iFate

One of the most popular free sites for spirituality and divination today, I created and grew iFate to a massive 4.5 million monthly pageviews, across a global audience. iFate expanded to AppStore apps, books and even an Xbox title.

iFate has served over 50 million readings since its inception.

When I launched iFate nearly two decades ago (as is clearly visible from its old-school design aesthetics) I never dreamed it would become the visitor magnet that it is. I knew strategically that Astrology and I Ching readings were popular globally back in 2007. And I knew that these applications had the potential to be both evergreen and extremely sticky. But i had no idea that nearly 2 decades later it would drive 4.5 million pageviews per month to a global audience.

iFate features thousands of pages of original content but its true draw are the dozens of interactive divination applications which bring in thousands of daily users. These applications follow a simple formula (richly designed, free-to-access, zero onboarding, zero friction Tarot, astrology and I Ching readings, featuring animated graphics and an easy-to-use UI). The result has been a resounding success for nearly 20 years.

Among other features, iFate has its own local NASA-grade ephemeris for realtime planetary positional data, and more recently, TarotGPT AI powered Tarot readings.

Over the years, iFate has also spawned App Store apps, e-books, an apparel line, and even an Xbox gaming title.

The redesign disaster: An important lesson learned

Way back in 2014 I oversaw a brand new design overhaul for iFate — with up to date graphics and a cleaner, more subdued aesthetic. We also abandoned the dark blue background in favor of a more standard white. We believed at the time, the Google gods would smile on us, and send us more traffic.

The opposite happened. The results were unexpectedly disastrous.

For whatever reason, Google’s algorithms hated the new design. Search positions plunged. Traffic evaporated.

Somewhat more surprisingly, users reacted negatively to the updated look as well. They called “fashion magazine aesthetics” and repeat visits sank. Complaint emails were jumping at the same time Google was throttling our search impressions.

We listened. Scrapping the updated design, we returned the old “deep blue” color scheme. Users came back. Eventually traffic rebounded.

Lesson learned: Updated graphics aren’t always the right call — either from an SEO perspective or from a marketing perspective. “The blue is the brand”. We know that now.