This is a condensed version of my full write-up (will leave a link at the end).

I launched CardShows.io in the middle of March on a brand-new domain.

Last week it reached:

• 17,755 total page views
• 5,709 Google clicks
• 237,600 Google impressions
• Around $230/month in AdSense revenue

I built the site because I collect trading cards and couldn’t find one reliable place listing local card shows.

I tried building it out in 2025, but wasn't able to get the backend website (admin dashboard, user dashboard, etc) and data right. I tried again with Claude Code in February 2026 and had an MVP roughly a week later.

Building the website itself was actually pretty simple with vibe coding. Getting good data was the tough part.

I spent around 80% of my initial effort discovering shows, verifying dates, removing duplicates, standardizing locations, and finding organizers, social profiles, ticket links, and images. I now use Hermes to help repeat that process across every state each month.

The SEO strategy was straightforward:

1. Create useful pages for specific events.
2. Target the long tail first.
3. Link event pages into city, region, and state hubs.
4. Actively work on indexation.
5. Improve the hubs as they begin ranking for broader searches.

The site went from around 100 indexed pages after its first week to roughly 9,100 today.

What I'm working on now is monetization and building out more features. I'm at $230/m at the current pace of Adsense revenue, and advertisers are starting to roll in. I'm investing more time in improving the actual advertising flow to make it super easy to promote card shows.

I posted about it on X if you wanna check out a bit more detail. If you have 15 minutes, you can read the full case study here.

Happy to answer questions!

Over the last three months, my team and I have been working on the SEO of a Shopify eCommerce store, and it's another reminder that sustainable SEO is built on systems, not shortcuts. Instead of chasing quick rankings, we focused on creating a strong technical foundation first. During the first month, we audited every important SEO issue, including crawlability, indexation, internal linking, duplicate content, page speed, structured data, and collection page optimization. We also mapped keywords based on user intent rather than simply targeting high search volume.

Once the technical issues were resolved, we shifted our attention to building topical authority. We created content clusters that answered the questions customers actually search for before purchasing, connected those articles to collection and product pages, and improved the overall site architecture. This helped Google better understand the store's expertise within its niche while also improving the user experience.

The final stage focused on authority. We earned niche-relevant backlinks, built brand mentions, and continued refining pages using Google Search Console data. Instead of publishing random content, every new article supported a commercial page, helping strengthen the site's overall topical relevance.

I built this because I have a few sites and got tired of paying enterprise prices to answer three questions: what am I ranking for, did anything break, is it slow.

It's MIT, self-hosted, runs on free Google APIs. GSC data + a crawler (2,000 pages, 16 issue types) + Core Web Vitals in one dashboard. There's an MCP server too, so you can ask Claude Code about your own site data.

A week in: 331 stars, 47 forks, and a contributor found 3 real bugs I'd missed. Someone else reported a security issue in the crawler, which turned out to be a genuine SSRF — fixed and pushed the same day. Open source works.

Now the actual reason I'm posting. I'm at the point where I have to choose what's next, and I'd rather not build from my own assumptions.

So, if you run your own sites:

- What do you still check manually that a script should just tell you?
- What broke on a site once, and how long did it take you to notice?
- What made you close an SEO tool in frustration and go back to raw GSC?

Happy to answer anything about the stack (Next.js, Prisma, Postgres) or how the crawler handles redirect chains — that part took the longest to get right.

Everyone's panicking about AI traffic drops and aggressive competitors. Here's what I learned: sites built on bought backlinks and forced tactics spike like a bubble, then pop and never recover.

Real SEO is slower but it stays. What worked for me:

• Zero purchased backlinks. I just shared genuinely useful content on Reddit and Pinterest natural backlinks followed on their own.
• Obsessed over user experience, not tricks. Google literally tells you this: they don't want you chasing links, they want your site to deliver value.
• Clean, well structured site so Google understands exactly what every page is about.

AI and strong competitors will dent you a little. But if the foundation is natural, you dip and recover. The bubble guys dip and die.

Short screen recording attached. Happy to answer questions.