The SEO Blog
Notes on search
Essays and field notes on technical SEO, web performance, and the quiet mechanics of ranking. Written from audits, not opinion.
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Meet the AI crawlers reading your site
GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and friends are fetching your pages for different reasons. Who they are, what each one feeds, and how to manage access.
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SEO split testing and how to prove a change worked
Before and after comparisons lie. How SEO split tests actually work, when page-level testing is possible, and how to read results without fooling yourself.
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What a slow server really costs your SEO
Server response time quietly shapes crawling, Core Web Vitals, and revenue. What TTFB actually measures, what counts as slow, and how to bring it down.
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Generative engine optimization and how to show up in AI answers
How AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity pick their sources, what GEO really changes, and why classic SEO still carries most of the weight.
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SERP features and what they do to your click through rate
Position one is not what it used to be. How AI Overviews, snippets, and packs reshape clicks, why rank tracking alone misleads, and how to respond.
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Crawl budget myths, realities, and who should actually care
Most sites do not have a crawl budget problem. Learn who really does, what moves Googlebot's behavior, and how to measure it with server logs and GSC.
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Local SEO beyond the map pack
Local rankings run on relevance, distance, and prominence. What actually moves a Business Profile, what reviews really do, and where local pages fit in.
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SEO reporting metrics that matter (and the ones that just look busy)
Build SEO reports executives actually read: business outcomes over vanity metrics, brand vs non-brand splits, GSC caveats, and honest uncertainty.
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