WebGrowth
Newbie
- May 13, 2026
- 9
- 4
Hey BHW,
Going to document this in real time, wins, losses, screenshots, the whole thing. Not selling anything. Won't share the URL. Will share everything else.
The setup:
Why $0 and why now:
Everyone's saying AI Overviews killed content sites. I think they killed lazy content sites. Want to see if a patient solo with free traffic + clean content can still build something in 2026. Picking real estate because the RPMs are crazy and even small traffic eventually pays.
Where I am right now (screenshots below):
This is month ~1, and the numbers are tiny but moving:
Google Search Console (last 3 months):
Bing/IndexNow (last 3 months):
Indexing status:
The interesting one, AI visibility:
This is the part nobody on BHW is really talking about yet and it's where I'm putting attention. Google clicks are slow. Bing clicks are slower. But LLMs are citing my pages at a much higher rate than my traffic numbers would suggest. Different game.
The 130 Reddit account play:
Won't spam links, that's amateur hour. The plan:
What's working:
What's NOT working:
What I'm doing next:
What I'll post here:
Monthly updates with screenshots. GSC, Bing, indexing, AI citations. Real numbers, no curation. When an account dies, I'll say it. When something breaks, I'll say it. When I hit a milestone, I'll say it.
Not sharing the URL. Won't DM it. Don't ask.
Let's see what $0 + patience + 130 accounts can do in 2026.
Screenshots below.
If you've run a Reddit-heavy strategy long-term, especially in finance-adjacent niches, drop your hard-won lessons. Here to learn too.
Going to document this in real time, wins, losses, screenshots, the whole thing. Not selling anything. Won't share the URL. Will share everything else.
The setup:
- Niche: Real estate
- Budget: $0 ongoing (free hosting, free tools, free everything)
- Domain: cheap drop, sunk cost
- Content: AI-drafted, edited heavily by me, fact-checked
- Main growth asset: 130 aged Reddit accounts I've been collecting/farming for about a 2 years
Why $0 and why now:
Everyone's saying AI Overviews killed content sites. I think they killed lazy content sites. Want to see if a patient solo with free traffic + clean content can still build something in 2026. Picking real estate because the RPMs are crazy and even small traffic eventually pays.
Where I am right now (screenshots below):
This is month ~1, and the numbers are tiny but moving:
Google Search Console (last 3 months):
- 6 clicks total
- 1,430 impressions
- 0.4% CTR
- Avg position: 20.6
- Big uptick in impressions started ~10 May, clicks just started landing this week
Bing/IndexNow (last 3 months):
- 1 click, 69 impressions, 1.45% CTR
- Bing indexes faster than Google for me, by a mile
Indexing status:
- 33 pages in Google's index
- 102 not indexed (4 different reasons, mostly canonical/duplicate issues I'm working through)
- Big indexing jump happened around 8-12 May after I cleaned up internal linking and resubmitted sitemap
The interesting one, AI visibility:
- 14 citations from Microsoft Copilot ecosystem (last 30 days)
- 22 citations total across LLMs, 30.99% Share of Authority in my topic cluster
- AI referral traffic: <1%, microscopic, but it exists
- Avg 1 cited page per query I show up in
This is the part nobody on BHW is really talking about yet and it's where I'm putting attention. Google clicks are slow. Bing clicks are slower. But LLMs are citing my pages at a much higher rate than my traffic numbers would suggest. Different game.
The 130 Reddit account play:
Won't spam links, that's amateur hour. The plan:
- Grow My subreddit
- Accounts tiered by age + karma. Top tier (~1yr+, decent karma, clean history) only touches money subs. Lower tiers stay in their warming subs.
- Genuine participation first. Each money-sub account does ~10 real comments per week before ever dropping anything that references my site.
- When I do reference it, it's contextual, a specific post that genuinely answers what was asked. No homepage drops. Ever.
- No proxy, separate browser profiles on different OS, different writing styles per persona.
- Goal isn't just direct traffic, it's topical signals + branded search + getting cited in Reddit threads that themselves rank in Google AND get pulled by LLMs. Reddit content is feeding both Google's SERPs and AI training/retrieval. Double benefit if done right.
What's working:
- LLM citations climbing faster than Google clicks
- Bing indexes fast and gives me free signal data while I wait for Google
- Long, specific, question-answering articles getting indexed and starting to surface
- Reddit referral sessions are tiny but engagement metrics are clean, long sessions, low bounce
- Indexing jumped hard after I fixed internal linking
What's NOT working:
- 102 pages not indexed yet, 4 reason buckets I'm still untangling. Mostly "crawled, not indexed" and canonical issues.
- Lost a few Reddit accounts to shadowbans early on. Got impatient, paid for it.
- CTR at 0.4% is brutal, mostly because I'm avg position 20 (page 2-3). Will improve as I climb.
- Some subs are hostile to any link, learning which to skip.
What I'm doing next:
- Fix the 102 non-indexed pages (biggest lever right now)
- Push to 80 total articles by month 5
- Start activating Tier 1 Reddit accounts in money subs
- Track LLM citations weekly, this is the real story
- No monetization until I hit real traffic (5k+ sessions/mo target)
What I'll post here:
Monthly updates with screenshots. GSC, Bing, indexing, AI citations. Real numbers, no curation. When an account dies, I'll say it. When something breaks, I'll say it. When I hit a milestone, I'll say it.
Not sharing the URL. Won't DM it. Don't ask.
Let's see what $0 + patience + 130 accounts can do in 2026.
Screenshots below.
If you've run a Reddit-heavy strategy long-term, especially in finance-adjacent niches, drop your hard-won lessons. Here to learn too.
