A slightly punk, practical media project about what has gone wrong with the modern internet and the people still creating useful, interesting things on it.
Explore the projectMAIN PIECE OF WORK
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STATUS: IN PRODUCTION
FIELD RECORDING ZERO
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EPISODE 0 / FIELD RECORDING ZERO
The internet is more useful, convenient and full than ever. So why does it feel harder to find anything alive?
In Field Recording Zero, James looks at what search, feeds and AI are doing to discovery—and goes looking for the strange, human-made corners still worth visiting.
01 / THE PROJECT
Broken Internet Club is a slightly punk, practical media project about what has gone wrong with the modern internet and the people still creating useful, interesting things on it.
READER CONTROL / GOOGLE SEARCH
Add Broken Internet Club as a preferred source. Google may show more BIC reporting in Search and AI results when it is relevant.
What this button meansVisits to websites that still feel unmistakably made by a person—and, when possible, the people and places behind them.
Tiny tools, obsessive archives, ancient forums and strangely specific databases. Each trip asks what makes the place worth visiting, what it preserves and what the rest of the internet could learn from it.
Short transmissions about the parts of the modern internet that don’t quite work: platform dependence, zero-click discovery, AI summaries, broken measurement and digital work.
No doom. No guru predictions. Just a clearer look at the signal—and something useful to do next.
LATEST / FROM THE CLUB
New signals, field notes and places worth visiting. No feed required.
Start with a satisfyingly precise SEO forecast. Pull it apart until it becomes a useful decision.
Build a decision rangeKeep publishing until the dashboard looks brilliant and the website stays exactly as useful as before.
Publish another articleChoose what you want to prove, adjust the framing and watch the data become suspiciously supportive.
Make the numbers agreeKeep optimising a distinctive website until it becomes an extremely competent, perfectly forgettable SaaS landing page.
Optimise it to deathSomeone removed everything from the feed except the scrolling. People still travelled kilometres.
Enter the voidCan an AI system find the route, understand the rules and ask permission before it acts?
Check a taskAI can recommend a subscription. Can it resolve the billing, account and deadline rules required to help you leave one?
Take the field tripAI transparency is more useful when people can inspect evidence of what happened, not merely see a label saying AI was involved.
Read the Field NoteFind out how much of your audience, traffic and revenue depends on platforms you do not control.
Calculate your dependencyHow humane, useful and user-respecting is a digital service? RingGo, Hodmedod's and Netflix face ten tests.
See the first scoresModel what a change in organic CTR could mean for visits, conversions and commercial value.
Measure the click gapTurn an assumed organic traffic uplift into commercial value, net value, ROI and break-even figures.
Calculate SEO ROIIndependent businesses. Actual websites. No algorithm required. Wander around, find somewhere new and visit it directly.
Walk down the High StreetHow much of your internet presence do you actually own? Get a score for ownership, usefulness, distinctiveness and resilience.
Check my internet healthMake six decisions about traffic, trust and platform dependency. Try to stay visible without giving the whole internet away.
Begin field testSeven working ways to discover random, interesting and human-made websites beyond the feed.
Explore the alternativesA journey through an indie search engine built to uncover human-made websites beyond the usual results.
Take the field tripWhy website traffic drops—and the other evidence to question before you decide what happened.
Read the signalPress one button and leave the feed for a useful, peculiar or unmistakably cared-for corner of the internet.
Take me somewhereField notes on why the internet feels flatter—and the human-made places still worth seeking out.
Read the field notes04 / THE HUMAN
I’m James Yorke, an in-house SEO and digital specialist and a two-time BrightonSEO speaker.
I started Broken Internet Club to explore how search, AI and platforms are changing the web—and to find the people still building useful, interesting things outside the feed.
Read more about James