Example scores real blogs against a fixed six-dimension rubric and publishes every number, including its own.
One send per teardown. 4,112 subscribers, 52% open rate, published monthly.
Latest teardown · No. 41
Ranks 19th of 41 blogs scored to date. Median composite across the set is 3.0.
A 240-post archive with clean typography and no email capture above the fold on any of its top ten entry pages. The craft is already paid for. The conversion layer was never built.
Put an inline capture unit in the top ten entry posts
Build tag hubs for the four recurring subjects
Price the sponsorship slot that is already being given away
Signal
Platform and algorithm changes that move publisher numbers.
Worth shipping a full-text feed before you touch the sitemap again.
The smaller the list, the less the network sends back.
Authentication is now the price of landing in the inbox.
Stack
Platform reference, scored by what each choice costs you in the rubric.
Ghost wins on time to publish. WordPress wins on everything you add later.
The redirect map matters more than the export file.
Sending is a commodity. Owning the list and its data is not.
Canon
Six dimensions, what each is worth, and what a 1 and a 5 look like.
4,112 subscribers, $3,180 revenue, 2 audits sold, 1 refund issued.
Median capture rate 1.1%. Median LCP 2.4s. Median 3 internal links per post.
Same rubric, your site, private, with the implementation sequence written out.
The score set
Every teardown resolves to one composite out of 5, built from six sub-scores weighted equally. The set is the point: one score says little, forty-one scored the same way say what a category looks like.
Clean archive, no capture unit on any top entry page.
Strong tag hubs. Sponsorship priced under comparable inventory.
Everything rents the platform. No owned hub to compound into.
Best craft score in the set. Compounding held back by a flat archive.
Fast and well built. Nothing asks the reader for anything.
Good writing buried under a search-only navigation.
Read the score before the subject does
Each send is one scored blog, the three fixes, and what changed on the sites scored earlier. Nothing else goes out.
Twice monthly. Unsubscribe link in every send. The list is never rented or shared.