Nevo David paid an SEO freelancer around $3K a month for 4 months — “it was useless” on a brand-new domain
- Not disclosed
- Budget
- 4 months
- Duration
Before Postiz went open source, Nevo David focused on SEO: an UpWork freelancer pitched news sites, bought backlinks and wrote many articles. After four months at around $3K a month he called it useless — with very low domain authority, even easy keywords wouldn't rank — and switched to open source.
01The problem
A new social media scheduler in a market dominated by Hootsuite and Buffer, with no audience and no search presence.
02The hypothesis
If he buys backlinks and publishes lots of articles, the site will rank and bring customers.
03The experiment
He hired a freelancer from UpWork to reach out to news websites, buy backlinks and write many articles.
The spend was around $3K a month. After four months he stopped: with a very low domain authority, ranking even for easy keywords was hard and the competition was fierce.
He went back to what he knew — open source — which later became the engine of Postiz's growth and, eventually, its domain authority.
04Results
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Monthly SEO spendstated as “around 3k per month” | Not disclosed |
| Customers from it | Not disclosed |
| Spend | Not disclosed |
“Not disclosed” means the source doesn't say. We never estimate or fill in missing numbers.
05What worked — and what didn't
What didn't work
- Buying backlinks and publishing many articles on a domain with very low authority.
- Competing for keywords where established players already ranked.
06Lessons
On a brand-new domain, paid content and bought links didn't move rankings. Authority came later from open source (GitHub, awesome-lists), not from the SEO budget.
“But it was useless.”
07Source & evidence
- View original
Originally shared on Blog · Jan 1, 2025
You can get your financial freedom with open-source in 2025!
Public source. Extracted from publicly available content by the founder.
Want to try this?
Copy this experiment
A checklist built from what Nevo David actually did. Their numbers are a reference, not a promise.
- 1
Pick the channel and tactic
SEO — Outsourced SEO: bought backlinks + mass articles.
- 2
Set a budget cap
Nevo David didn't say what it cost. Decide your cap before you start.
- 3
Set an end date
Nevo David ran it for 4 months. Put your review date in the calendar now.
- 4
Avoid what didn't
Where it went wrong:
- ☐Buying backlinks and publishing many articles on a domain with very low authority.
- ☐Competing for keywords where established players already ranked.
- 5
Track the same numbers
So you can compare like for like:
- ☐Monthly SEO spend
- ☐Customers from it
- 6
Compare, then share what happened
Win or flop, the result is worth sharing.
Was this experiment useful?
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Nevo David hasn't published a step-by-step playbook. If enough readers ask, we'll ask Nevo David for one.
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