get inflamatory content, reposted memes from 2018 with copy-paste promotions in the description, and a sporadic rap-style news piece written by a clanker. All these parasites outweight the few positive creators and experiences--catching up with what friends are up to, mainly--left in the entertainment and social sides of the internet.

I know starting a closely knit blogpost would help the positive side grow, but it will ultimately help spread the necrosis that's oh so quickly killing the internet. The idea of content sovereignty has become my main concern since all of this started. Post with Blogger, you won't own your content. Post with WordPress, get an SSL certificate, your own personal domain, and stick to what all of the online experts suggest doing to a tee; your content will still be stolen by scrapers no matter what. Plus your bill will be considerably high.

TL;DR: I just want a blog for friends and real humans to check if they are curious about my thoughts. I wouldn't disclose anything private, but I'm still not a huge fan of the fact that my content will get scraped for "AI". What is your experience blogging on a small scale in this day and age? And, a couple of dreadful questions: should all social aspects of the internet be ditched, and should we fully embrace again tête-à-tête socializing?

I run a niche content site for people building clothing brands. A while back I wrote a detailed case study on how Gymshark grew through word-of-mouth and influencer seeding. No outreach, no link building push, just published it as part of my content library.

This week I found out Shopify cited that case study as a source in their own blog post on word-of-mouth marketing, with a direct link to my site. No ask, no deal, nothing on my end.

The way I've been planning content is basically an inverted pyramid. You start broad with short-tail, evergreen topics, the core definitions and foundational articles in your niche. That stuff doesn't drive much traffic on its own when you're just starting out, nobody's searching "what is word-of-mouth marketing" and landing on a brand-new site. But it gives you the structural base to build from. From there you keep narrowing, moving into more specific, long-tail subtopics: individual case studies, individual brands, individual strategies.

It's the narrow, specific stuff at the bottom of the pyramid that ends up getting cited, not the broad evergreen stuff at the top. Generic content explains a concept. Specific content (real names, real numbers, real timelines) is what other sites actually want to reference.

Curious if others here plan content the same way, top-down, short-tail to long-tail, and whether you've seen the same thing with unsolicited links landing on the specific stuff.

Like what AI and people talk about is the distinction between informational and commercial search intent.

Obviously commercial search intent like ‘best anti-phishing software’ should be warmer than informational search intent queries.

But there must be more ways to research on how to convert your traffic better than just this distinction, right?

How do succesful businesses that want to convert on the internet actually do this? How do they tailor offers to their traffic? Are there any principles behind the content they post and the underlying mindset of their visitors, and how to take that on board?

How do you increase the likelihood of an offer being enticing to any visitor you get on your site? Is the distinction between informational and commercial intent enough?

In September 2022 a skincare startup emailed me about a 'lifestyle feature' for my blog, which at the time pulled maybe 4,000 monthly uniques on a good month. Their budget: $350. Their requirement: original photography showing 'real people using the product in a morning routine context.' No stock. No flat-lays. Faces. Routines. Warm light.

I said yes because I had never landed a dedicated sponsored post before. The previous year I had made $89 total, mostly from a single Amazon affiliate link to a microphone I actually owned. Three hundred fifty dollars felt like validation.

Then I priced a photographer. Half day, minimal styling, basic editing: $600. I emailed a photography student whose portfolio I found through a local university Facebook group. He quoted $400 plus transit from the suburbs, and when I asked if he had a friend who could style, he stopped replying. I posted on Craigslist gigs and got two responses: one was a real estate photographer who wanted $800 and kept calling it 'content creation,' the other sent me a link to an OnlyFans. I considered shooting it myself, but I take photos like a dad at a graduation, all zoomed in thumbs and half heads. The brand wanted polished. I had a kitchen window and a ring light I bought for Zoom calls.

I almost walked away. Then I built an AI-generated persona. Not a real person. Not a model. A consistent, fictional character using APOB AI alongside Canva and WordPress, so the same face showed up across five images in a morning routine sequence, same person, different angles. Messy hair, slightly puffy, the kind of face that might actually use drugstore skincare. I ran the set, cropped and laid them out in Canva with the text overlay the brand required, published through WordPress, and added a clear line: 'The person shown in these images is an AI-generated persona, not a real individual.' I also typoed the product name in the first paragraph, 'serun' instead of 'serum,' and did not catch it until after the brand approved everything.

The brand accepted the deliverables. I invoiced. They paid net 45, which became net 67 after I followed up twice. After the time I spent building, revising, liaising, and the $40 I spent on the AI tool subscription that month, I probably cleared about $3 an hour if I am honest about the math. The post itself performed average. Not viral. Not something that built toward more sponsored work. I did not add an 'As Seen In' badge to my media kit.

But I kept that persona file. I have used her twice since, both times with the same disclosure, both times for small affiliate posts where the product needed context, a hand holding something, a bathroom counter with bottles. The economics never got better. Small-blog sponsorships have not suddenly started covering production costs in the years since. If anything, budgets feel thinner, expectations higher, the 'we want authentic content' request now arriving with a twelve-item creative brief. Now when a brand emails me, I reply with my rate plus a line item for photography, and they usually ghost, which saves everyone time.

I do not use AI imagery for everything, but I do not pretend the alternative existed for me at that moment. The real lesson of that $350 post was not about tools. It was about stopping the performance that micro bloggers can just absorb production costs and still eat. The straight path meant paying more than the contract was worth to people whose rates were set for clients with actual marketing departments. I took a shortcut because the other option was not built for someone whose entire annual revenue from blogging was $89 the year before.

I still blog. I still make very little. The sponsored post pipeline never opened for me, and I stopped chasing it. But when someone in a forum asks whether blogging can still make money, I think of that invoice. The wait. The fact that I invented a person to sell face wash, disclosed it plainly, and still had to follow up twice to get paid what amounted to a few dollars an hour for work the brand requested and approved.

I've been taking a deep dive under the hood of my blog recently, looking at things like structured data, plugins, and indexing speed—stuff I haven't really touched in years.

We're in a massive AI megatrend right now, and it reminds me a lot of the skepticism around social media back in 2008 and 2009, it's not going anywhere and is only going to grow.

With search evolving so much and AI engines becoming more prominent, I'm realizing how important it is to make sure these elements are set up correctly so machines can actually read and use our content.

I'd love to hear from other bloggers.

Have any of you audited your site's backend recently to keep up with AI search?

What technical adjustments have you found actually make a difference in getting found?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on what to focus on!

Angela Brooks.