MetaFilter
👤 Matt Haughey (A pro web designer wired into the early-2000s blog elite; he hand-coded MetaFilter solo in 1999, drawing a sharp, loyal crowd.)🌐 sitehaughey.com𝕏
One of the web's great communities ran 15 years on Google ad money, until a single algorithm update nearly ended it.
Will it work? · our read
Trust outlived ads. One channel controlled its traffic, and when Google turned, the business halved overnight. Members saved it, but only 15 years of goodwill made that pivot possible.
01How the money moves
Google search sends readers to Ask MeFi
→
Ad views paid the bills (till 2012)
→
Members now fund the site directly
02The numbers
-40%
traffic, one Google update
Slate
8
staff at peak (5 full-time)
Haughey
27 yrs
still running in 2026
Wikipedia
It once paid 8 staff (5 full-time with benefits); today it runs lean and member-funded. MetaTalk finances
About $380K/yr, funded mostly by its own members.
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Wikipedia: MetaFilter — founding 1999, $5 fee, ownership timelineSlate (2014) — the Google Panda traffic drop and layoffsMatt Haughey: On the Future of MetaFilter — founder on peak ads and the Google problemMetaTalk finances update (Jan 2020) — about $30.5K/mo expenses, community-fundedSearch Engine Land — MetaFilter penalized by Google, explainer
Revenue is first-party: MetaFilter publicly posts its monthly finances. The $380K/yr figure is the stabilized 2020 community-funded budget (about $30.5K/mo expenses, $31.5K/mo income); 2026 updates show recent months running at a small loss. I could not find an exact first-party dollar figure for peak-era (2011-12) ad revenue, so peak scale is shown qualitatively (it supported 8 staff, 5 full-time with benefits). The 40% Ask MeFi traffic drop, Nov 2012 Panda timing, and May 2014 layoffs (3 cut) are documented by Slate and Haughey. No numbers invented. We never score you.