Insights, Tutorials & Best Practices

Technical SEO

Two schema validators, two verdicts: which one decides your rich result

The same page passes schema.org's validator with three items and no warnings, and Google's Rich Results Test with two. Nothing errored. One item is simply absent. Both tools are Google's, both are right, and only one of them is telling you what Google will actually show. Run on our own page, on 14 August 2026.

Andrei

Aug 14, 2026 • 9 min

SEO Strategies

A ranking dropped: what to rule out, in order

Google publishes a debugging guide for Search traffic drops. It names six causes, and backlinks aren't among them — the word doesn't appear on the page. That's not an oversight, it's a boundary: the guide covers Google's side of the glass. Here's the full elimination order, from measurement artifacts to the box almost nobody opens, with the rewrite saved for last.

Andrei

Aug 14, 2026 • 10 min

SEO Strategies

Why your SERP position is three different numbers

Your browser puts you third. Your rank tracker says seven. Search Console says 11.2. Same keyword, same page, same morning — and none of the three is broken. They answer different questions, and Google documents most of the difference itself. What each number measures, two things I checked live this week that contradict the standard advice, and the one figure worth putting in a client report.

Andrei

Aug 14, 2026 • 11 min

SEO Strategies

How to read Ahrefs metrics: which numbers are counted, which are guessed

DR, UR, organic traffic, traffic value, KD. They sit in identical gray boxes and look equally authoritative, but half of them are calculations over Ahrefs' own index and half are models of data only Google has. Ahrefs published the error bar on the second half itself: a median deviation of 49.52% against Search Console.

Andrei

Aug 13, 2026 • 12 min

Link Building

Directory submission in 2026: what a listing is actually worth

Google's spam policy names low-quality directory links as link spam. We opened six web directories and read the raw HTML: the two that still pass link credit are the general-directory survivors, while every vertical directory worth being listed in withholds it. What the tactic is still good for, and what to check once a listing is live.

Andrei

Aug 13, 2026 • 11 min

Link Building

HARO link building in 2026: what's left after the shutdown

HARO shut down in December 2024, came back under new ownership four months later, and picked up rules on the way — including AI scoring on every pitch. What exists in 2026, what a placement actually gets you, and the four checks worth running once your coverage is live.

Andrei

Aug 07, 2026 • 10 min

Link Building

Niche edits: what you're actually buying when you pay for a link insertion

A niche edit buys you a seat on a page that already ranks. It also buys you the easiest link in the world to remove: the publisher deletes a sentence, the page still returns 200, and nothing alerts you. What insertions cost, what Google's policy says, and the four things worth re-checking after one goes live.

Andrei

Aug 06, 2026 • 11 min

Technical SEO

How to trace a redirect chain on a link you don't control

The page loads, your anchor is there, everything looks fine - and that check tells you less than it feels like it does. A bought link can arrive through hops someone else added after your money cleared. How to read the hop path on a link you don't control, and where a plain HTTP trace runs out of road.

Andrei

Aug 02, 2026 • 9 min

Technical SEO

How to find the outbound links on your own pages

Almost nobody audits the links leaving their own site, so the list quietly grows: an old resource roundup, a plugin's footer credit, an embedded feed. Then a domain changes hands and your page is recommending something you have never seen. Four ways to pull the list, and what no automated pass catches.

Andrei

Aug 02, 2026 • 7 min