datafox Post-Completion Notes

Some things, from “wanting to” to “actually completing,” are separated by a period of doubt you wouldn’t voice externally. If you follow my posts, you’ll know I already built my website by late July. However, after a packed summer internship and my first semester of graduate school, as I prepared to apply for more positions in my second semester, I finally resolved to build my personal website and embark on the path of “personal branding.” This article is a comprehensive record, written while the memory is still fresh, of the process after datafox.tw was officially launched, along with a practical guide on how to build a personal brand website in 2026 (a year some call the “AI SEO元年” or “Year One of AI SEO”).

I will share:

  • How to buy a domain: From placeholder to brand anchor
  • How to build a site with GitHub Pages + Hugo: A lightweight, free, and powerful combination
  • How to design SEO for the AI era: Optimizing for AI search engines like Perplexity and Gemini
  • How to add professional tools in 5 minutes: Integrating Formspree forms and Calendly appointments
  • How to establish traffic tracking and trust mechanisms: Configuring GA4 and Busuanzi counter
  • How to anchor your identity as Yu-Chi Ko (datafox): Building a professional Trust Bar

I. Why Do I Need My Own Website?

Before this, I already had:

But I realized that, in 2026, traffic no longer comes from traditional SEO or praying to the heavens, but rather by adapting to the pincer attack of humans and AI (damn, this sentence probably doesn’t sound like AI at all; I wrote this part). I conducted a very interesting experiment: I asked Perplexity, “Please recommend some experts in AI applications at National Taiwan University.” Although the AI initially refused to answer, when I pressed it, it did spit out a few names, two of whom were friends of mine. I was surprised because they usually kept a low profile, but they received high praise in the AI’s search results.

This made me reflect: how can I stand out in this jungle of highly capable individuals in Taiwan’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Science graduate institutes? Building my personal website and using simple but powerful SEO for self-promotion is a necessary step in the current AI era. Furthermore, while adjusting my articles on Medium, I found that Medium offers very limited options; the article structure is closed, and it doesn’t support many features like filling out forms or scheduling meetings. This made me realize something important:

Platforms are borrowed; domains are your own.

Why are sovereign assets important? Because in the AI era, we cannot predict if a platform will shut down or suddenly change its rules. Owning your website ensures that your data and content will not disappear.

II. From 0 to Live: Technical Construction Process

2.1 Purchasing a Domain (GoDaddy and Other Options)

I chose datafox.tw.

The purchase process isn’t difficult, but there are a few things to note:

  • The first year is usually cheaper (promotional price). I used GoDaddy for my purchase, costing 1390 NTD for the first two years, which amortizes to less than two NTD per day—I thought it was a great deal.
  • Remember to check the renewal price.
  • Disable unnecessary add-ons; only purchase them when you truly need them.
  • Consider the brand positioning of .tw vs .com (I liked the name datafox, but datafox.com was already taken).

Why datafox? While it genuinely was a name I thought of on the spur of the moment (for those who know me, my main name in college was blackwingedkite, which I used on Medium. Even earlier, for instance, my initial GitHub name was bonnieker, a combination of bonnie, a rabbit I liked at the time, and my surname ker).

But when choosing a site name, I realized something: these names were a bit too hard to remember. “Blackwingedkite” is a 15-character term representing a species, not a technology (and if I wanted to look at cute black-winged kite photos in the future, I might find myself, which would be a bit awkward). “Bonnieker” was cuter but was just a very basic name + surname combination, very uninteresting (and it’s weird for a guy to be called Bonnie, haha). So when I was thinking of a new name, I decided on “datafox” because it’s catchy and easy to remember, fits my usual fondness for foxes, and “.tw” represents my identity and national affiliation. After checking, I found this name was surprisingly uncommon (I only saw one obscure Oracle project using it), so I decided on this name as the starting point for my personal brand.

Incidentally, if you search for datafox on Google now, the first result is already this website. It seems I’ve already beaten Oracle in search engines (just kidding).

2.2 GitHub Pages + Hugo Site Building

I didn’t choose WordPress, nor did I rent a server.

