Big bet
With the ingredient of time any small bet can become a big one
Three years ago I started Bonetflix, the acronym for Best on Netflix, a website with information about movies available on Netflix ( in US, UK, ES) with IMDB and Filmaffinity rankings.
This is how the website looks today on Google Search Console in the last 12 months.
I’m thrilled to share my journey on this project from inception to future.
Start
Everything originated from a confluence of compelling reasons. As a dedicated enthusiast of movies and series, I embarked on this venture prompted by the challenge of finding a ranking for the available Netflix titles in Spain.
I researched keywords related to Netflix on Keyword Planner. I identified a substantial volume of searches incorporating the query "$movie_name Netflix". At that juncture, Netflix lacked the public movie pages that characterize its user experience.
This is the first project I did targeting web as the main platform, a departure from my usual terrain of Android Apps. Despite the existence of competitors in the field, I decided to embark on this project with a focused objective: to establish a robust online presence.
Build
In developing the website, I opted to utilize HTML, CSS, and minimal Javascript to ensure optimal speed and performance. Everything is static content following some of the principles of “Manifesto for Preserving Content on the Web”. The current Lighthouse score for the website is as follows:
In the data phase, information was sourced from various outlets such as Netflix, Filmaffinity, and IMDB. Addressing website modifications and circumventing captchas were integral aspects of this endeavor. I also had to match these data between those different data sources, converting text to a vector, clustering, and identifying the most proximate vectors. A challenging aspect was discerning movies with identical names in the same or different years, as well as identifying similar actors in distinct films.
With the amassed data, I decided not to make a copy-paste about the text extracted from different sources. So I used the pre-ChatGPT trick to generate data, translated English movie overviews to Spanish to get Spanish overviews and vice versa. Subsequently, I also read and reviewed the translations, recognizing that they were not consistently accurate and might also include errors today.
Marketing / SEO
The first year was hard, I felt like Google didn’t trust my website and didn’t rank the keywords. However, as time progressed, there was a discernible shift, indicating a gradual gain in trust. I don’t have data from the start as Google Search Console doesn’t allow me to get data older than 16 months ( with this newsletter, things won’t be lost).
The top linking sites contributing to website visibility are the following:
Furthermore, I built Bonetflix App to explore the potential impact on results through website referencing ( I will not delve into the Android app, maybe in another issue). That’s why I have Google as a top linking site. This initiative faced initial setbacks, as Google penalized the behavior in the early weeks, resulting in diminished site visits. Subsequently, however, normalcy was restored.
Another experimentation involved referencing select movies from Wikipedia, even with the inclusion of a "no follow" backlink. While there was a transient surge in website ranking, this effect did not endure over the long term.
As the website continues to mature and solidify its standing, I focused on effective monetization strategies. The following paragraphs are my experience.
Monetization
Seeking the viability of the project, I decided to add ads. I chose to add Google Adsense Auto ads and Amazon Prime Video Affiliate Program.
Adsense Auto ads choose the best place on a webpage to place ads based on different elements such as the page layout and the amount of content on the page. Everything to increase your revenue, and Google’s revenue, for sure. However, the ad experience was not very pleasant and hurt the user experience. I ran the experiment in March and these are the results:
I was far away from sustainability with Auto ads, but Amazon Prime Video didn’t go better. I placed an Amazon Prime Video subscription banner near the “Watch on Netflix” button, here is The Godfather example. But it resulted in 0 Prime Video subscriptions.
With these results and the harm to user experience. I decided to remove Google Ads and set up Prime Video ads seeking any conversion (€3 per subscribed user). But I saw that with this traffic I wouldn’t be able to achieve sustainability as I’d need x500 more traffic.
Costs
I used Route 53, S3, and Cloudfront services from AWS for website infrastructure. These are the costs of this last year:
I’m gathering available movie and show data from Netflix. To gather this data I need to be a Netflix user and Netflix’s Standard plan is €12,99/month in Spain.
A total of $197.01 a year.
Future
I devoted a substantial timeframe, specifically three years, to the development of this project, with two of those years being concurrently managed alongside my full-time employment. What began as a small bet evolved into a considerable bet in terms of time. My ambitions for the project extend to the integration of a movie search function, enhanced movie rankings, and the inclusion of trailers to augment the overall user experience. However, achieving these objectives necessitates a more dedicated allocation of time on my part.
Nowadays, there are movie rankings platforms with their filter of movies available on Netflix, even Google shows its results in the first search position. Sometimes I have thoughts of forgetting the project and dedicating my time to something else. While the work brings me joy, its financial returns have yet to reach a limit that can provide a sustainable livelihood, and I doubt they will be able to in the future.
I have other projects in mind and that would benefit from my time dedicated to Bonetflix. However, I find value in maintaining this project. It serves as a valuable instrument for the exploration of new concepts and ideas, building an audience and enhancing search engine optimization (SEO). In essence, the project holds the potential to significantly contribute to my ongoing learning curve and overall skill development.