Search Intelligence

Notes from the difficult websites.

Original analysis, experiments and technical breakdowns on SEO, search, AI search, development and strategy. Published when there is something worth saying.

All Technical SEO Search AI Search Development Strategy

Strategy · 10 Oct 2026 · 5 min How to judge an SEO strategy fairly Search traffic moves for many reasons at once. Judging a strategy by a single line on a chart is unfair to the strategy and to the… Read the article → Strategy · 10 Oct 2026 · 5 min Why a one-off link audit goes stale The links on your pages change without anyone editing them. An audit is a snapshot; the risk lives in what happens after it. Read the article → Development · 10 Oct 2026 · 6 min Launching a product site: the search basics Google documents A product launch has a long list of things to decide, and search is usually near the bottom. Google’s documentation is short on product advice but… Read the article → Strategy · 10 Oct 2026 · 6 min Link building that Google’s spam policies allow, and the habits they do not Google's spam policies name specific link practices, and they are more concrete than most people expect. Reading them closely shows what the policy prohibits, what it… Read the article → Strategy · 10 Oct 2026 · 5 min SEO changes that need sign-off before they go live Most SEO changes are safe to make quickly. A few can remove pages from search results in a single release. Those need a named approver and… Read the article → Strategy · 10 Oct 2026 · 5 min What a client should see in SEO work, and what they shouldn’t Some of the costliest problems in an SEO engagement are about information, not rankings: what the client saw, when they saw it and what they thought… Read the article → Search · 10 Oct 2026 · 6 min Is the drop real? Checking anomalies, seasonality and reporting first Before a fall in organic traffic is treated as a problem with the site, it has to be established that the data is sound, that the… Read the article → AI Search · 10 Oct 2026 · 6 min There is no “AI SEO” trick: what Google’s documentation says about AI Overviews and AI Mode A great deal is sold as a special method for appearing in Google’s AI answers. Google’s own guidance for site owners is short, specific and mostly… Read the article → Development · 10 Oct 2026 · 5 min Five checks after a WordPress launch that protect your rankings Most post-launch SEO problems are quiet: a setting left on, a cache that still serves the old page, a layout nobody tested on a phone. Read the article → Development · 10 Oct 2026 · 6 min Redirect chains and site moves: what Google documents Redirects are the mechanism of a site move, and the details matter: which type, how long to keep them, how many hops, and how much to… Read the article → Strategy · 10 Oct 2026 · 5 min In SEO reporting, “unavailable” is better than a guess A report that fills a data gap with a zero or an estimate looks complete and is wrong. The honest version is less tidy and far… Read the article → Strategy · 10 Oct 2026 · 6 min Planning content from evidence: what Google’s helpful content guidance asks A content plan needs a reason for every page, and Google's guidance on helpful, people-first content supplies the questions to test it. This article reads those… Read the article →

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What gets published here, and what doesn’t.

Yes

Original analysis. Experiments with a stated method. Technical breakdowns. Things learned on real projects.

No

Round-ups, recycled advice, and anything published only to have published something.