The reasons are simple:

  • GitHub Pages doesn’t require a backend
  • Free
  • Static websites are stable
  • Version control is possible
  • Deterministic structure

I used:

  • GitHub Pages as the deployment platform
  • Hugo as the static site generator
  • An existing theme as a base, then customized it

Basic workflow:

  1. Create a GitHub repo
  2. Install Hugo
  3. Choose a theme
  4. Configure config.toml
  5. Set up a custom domain
  6. Bind DNS I’m not an expert here; I also asked AI many times to get it right, but generally, you can refer to these articles:

III. SEO Design in the AI Era

This section is what I value most.

3.1 Implementing JSON-LD Person Schema

I’m not just doing SEO for Google; I’m preparing for AI Search Agents.

I added:

  • @type: Person
  • name
  • affiliation
  • jobTitle
  • knowsAbout
  • sameAs

Purpose:

To allow search engines and AI systems to clearly identify:

  • My technical boundaries
  • My research directions
  • My identity tags

You can ask an AI assistant to help generate precise Schema markup for this part. I implemented it in extend_head.html, ensuring that this professional information exists not only within the articles but also in the “machine-readable” layer of the webpage. In the era of big data, self-positioning for AI should be as precise, clear, and structured as writing code.

Below is an example of the Person Schema I actually used:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Person",
  "name": "Yu-Chi Ko (柯宥圻)",
  "jobTitle": "AI Systems & LLMOps Engineer",
  "knowsAbout": [
    "Large Language Models (LLM)",
    "LLMOps",
    "Agentic AI",
    "GraphRAG",
    "Quantitative Finance"
  ],
  "email": "datafox.tw@gmail.com",
  "sameAs": [
    "https://github.com/datafox-tw",
    "https://linkedin.com/in/koyuchi"
  ]
}

[!TIP] Structured data helps AI build your “knowledge graph.” When someone queries technical keywords in an AI search engine, you, with clear Schema markup and a link to your NTU AI background, will have a competitive advantage over ordinary webpages.

3.2 Aligned Keyword Strategy

I didn’t just stack keywords. Instead, I focused on “semantic alignment.”

For example:

  • LLMOps
  • Agentic AI
  • Structured Reasoning
  • Intelligent Trading
  • Verifiable Systems

I deliberately ensured my technical radar was semantically linked to these terms.

IV. Professional Upgrade Completed in 5 Minutes

Professionalism, often, comes from “reducing friction for the other party.”

4.1 Business Contact Form (Formspree)

I didn’t write a backend.

I used Formspree:

  • Frontend HTML form
  • Direct forwarding to email
  • No server required

To prevent spam, I also added an invisible Honeypot field:

<form action="https://formspree.io/f/your_id" method="POST">
  <!-- Anti-spam field -->
  <input type="text" name="_gotcha" style="display:none" />
  
  <label>Your Name:</label>
  <input type="text" name="name" required>
  
  <label>Email:</label>
  <input type="email" name="_replyto" required>
  
  <button type="submit">Send Message</button>
</form>

Just point the action to the ID provided by Formspree, and you’ll receive emails immediately, without even needing to connect an API.

4.2 Calendly Appointment Integration

I added:

  • Bilingual booking page
  • Synchronization with Google Calendar
  • Automated scheduling

This standardizes the business negotiation process. The default meeting duration is 30 minutes, simply because it’s a default, but it allows me to introduce myself if new clients inquire about relevant matters in the future, and provides room for future changes.

V. Traffic and Trust Mechanism

5.1 Google Analytics 4: Data-Driven Personal Brand Optimization

In traditional views, only e-commerce or large websites needed data analytics, but in the AI era, a personal website’s “data awareness” is equally important.

My core goal in implementing GA4 is to capture “what visitors are interested in.” For a personal website, GA4 is the most powerful and completely free tracking tool available. Even with only 100 visitors per month, you can observe data like a professional PM:

  • Precisely capture visitor interests: By seeing which pages have the highest click-through rates (e.g., “Portfolio” vs. “Life Notes”), I can understand which of my traits potential collaborators or HR personnel truly care about.
  • Measure engagement depth and dwell time: GA4’s improved “average engagement time” is more valuable than traditional “dwell time.” If a visitor spends more than 3 minutes on my LLMOps notes, it means the content successfully triggered deep reading, rather than just an accidental click.
  • Track interaction behavior: I can set up tracking for actions like “clicking the appointment button” or “clicking the GitHub link.” For me, this is the “conversion” for a personal brand.

