AI scrapes niche blogs, Google deranks or spam drowns them out. It's really not a good time to be starting niche blogs.
Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?
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Re: Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?
#42Are personal blogs back? My personal blog ten years ago (even twenty years ago) received a lot of direct traffic on all sorts of things from the primary search engines and so on. Nowadays, the only search engine that delivers any traffic to my site is Kagi! Looking back, I haven't changed my style of writing very much, so I suspect the reality is that I've just fallen behind in a comparative sense. There are much better things nowadays to access.
It's probably similar to the street-side musician. In old times, he may have been the only musician around you might hear. Nowadays, he's got to compete with a perfect recording of Hotel California by the Eagles.
Re: Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?
#43> But with the revival of personal blogs well underway Is it? I haven't seen anyone in my circle return to blogging, nor kids of this generation. Discoverability is going to be a massive problem, since search engines are dead. Maybe word-of-mouth through social media is enough?
I would argue personal blogs are back and Substack is the medium of choice this time around
Substack to me seems to be 40% self-promotion or advertising a service, 40% long-form LinkedIn posts / AI slop, and the remaining 20% is behind a subscription with eventual freebies. Mostly professional writing. It’s far from being a new blogspot.
Re: Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?
#44If you’re looking to put one up, try https://bearblog.dev (no connection, just appreciate Herman’s work). It’s got just the features you need, is built by a solo dev, and it’s got a very fair split between free and paid features. I used it to put up my personal site and have been very happy with the experience.
+1 Also, unlike search engines these days, it helps you get exposure.
Re: Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?
#45Every blog is a niche blog because blogging is a niche. It never was and never will be mainstream. Social media began as an attempt to make the spirit of blogging a low lift for the noobs. Today, you’re talking to an audience that is online, willing to venture outside social media, and opting to actively read content rather than passively listen or watch. That’s far from everyone and that’s okay.
> It never was and never will be mainstream. We had the time around when blogspot was a thing when everyone and their dog had a blog. It was mainstream enough for "Julie and Julia". It was a different time.
It's fun watching TV episodes from ~2005 to ~2015 and noting how common it was back then for a blog or blogger to be used as a plot point.
Re: Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?
#46Every blog is a niche blog because blogging is a niche. It never was and never will be mainstream. Social media began as an attempt to make the spirit of blogging a low lift for the noobs. Today, you’re talking to an audience that is online, willing to venture outside social media, and opting to actively read content rather than passively listen or watch. That’s far from everyone and that’s okay.
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Re: Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?
#47> But with the revival of personal blogs well underway Is it? I haven't seen anyone in my circle return to blogging, nor kids of this generation. Discoverability is going to be a massive problem, since search engines are dead. Maybe word-of-mouth through social media is enough?
The content will be discovered just fine. It'll get embedded in the LLMs on the next round of training. Won't be attributed to your blog of course, but an approximation to the information will still get out there.
> an approximation to the information
Playing telephone has now been automated ...
Re: Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?
#48Are personal blogs back? My personal blog ten years ago (even twenty years ago) received a lot of direct traffic on all sorts of things from the primary search engines and so on. Nowadays, the only search engine that delivers any traffic to my site is Kagi! Looking back, I haven't changed my style of writing very much, so I suspect the reality is that I've just fallen behind in a comparative sense. There are much bet…
I assume that search engines these days don't care as much about showing results that won't make them money. Either you bought search ads, your site is showing ads from their network, or you're SOL.
Re: Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?
#49AI scrapes niche blogs, Google deranks or spam drowns them out. It's really not a good time to be starting niche blogs.
The most depressing thing about AI these days is seeing people cite it as a reason NOT to create useful content!
Feels very nihilistic.
Re: Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?
#50Every blog is a niche blog because blogging is a niche. It never was and never will be mainstream. Social media began as an attempt to make the spirit of blogging a low lift for the noobs. Today, you’re talking to an audience that is online, willing to venture outside social media, and opting to actively read content rather than passively listen or watch. That’s far from everyone and that’s okay.
> It never was and never will be mainstream. We had the time around when blogspot was a thing when everyone and their dog had a blog. It was mainstream enough for "Julie and Julia". It was a different time.
I would argue that most people who had a blog were 15-25 in that time. Yes it was very common in that demo, but outside of it, it was definitely not. I don't know if that classifies as "mainstream".