From the archive. First published in April 2018. Rewritten for clarity, with a note on what happened afterwards.
We wrote this a month after the March 2018 policy changes, when the honest answer to whether a page was still worth the effort had been no. The data then started looking better than the mood, and the question has returned every couple of years since. Here is the durable version of the answer.
What the 2018 shock actually was
The January 2018 meaningful interactions update prioritised friends and family over pages and publishers. Adam Mosseri said plainly at the time that pages might see reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease. They did. Affiliate businesses that depended entirely on Facebook traffic shed staff or closed.
The lesson was not that pages stopped working. It was that businesses with a single distribution channel they did not own were always one update away from this.
Where the money is now
- Feeding something you own. A site, a shop, a newsletter. The most durable model, and the only one not at the mercy of a ranking change.
- Sponsored posts. Works when the page sits in a commercial niche and you can show real reach figures. Rates depend far more on audience country than on follower count.
- Affiliate content. One relevant recommendation a week beats daily links, which erode engagement and with it your reach.
- Video revenue. Rewards watch time rather than followers, so it suits pages making original video rather than reposting.
- Selling the page. A legitimate exit, priced on audience country, niche and genuine reach.
What changed in your favour
The recommendation era has actually helped smaller operators. Roughly a third of organic feed views now come from recommendations to people who do not follow the page. A page with a modest following and genuinely good content can reach further than its follower count implies, which was not true in 2018.
What has not changed
Link posts are the worst performing format by a wide margin, and Meta began testing a two link per month cap for non subscribers in December 2025. If your model depends on sending people off Facebook, that model is getting harder by design, not by accident.
Thinking of selling?
We give free valuations with no obligation. Send us the page URL and a representative replies with a figure, usually within one business day. Looking to buy instead? Register as a buyer.