In modern themes like PaperMod, installing GA4 is as simple as breathing, requiring only one line of configuration for the measurement ID in hugo.yaml:

googleAnalytics: G-XXXXXXXXXX

[!NOTE] For personal websites with monthly traffic below tens of thousands, GA4 is virtually free for life. It allows you to have the same level of analytical insight as top tech companies without investing capital, helping you quickly iterate on the content of your “About Me” page.

5.2 Busuanzi Counter

I added a real-time view count display to transparently show traffic. This was my biggest surprise because it truly requires no setup; you just insert two lines of code anywhere, which was an unexpected bonus, and allows me to casually observe if my traffic is growing.

Inject this simple script into footer.html:

<script async src="//busuanzi.ibruce.info/busuanzi/2.3/busuanzi.pure.mini.js"></script>
<span id="busuanzi_container_site_pv">| Total Views <span id="busuanzi_value_site_pv"></span></span>

When a website is marked as “alive” by search engines, its ranking and importance will slowly climb.

VI. Cloudflare Email Routing: Minimum Cost Upgrade for Professionalism

Once you have your own domain (e.g., datafox.tw), if you want a professional email address (e.g., yourname@datafox.tw), you typically need to purchase Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, which costs at least 6 USD per month in subscription fees.

However, I discovered a completely free and powerful solution: Cloudflare Email Routing.

6.1 Host Your Domain on Cloudflare

This is the step I recommend most. You can change the DNS servers of the domain you bought from GoDaddy to point to Cloudflare. This itself is also completely free, and Cloudflare provides:

  • The world’s strongest CDN: Allowing readers scattered globally to load your static webpages incredibly fast.
  • Enterprise-grade security protection: Automatically defends against DDoS attacks, giving even personal websites bank-level “shields.”
  • Extremely fast DNS resolution: Simpler interface than most registrar’s built-in options, and extremely quick for resolution changes to take effect.

6.2 Implement Email Rerouting (Forwarding Mechanism)

By enabling Email Routing in the Cloudflare backend, you can magically create “custom email aliases,” for example:

  • hello@datafox.tw 👉 forwards to my personal@gmail.com
  • research@datafox.tw 👉 forwards to another specified mailbox

The significance for a personal brand is: Visitors see a professional email address with strong brand consistency on your official website, but as a developer, you don’t need to switch backends at all; you handle all incoming mail directly in your original Gmail. I believe this is an incredibly high return on investment (cost 0, professionalism +100) hidden setting.

VII. Identity Anchoring: Who Am I, Exactly?

This section is the most important part beyond the technical aspects.

I re-evaluated:

  • Which name should I use?
  • Vincent?
  • Yu-Chi Ko?
  • datafox?

Finally, it was unified as:

Yu-Chi Ko (datafox)

I updated:

  • ACML talk photos
  • NTUAI lecturer photos
  • Professional achievement records I will discuss the thoughts and struggles behind this part in a future article.

Conclusion: From “Wanting To” to “Achieving”

Many often say, “One day, I want to create a website too.”

But the real turning point is the moment you take action.

In fact, building all of this is much simpler than imagined. If you have basic Git experience, this entire process can be completed within “a single day.” From domain purchase to Hugo setup, and then to integrating tools like JSON-LD, Formspree, GA4, and Cloudflare mentioned today, as long as the basic logic is clear, subsequent maintenance, content updates, and optimization are very smooth, just like committing code.

With these modern analytical tools and automated processes, building a personal brand truly can be a “one-day endeavor.”

datafox.tw is not the endpoint; it is my base for future deep engagement in:

  • LLM system research
  • AI technology promotion and education
  • Technical translation and writing

If you’re also wondering, “Should I build my own website?” My only advice is:

“Starting is always more important than being perfect.”