The True Story Behind PlentyOfFish.com -- Straight From The Horse's Mouth | Hacker News Reader

The True Story Behind PlentyOfFish.com -- Straight From The Horse's Mouth

plentyoffish.wordpress.com

15 pointsstaunch7 comments

"""I once again complained in my thread about my sites lack of SEO results it was September of 2003, I had 10k signups now and only a ~100 visitors a day from google and other 2,000 unique visitors a day from who knows where."""

So you guys were flat out wrong in the other thread when you said this guy got all of his traffic from SEO.

I said what I said in that thread having already read this post and many others of his. His story is an SEO success story more than anything else. He has, I believe, largely transitioned from that being his primary source of traffic. His site is a social site, so of course at some point it becomes self-sustaining.

He's also not the most forthright guy, so he's not going to say "I'm an black-hat SEO guy who made millions". It doesn't sound as impressive. The MySpace guys were spammers. No one remembers or really cares how you get started, but it's important to know the truth if you want to accurately evaluate startup strategies.

K, I was just confused about the story. I think I even recall the POF guy saying that SEO is totally useless for dating sites. Who knows.

Reading his blog for a long time I've learned he's extremely paranoid and highly competitive. So I listen very intently but always question his motives. On the one hand he wants to brag, but he also doesn't want to help the competition. It makes for interesting reading.

I think what most people tend to overlook is how great the name of the site is. It's funny, it's cynical, it's patronizing, but it sticks in the head. I just heared that name once maybe a year ago, and I might have heared of thousands of other sites, but I'm sure if I had to name one dating site, I would have remembered only this one.

"Just goes to show you anyone can do anything."

Not to paint with too broad a brush or anything...

You can see how absolutely horrible the site looked here.

Umm. The site still looks horrible.

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