Why I removed the tier list from my Honor of Kings Global build site

hokmeta — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 06:49:12 +0000

I have been building a small Honor of Kings Global site called HOKMeta:

At first, I built it like many game sites: hero pages, counters, tools, and a tier list.

But after working on the site for a while, I removed the tier list as a main page.

The reason is simple: a tier list looks useful, but it does not always match how players actually choose heroes.

A Marco Polo player will still play Marco Polo even if people say he is weak.
A Hou Yi player usually does not search for “is Hou Yi S tier?” first.
They search for things like:

Hou Yi build
Hou Yi arcana
Hou Yi counter
what to build against tanks
what to change against assassins
best build for ranked

That made me rethink the site structure.

Instead of making the tier list the center of the site, I moved the focus toward:

hero build pages
counter pages
item pages
damage calculator
build compare
counter picker

For a small SEO site, this feels more useful too.

A tier list is one page.
Hero builds and matchup questions create many real long-tail pages.

For example, “Hou Yi build 2026” is a clearer search intent than just “Honor of Kings tier list”.

The current direction is:

hero page -> build, arcana, counters, FAQ
counter page -> who beats this hero and why
tool page -> test builds instead of guessing
item page -> understand what the item actually does

It is still early, and the data is still being cleaned up, but this direction feels closer to what players need before a ranked match.

If you build content/tool sites, this was a useful lesson for me:

Do not blindly copy the obvious page type.
Look at what users are really trying to decide.

Building HOKMeta: static Honor of Kings data, guides, and player tools

hokmeta — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 12:28:49 +0000

I have been building a small site for Honor of Kings Global called HOKMeta:

https://hokmeta.com/

It started from a simple problem: when I looked for hero builds, counters, arcana, and item choices, a lot of content felt either too thin or too far away from how players actually make decisions before a ranked match.

Most searches are not generic. Players search for very specific things:

Hou Yi build 2026
best arcana for Hou Yi
how to counter Angela
Marco Polo build and counters
best marksman HOK

So I decided to build the site around those practical questions.

Current build snapshot

The current version is still early, but it is already more than a set of blog posts.

As of the 2026-06-30 production build, the site generated 1,985 static pages.

The data set currently covers:

116 hero pages
116 hero counter pages
105 item pages
hero guide pages for popular searches like Hou Yi, Angela, Marco Polo, Garo, Luban No.7, Daji, Li Bai, Wukong, Dolia, and Augran
public JSON endpoints for hero and item data

Example pages:

Main site: https://hokmeta.com/
Hou Yi build page: https://hokmeta.com/hero/hou-yi/
Hou Yi guide: https://hokmeta.com/learn/hou-yi-guide/
Damage calculator: https://hokmeta.com/tools/damage-calculator/
Counter picker: https://hokmeta.com/tools/counter-picker/
Public hero JSON: https://hokmeta.com/api/heroes.json

Why static export

The site is built as a static export because most pages are data-driven and do not need server-side rendering at request time.

For this type of project, static output has a few advantages:

pages are fast to serve
hosting is simple
crawlers can read the content directly
public JSON files can be generated alongside the site
content can be refreshed through sync scripts and rebuilt

The tradeoff is that freshness needs to be handled intentionally. If the game patch changes, the data and generated pages need to be updated together.

Why tools, not only content

Content is useful, but for a game like Honor of Kings it gets outdated quickly.

A tier list article can help someone once. A practical tool can bring them back.

That is why I added:

a damage calculator for testing item builds against target templates
a build compare tool for checking which build performs better in different matchups
a counter picker for draft questions
an item database so item names and stats are easier to check

The goal is not to replace player judgment. The goal is to make common decisions faster:

Can this build actually kill a tank?
Is this item core or just situational?
Who counters this hero?
What should I build first if I am behind?

The SEO lesson so far

The biggest lesson is that "more pages" is not the same as better coverage.

The pages that matter most are the ones that match a player's exact problem.

A Hou Yi player does not just need a generic hero profile. They need:

the current build
arcana and spell choices
what to do in lane
what counters them
when to avoid picking the hero
a tool to test item decisions

That is why the internal links are built around: