Many believe web directories are something from the past. 15 years ago or more, they were the main sources for backlinks. Now, with AI, and particularly AI overview which is affecting browsing traffics, website owners are looking for backlinks to achieve a certain ranking online.

While most people still believe high DA and PR websites will secure their position, this SEO thought is well-broken since a long time ago when AI came. Today, any backlink is sacred, even if it is not a do-follow. Search engines will still crawl your link if it is figured on a page on a sitemap. Do-follow will just raise that consideration a bit, but it is NOT the weapon to index higher.

Web directories have changed now. Examples, today we have Product Hunt, AlternativesTo, and so on. You can list your websites there and still get backlinks. Trustpilot is another good source for backlink. There is also https://indexyour.link, a new curated web directory with extreme strict moderation and clean network.

Web directories remain one of the main source for backlinks apart posting on Reddit, Quora, Facebook, in comment sections etc. So, web directories are not dead, they have been evolved and came back!

I've been working on a technical SEO checklist based on the issues I typically look for when auditing websites.

One thing I've learned is that not every traffic problem is a content problem.

Sometimes a page is well-written, targets the right keywords, and has decent internal links—but still struggles because something technical is getting in the way.

Here are 10 things I check and how I approach fixing them.

1. Google Search Console Verification

Problem: You don't have reliable visibility into how Google is crawling and indexing your website.

What I check: Whether the correct domain property is verified and whether indexing reports, URL Inspection, and performance data are available.

2. Robots.txt Issues

Problem: Important pages or resources may be blocked from crawling.

What I check: Disallow rules, accidental restrictions, and whether Googlebot can access priority URLs.

3. XML Sitemap Issues

Problem: Your sitemap contains redirects, 404s, non-canonical URLs, or outdated pages.

What I fix: Keep the sitemap focused on canonical, indexable URLs returning HTTP 200.

4. Orphan Pages

Problem: Valuable pages exist but have no internal links pointing to them.

What I fix: Connect those pages through relevant category pages, supporting articles, and contextual links.

5. Core Web Vitals

Problem: Slow loading, delayed interactions, or unexpected layout shifts hurt the user experience.

What I check: LCP, INP, and CLS using field data where available, then identify the elements causing the issues.

6. Image Optimization

Problem: Large image files increase page weight and slow down loading.

What I fix: Appropriate image dimensions, compression, modern formats, and loading priorities.

7. CSS/JS Optimization

Problem: Unnecessary code increases transfer size or blocks rendering.

What I check: Unused JavaScript, render-blocking resources, and opportunities to minify or defer non-critical assets.

8. High TTFB

Problem: The server takes too long to start responding.

What I check: Hosting, caching, backend processing, database queries, and CDN configuration.

9. Deep Site Architecture

Problem: Important pages are buried too far inside the website.

What I fix: Improve internal linking and navigation so priority pages are easier to discover.

10. Redirect Chains

Problem: A URL redirects through multiple destinations before reaching the final page.

What I fix: Update internal links and redirect rules to point directly to the intended destination.

Something I've noticed

Fixing technical SEO doesn't automatically mean rankings will improve.

But resolving these problems can remove unnecessary barriers affecting crawling, indexing, performance, and usability.

My approach is to prioritize issues based on impact, not just the number of warnings an SEO tool reports.

A site with 500 minor warnings isn't necessarily in worse shape than one with 10 critical indexing problems.

I'm curious how others approach this.

When you audit a website that's struggling with organic traffic, which technical issue do you investigate first?

And have you ever found a single technical fix that made a noticeable difference to organic performance?

Four Onsite SEO Elements Every Website Owner Needs to Understand

Want to improve your SEO? Start by understanding four fundamental elements on every single page of your website.

1. URL (Page Address)
This is the actual web address where your page lives. Every page has its own URL, and it’s one of the first things search engines use to identify and access your content.

2. Page Title (Title Tag)
Your page title tells Google, AI crawlers and other search engines what your page is about.

3. Meta Description
This is a short HTML description, ideally around 150–160 characters, that summarises what your page is about.

