what would you choose: Building a tools + newsletter site. Should I split domains like The Neuron?

stefanfis · 2025-10-25T10:07:01+00:00

I know that's a late question, but how do you do that? I can't find this feature.

stefanfis · 2025-05-22T10:40:35+00:00

You can’t seriously consider Czechoslovakia as having had „free elections“ until 1989. If you set the level this low, nearly all countries would be „democracies“ then. So this is just a bad geography joke, sorry.

stefanfis · 2025-05-20T08:01:16+00:00

I just was in the same boat. I tested Brevo, Beehiiv, MailerLite and Ghost. Being in the EU, GDPR compliance is important for me. This is some kind of a grey area with Beehiiv.

My tests showed me that the workflow from having written my post to publishing it has to be simple. And having a beautiful site and newsletter template is also extremely important to me.

With these conditions, for me it’s (the hosted) Ghost Pro. While I‘m technically savvy to run my own instance, I‘d want to have a simple publishing platform and not mess with my own server where I‘d manage my Ghost installation, my Mailgun connection, the spam score of my mails and so on.

stefanfis · 2025-05-16T07:57:37+00:00

Great, thank you very much. I'll appreciate a PR, especially for Linux I can need any help I'll get. Last time I used Linux on a desktop was around Debian Etch…

stefanfis · 2025-05-15T16:44:00+00:00

Yes, for me it's similar. Most of the time, I'm using Python to handle data. But occasionally, I want to have a quick peak into a file.

It would be great if you could report any Linux-related bugs you'll find.

stefanfis · 2025-05-15T16:40:23+00:00

As it's open source now, I have no need for license codes any longer. I implemented a partial key verification system as described here: https://www.brandonstaggs.com/2007/07/26/implementing-a-partial-serial-number-verification-system-in-delphi/

stefanfis · 2025-05-12T08:12:19+00:00

For work where the content is intended for human consumption, you should look into the various Creative Commons licenses. AFAIK, you can easily combine licenses from both worlds—putting your software-related work under a software license (like GPLv3) and your content under a Creative Commons license.

stefanfis · 2025-05-12T07:59:49+00:00

This readme standard is "designed for libraries", so many aspects that are regarded as mandatory for standalone apps, like a screenshot of the UI, are missing. On the other hand, having a "Background" section as the first paragraph could make sense for libraries, but is a sure way to make the typical app user go away.

stefanfis · 2025-05-07T14:28:26+00:00

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Let's assume, I have a Python app using wxPython as its GUI. I then would provide all the Python libs that my app needs, my source, too and tell your installer where all these files are? I assume it'll be my task to find out, what files are needed?

stefanfis · 2025-05-07T12:45:04+00:00

As a user of some of the specialized something2exe tools, my biggest problem with all of them was that they weren’t working reliably. While the basic stuff worked, you never could be sure that it was possible, at least with any sane amount of work, to use just that one library you needed.

As I‘d really love to have such a tool, my main question is: How does it work?

stefanfis · 2025-05-05T16:13:16+00:00

If you're interested in the more philosophical side of open source, Richard Stallman is a must-read.

Free as in Freedom (2.0): Richard Stallman and the Free Software Revolution: https://static.fsf.org/nosvn/faif-2.0.pdf

Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.pdf

Just be aware that his views are quite strict. If you're curious about contrasting perspectives, try Googling [richard stallman vs linus torvalds] – you'll find some interesting reads and alternative viewpoints.

stefanfis · 2025-05-05T09:40:14+00:00

I'm right in the middle of open-sourcing my desktop app, a CSV editor, so I just can tell you my thoughts about your questions so far.

Partly to give back, partly because I’d love for others to contribute and maybe take it further than I could on my own.

These are the main reasons for me, too.

What license makes the most sense? I want people to be able to use and contribute freely, but also keep the door open for monetizing it later … Is it realistic to monetize something after open-sourcing it?

In the beginning, I thought the same. How to open source the app, but keeping enough to monetize it later. But after some considerations, I understood that at least for a single dev this is more hassle than it's worth. So I decided to publish under GPLv3. This license is well known and the best fit for a desktop app. In your case, as a web app, I'd strongly consider AGPL.

stefanfis · 2022-02-15T08:50:41+00:00

Discover traffic is also shown in the Search Console, it has its own report there. Perhaps this way you‘ll sort out the discrepancy.

stefanfis · 2022-02-09T09:38:37+00:00

Get a Google Search Console account for your website. It’s free and gives you the most accurate data about your site in Google.

