Most people optimise the layer they can see and wonder why nothing moves. Scroll once and watch a page come apart into the pieces a search engine actually collects, in the order it collects them.
Each one is published, each one has a link, and none of them come from us. If a teacher cannot show you where a number came from, do not learn from that teacher.
PageRank shown for bmw.de after Google removed it from the index in February 2006 for doorway pages.
Matt Cutts, Google, 2006pages of paid links pointing at one retailer, counted by the New York Times before Google acted.
The New York Times, February 2011where that retailer's rankings landed within hours of Google applying a manual action.
The New York Times, February 2011time it took bmw.de to return to the index once the doorway pages were removed.
Matt Cutts, Google, 2006Read those four together and you have the whole shape of organic search. Shortcuts work until somebody looks. The fall is fast. The recovery is also fast, but only if you remove the cause rather than argue with it.
Free, no sign up to read them. The sign up is only for the checklist at the end of the test, because that one is personalised to your answers.
Nothing else matters until a crawler can reach the page, render it, and store it. Most "we do not rank" problems die here, and they are cheap to fix.
A stored page still has to be about something. This is where headings, internal links and structured data stop being decoration and start doing work.
Ten results, one click. The last lesson is about the moment a person picks you over nine other pages that also answer the question.
Brands everyone has heard of, mistakes and wins that were investigated in public. We did not run these campaigns. We take them apart so you can use what they proved.
bmw.de served search engines a page stuffed with the German phrase for used car, then bounced people to a different page. Google removed the site and its PageRank showed zero. It was back inside a week, once the doorway pages were deleted rather than defended.
A retailer sat at the top for dresses, furniture and more. The New York Times counted 2,015 pages carrying paid links, on sites about nuclear engineering and Bulgarian property. Google confirmed the violation and rankings fell past page five within hours.
Zapier's integration directory is the most copied structure in organic search: one template, one page per pairing of tools, each answering a question somebody actually types. You can open the directory and count the pattern yourself in two minutes.
Traffic figures quoted for the same well known site differ by a factor of four between agency blog posts, because most are third party estimates rather than measurements. That is not a scandal, it is what estimates are. It does mean you have to check.
Answer honestly, it takes about three minutes. You get your score straight away, and the personalised breakdown after you tell us where to send it.
Tell us the site and the question. We come back with what we would check first and why, in plain language, at no cost. If we think you do not need help, we say that instead.
Longer pieces, each one with its sources and its workings attached.
The first lessons are being written now. The test above already works.