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Resources for the Personal Web: A Follow-Up Guide

| indieweb | 2,076 words
TAGS: blogging, directories, IndieWeb, publishing, technical
ORIGINAL: https://brennan.day/resources-for-the-personal-web-a-follow-up-guide/

Last month, I wrote about omg.lol on my Medium blog, and something unexpected happened. The response was surprising! Thousands of reads and a dozen of comments, and dozens of people signing up with my referral, taking the leap into the independent web. People who had been lurking on the sidelines for years suddenly had their own corner of the Internet.

But with that excitement came questions. Where else should I look? What other tools exist? How do I find others like me?

This follow-up is for all of you who read that article and thought, "I'm ready for more." Whether you're a writer exhausted by algorithms dictating your reach, a creator wanting escape from the platform churn, or simply someone who remembers when the Internet felt fun, then this guide is your next step.

The State of Search (Why This Guide is Needed)

Before we dive into resources, we need to talk about why human curation matters more than ever.

Google search is collapsing. Between 2021 and 2025, websites experienced traffic losses exceeding 60% from organic search, with quality content creators punished while AI-generated spam flourished. Confirmed algorithm updates decreased from 10 annually in 2021-2022 to just 4 in 2025, yet volatility reached record-breaking levels.

By 2025, much of the web has been consolidated into walled gardens, polluted by generative AI producing near-infinite low-quality articles, and optimized to death by SEO tactics. For news publishers specifically, Google Web Search traffic declined from 51% to 27% between 2023 and 2025.

This is less about nostalgia than it is survival. Search engines fail and AI floods the void with slop. Human curation becomes essential infrastructure. We need directories. We need blogrolls. We need people pointing to other people.

Forget about using LLMs for research. This is about moving toward a more human, less sterilized, boring Internet. Let's explore the tools that make that possible.

Part One: Sillyblogging with Pika

I'm going to focus this guide for Medium writers and readers, for those who care about the craft of writing. There's a certain expectation when writing on Medium: you're expected to be well-researched, or at the very least, provide value to an audience.

That's important, obviously, but it can be detrimental to your writing if that's the only kind of writing you're doing. You end up obsessed with metrics, with what others are looking for you to write.

What you need is a playground. A sandbox. You might think your private notes or text documents count for this, but no, not really. You need to think in public, learn in public--and writing is one of the best ways to think and learn.

Liberate yourself and give self-permission to write whatever you want, blog about whatever you like, no matter how silly!

Maybe omg.lol is too technical or the cost doesn't seem worth it (even though $20/year is still far cheaper than other options). That's fine, because I found blogging platforms I enjoy even more than omg.lol that have free options.

The first is rather popular: Bear Blog, an ultra-minimalist blogging platform--very web 1.0. If you don't mind having only text, then this option might be right for you.

[image: A bald person wearing glasses and a patterned sweater with a brown vest sits at a desk, smiling with a single tear on their cheek while working at a computer. The monitor displays the pika.page interface] illustration of Barry Hess by Shawn Liu on the homepage of https://pika.page/

But if you're looking for something a little more extensible and, in my opinion, fun, let me introduce you to pika.page, a platform created by Good Enough. Good Enough is a zine publisher and small web dev company that makes good small products. Here's their full list:

Why Pika?

Pika has a list of features that I think are excellent and compelling:

The only catch is that there is a limit of 50 posts on their free tier. After that, it's $6/month or $60/year. Still miles cheaper than Squarespace or Ghost or any other typical options.

And you know what? That's a fantastic limitation to try to reach. How many of us actually produce fifty of anything? At that point, you're serious enough about your craft and public presence that you owe it to yourself to find a better solution and pay the cost that it's worth.

Fifty posts. They don't need to be long-form or deep and meaningful. What's important is that you're writing.

The 100 Days to Offload Challenge

There's actually a specific blogging challenge, created by Kev Quirk, called 100 Days to Offload, where the challenge is to publish 100 posts on your personal blog within 365 days, starting whenever you want, writing about whatever interests you.

One blogger found it increased their web traffic by 20-30x, with some posts getting shared widely enough to receive 250x their usual pre-challenge daily traffic.

The Hall of Fame includes people who've done it multiple times, with some as many as four times over.

Once you reach these kinds of numbers, you'll strengthen your writing, you'll have a voice and something meaningful to offer the world. Ever since I started my own personal site, I notice that not everything I write there ends up on my Medium, and that's okay. Sometimes what I write is too technical or too personal, but I still want it to be public-facing for those who care enough to look and find it.

Part Two: Elsewhere

Creating is only one half of the picture, with community being the other. A oft-repeated criticism of the IndieWeb is how it's more difficult to find others and to socialize. Below are resources to get started and plenty of rabbit holes to fall into.

Search Engines

Let me start with search. There are actually quite a few different search engines you probably have no idea about:

[image: Screenshot of ooh.directory homepage showing a collection of 2,367 blogs organized into categories.] ooh.directory's homepage, featuring a collection of 2,367 blogs organized into categories.

Directories

There are also plenty of directories for discovering personal sites:

And you should think about creating a blogroll yourself! Blogrolls were how people built networked communities in the old blogosphere, a list of other blogs you read and sometimes responded to. They're making a comeback as part of the IndieWeb movement.

Philosophy & Principles

If you're curious about the philosophy behind transitioning from corporate social media to the IndieWeb:

Web 1.0 Aesthetics

There are certain aspects of Web 1.0 that are fun to emulate:

Advanced Mode

Maybe you're already at a point where you want to sink your teeth (and money) into your creative process on the IndieWeb. Here are resources for the next level:

Coding Resources

If you want to learn to code your own site from scratch:

Code Editors

Regarding editors to use for coding:

Hosting & Domains

If you're looking for hosting:

If you're looking to buy a domain:

Browsers

If you're looking for a new browser:

Misc.

Here are some other resources I'd like to share that don't really fit elsewhere.

Joy as Resistance

More than anything, this is about fun. It's about having fun and spreading joy. Create silly websites as a new hobby. Mix and match colors and fonts. Write anything you want. Untense your shoulders and ease the white-knuckle grip.

We must find moments of joy in the horror of our present. Joy is not a prize for getting through it all--joy is a tool that enables us to get through the horror. Our joy is an act of resistance.

The independent web is already here, thriving while Big Tech implodes under its own extractive weight. All you have to do is join it.

Have anything to add? Let me know. This resource post is a living document!