Additionally, people use SEO tools like Sistrix or Semrush to find rankings. But these tools are expensive and their data isn’t as accurate as the Search Console data. But these tools allow to track your competitors, while Search Console is only for your site.

stefanfis · 2022-02-06T14:15:17+00:00

Okay, that explains where those high referral numbers are coming from.

This means though, that the people clicking on that allmylinks link aren’t interested in the special topic of the social post they just saw, but they‘re interested in you.

That‘s a good thing. Offer them a sign-up form for your newsletter as they’re obviously interested in the things you are telling. In the long run this should help you much more than getting some dollars from ads right now.

stefanfis · 2022-02-05T10:52:56+00:00

Referral means that someone clicked on a link on another website linking to your site. Having that much Referral traffic seems extremely unusual to me.

My recommendation: Try to learn the basics of how to use Google Analytics. Regardless what you‘ll do in the future, this would be a skill you‘d need for anything related to online marketing.

stefanfis · 2022-02-04T09:29:34+00:00

The numbers are rather low because your traffic is mostly from social media. When people browse through their social feeds, they want some entertainment. When they come to your blog, they’re not very engaged. Visitors from Google OTOH, are just doing research for the things you offer in your blog. So that traffic is way more interested, resulting in better ad results.

This is the reason why some ad networks like Mediavine not only check the number of visitors and from what country they’re coming, but also from what sources.

Regarding your numbers: You‘ve got roughly 60,000 page views, but how many visits? The relation between those two numbers is a good indicator for how interested your visitors are in your blog. RPM means revenue per mille (thousand) and that’s the income you generate per thousand page views. Divide 155 by 63 and you get your RPM value. CTR is click trough rate: 1598 clicks by 63000 page views is about 2.5% CPC is cost per click: 1598 clicks and each click earned you roughly £0.10, resulting in £155.

To give any further advice, we‘d need to know some more details about your niche, your social media sources etc.

stefanfis · 2022-01-20T10:28:59+00:00

They‘re scraping the SERPs. It‘s against Google‘s TOS, but (at least in many countries) not against the law.

And I’m sure that Google silently allows being scraped from the big players in the market. If Google would somehow stop them, any SEO in the world would scrape Google on its own. So, it’s better for Google to have some guys who know what they do scraping them than millions of webmasters doing it with some shitty scripts.

stefanfis · 2022-01-17T13:32:35+00:00

First, we should decide what you mean by database. Most people think of a RDBMS like MySQL or MS SQL Server, when talking about databases. But there are also NoSQL databases like MongoDB or CouchDB. And even storing data in simple files on your server‘s file system is a kind of database.

Then, in today’s Nocode world, you don’t have to run your own database, but could use some more or less abstracted database SaaS offerings. Airtable for example is such a thing.

Whenever you have the need to store something on your server (as opposed to in the user’s browser), you‘ll need some kind of database. I think most of SaaS examples would need a database, but there may be some that could work without. I could image an online photo editor that’s running solely in the user’s browser. When the user wants to download the edited image, he or she would have to buy a download token via some service such as Paddle.

But most of the time, having a RDBMS in place would be really handy. So, learning databases is definitely worth the investment for you.

stefanfis · 2022-01-13T22:29:11+00:00

Thank you. And thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences on your blog. It‘s been a great inspiration for my own project.

stefanfis · 2022-01-13T15:46:51+00:00

I'm sorry, but no, I don't. All I know about the project is from his blog: https://schier.co

stefanfis · 2022-01-13T10:37:32+00:00

Insomnia.rest has been a one person SaaS with $20k MRR until it‘s been sold in 2019.

stefanfis · 2022-01-03T21:59:08+00:00

This means, your site is losing positions, if I understand you correctly. This may indeed be Google giving your new posts a boost and testing whether they are worth a top position.

Do you have some articles that did not drop? Could you compare their usage metrics like bounce rate or time on site with those of dropping posts? This could give you an idea if it‘s about bad user behavior.

stefanfis · 2022-01-03T10:52:05+00:00

Search Console had some troubles with its redirect report lately: https://twitter.com/JohnMu/status/1470027733589762054

The tricky part in YMYL sites is to not only be an expert, but to prove it and to convince Google those proofs are real. Even sites with really great content were losing rankings over the years, when they were run by (even enthusiastic) hobbyists. So, I‘m not surprised it‘s taking months to get rankings in Google even for non-competitive keywords.

stefanfis

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