kasperkamperman

I created a site (https://zwemindex.nl) with all the pools and open water places in The Netherlands (it's in Dutch). It started off with the idea that I wanted to do a places search but without Google Places. I learned about GIS, build a lookup array with placenames, slugs and latlon. Just simple PHP and autocomplete.js.

I started out with some Open Data from the Dutch governent on all open water swimpots. I thought the current site (still is) not user-friendly on mobile. I also added all the public pools.

I got some traction because I got interviewed as an example project and I reached out to news sites.

Actually my backend is a Google sheet, which I sync to MongoDB (works nice with geo). Did a write up on that: https://www.kasperkamperman.com/blog/web/import-csv-in-mongo...

Rest is all vanilla PHP, cached to HTML, Bulma css. Running on shared hosting, with Cloudflare cache in front.

I really worked on accessibility too, allowing keyboard navigation (press TAB) and making sure everything is readable and with good contrast (Bulma 2.0 fixed that).

I make about $500 with some affiliate links (waterparks with hotels, wellness) which really fit with the search intent of the user. The last thing I want is stuffing the site full with Google ads.

I did an explainer on OSC to explain the concepts. Indeed I think its the easiest network protocol to just hook different things together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uOR2idKvrM