Working notes from the SEO bench
Experiments, post-mortems, and the boring stuff that actually moves rankings. New posts every Tuesday.
IndexNow vs. robots.txt: What Actually Speeds Indexing
A controlled test of three indexing signals — IndexNow, sitemap pings, and crawl frequency.
How Meta Descriptions Affect CTR in 2026 (Data from 4,000 Pages)
Google rewrites most descriptions. Here is what to do instead.
Parasite SEO: Why It Works and Why You Should Not Do It
A clear-eyed look at parasite SEO — the mechanics, the risks, the better alternative.
The INP Fix Guide: From 600ms to Under 200ms
A pragmatic walk-through of INP — main-thread bloat, long tasks, and the patterns that fix them.
The SERP Features Cheat Sheet for 2026
Every SERP feature Google serves today, ranked by CTR lift and how to earn each one.
hreflang 101: The Hreflang Tag Without Tears
A visual guide to hreflang — return tags, x-default, the lot.
AI Content Detectors in 2026: A Reality Check
How detectors work, why they fail, and the one signal they cannot fake.
8 Canonical Tag Mistakes That Quietly Tank Rankings
Cross-domain canonicals, paginated canonicals, HTTPS mishaps — and the right way to set each.
Topical Authority: A 9-Month Case Study
How a niche B2B SaaS site went from page 5 to the top 3 by reorganizing around clusters.
The Long-Tail Keyword Strategy That Compounding Compounds
Why long-tail is not a tactic, it is the funnel. Plus a workflow for shipping 50/month.
JavaScript SEO in 2026: What Still Matters
SSR vs. SSG vs. ISR — what Google actually renders, and what you can skip.
Google Search Console: The 6 Reports Most SEOs Never Open
Hidden GSC reports that catch problems before they ship.
The Pillar-Cluster Model, Refined
The classic pillar-cluster model has aged. Here is the 2026 take.
The Ecommerce SEO Checklist (2026 Edition)
Faceted nav, product schema, reviews, and the conversion-side SEO most stores miss.
Image SEO: A Complete Playbook
File names, alt text, AVIF, lazy-loading, and the Core Web Vitals angle.
How Google Actually Uses Internal Links
PageRank sculpting in 2026 — what still works, what is folklore.
Voice Search SEO: Still Worth It?
The data on voice queries, the queries worth chasing, and the queries to ignore.
The Truth About Duplicate Content Penalties
There is no penalty — but there is a filter. Here is how the filter works.
YouTube SEO: The YouTube-Google Pipeline
How YouTube ranks videos, and how to double-surface them in Google.
Negative SEO: How to Spot It and Shut It Down
Spammy backlinks, scraped content, and fake GMB attacks — defense playbooks.
Log File Analysis for SEOs (Without an Engineer)
A non-engineer guide to server logs — what to look for and how to act on it.
Recovering From a Core Update: The 6-Week Plan
A field-tested triage plan for sites that lose rankings after a broad core update.
Short-Form Content in 2026: When 300 Words Beat 3,000
The case for shorter, sharper pages — and the trap of over-thin content.
How to Audit Redirect Chains Without Screaming Frog
A free, fast workflow for finding and pruning redirect chains on any size site.
Brand Mentions as a Ranking Signal: What the Data Says
Unlinked mentions, branded search lift, and the "mention velocity" hypothesis.