Table of Contents
Community — Mastodon, Webmentions, RSS
How to find people and build an audience on the IndieWeb without algorithms.
Mastodon
Decentralized, open-source microblogging. Like an old-school Twitter without the billionaire and without the algorithm pushing outrage.
- Sign up at mastodon.social or indieweb.social
- Find IndieWeb people at the
#IndieWeband#SmallWebhashtags - No need to build from scratch — import your follows from existing accounts
Echofeed — echofeed.app — automatically publishes new blog posts to your Mastodon account when you publish to your site. Set it up once; it runs forever.
RSS
Let people subscribe to your site. When you publish, it shows up in their feed reader automatically. No algorithm, no engagement bait — just new posts, in order.
- Feed readers: NetNewsWire (macOS/iOS, free), FreshRSS (self-hosted)
- Submit your site to human-curated directories — see Directories & Blogrolls
- Your RSS feed is usually at
/feed.xmlor/rss.xmlautomatically with most platforms
Webmentions
A W3C standard notification system for the IndieWeb. When someone writes a post on their own site that links to yours, their site can notify yours. You receive the mention — like a thoughtful reply, not just a button press.
- webmention.io — free service to receive webmentions without setting up your own server
- Brid.gy — pulls in replies, likes, and reposts from Mastodon/Twitter as webmentions
- Requires adding a
<link>tag to your site's<head>pointing to your webmention endpoint
IndieAuth
IndieAuth lets people use their own domain as identity — no new account, no surrendering an email to another company. Used for comment systems and Micropub clients.
Comment on a site by entering yourdomain.com instead of an email address. Your domain is verified as belonging to you.
Micropub
Micropub is a W3C standard API for posting to your site from any compatible client.
- Quill — post from your phone or browser to your static site without touching Git or files directly
- Works with IndieAuth for authentication
- Enables: quick notes, replies, check-ins, all posted to your own domain
The Audience You Build
Smaller but more engaged. These are people who chose to follow you — not people doomscrolling past your posts between ads.
The algorithm shows your posts to a small fraction of your followers anyway. On the IndieWeb, everyone who follows your RSS feed sees everything you publish.