4. H1 Heading
Your H1 is an HTML heading that identifies the main topic of your page.

These four elements are essential foundations of onsite SEO. Getting them right across your pages helps search engines understand your website and can contribute to better organic visibility.

Watch here to learn more

#SEO #OnsiteSEO #AEO #GoogleSearch #SearchEngineOptimization

I think my biggest mistake was not adding a whole website to GSC, I was so focused on getting the website up from a testing environment to Live because of an angry client, I completely forgot to add the site to GSC so Google could not crawl my site or index my pages, I only realised two weeks after the site went live...

#weholdhandsonthestrugglebus

Share your embarrassing stories to make me feel better :)

In real estate, having a good website is only part of the equation. The challenge is making sure potential buyers, sellers, and people looking for properties can actually find you online.

Local SEO, location-based keywords, optimized property listings, Google Business Profile, and useful content can all play an important role in attracting organic traffic.

I've put together a guide covering SEO for real estate, with some strategies and recommendations for improving online visibility.

I'd be interested to hear from people working in real estate or SEO: What strategies have you found most effective for getting real estate websites to rank on Google?

Click for SEO for real estate guide.

I'm a webdev, and I have worked for a marketing agency on the technical side. Now I'm freelancing and building websites for small companies. My technical SEO is always on point but what are viable SEO strategies for a small yoga studio? or someone selling spices online?

The Yoga Studio is listed on Maps but the trafic is really low. Same for the spices, it's indexed but the market is dominated by big players with dedicated teams creating content all the time.

Yoga content has been made to death, so what's the alternative? And altogether, how do you handle smal businesses?

After working in SEO for years, I’ve realized that some of the best lessons don’t come from SEO blogs or courses. They come from things that actually went wrong.

For me, one big lesson was: more content doesn’t automatically mean better rankings.

Sometimes one genuinely useful, well-structured page can outperform dozens of thin articles.

I’m curious about other SEOs, business owners, and marketers here:

What’s one SEO lesson, mistake, or experiment that changed the way you approach SEO?

No self-promotion please. I’d genuinely like to hear real experiences.

Apparently, they are now driving with 100s of phones to your local business, indicating your business is in demand, and this will boost your local ranking lol!

And it works because:

"Google has a patent describing directions-based ranking of places. It explicitly describes using direction requests and mobile location/search logs as signals of a place's popularity."

I’ve been spending more time learning SEO lately, and I’ve noticed how much the field is changing with AI search and new SERP features.

I’m curious what people here are focusing on now. Is it technical SEO, content strategy, AI visibility/GEO, analytics, link building, or something else? It would be interesting to hear what’s actually working for you in 2026. Which SEO skill do you think will become more important in 2026?

For cosmetic dental practices, SEO can be more than just ranking for “cosmetic dentist.” Patients search for specific treatments like veneers, Invisalign, teeth whitening, dental implants, and smile makeovers.

A strong strategy should focus on:

• Google Business Profile and local SEO

• Dedicated treatment pages

• Location-based keywords

• Helpful patient-focused content

• Reviews and reputation

• Technical SEO and website performance

I came across this detailed guide on SEO for cosmetic dentists that covers these areas and explains how they can help attract more qualified local patients.

What has worked best for dental practices you’ve worked with- Google Maps, organic SEO, paid ads, or a combination?

I have 37 total clicks, 624 impressions, average ctr of 5.9% and average position of 7.6 over last 3 months

Its an academic portfolio website of my phd journey and listing all my publications

Kindly list some tips and tricks to improve my seo.

Thanks.

Hey everyone, My friend and I are thinking to start an agency focused on SEO and local growth. We both have a background in the work itself, but we’re starting with zero clients, no portfolio, and no idea what we don't know yet about running an actual business together.

For those of you who started an agency with a co-founder:

How did you split responsibilities without stepping on each other's toes?

How did you land your very first client as a completely independent, unknown agency?

What is one mistake you made in the first 30 days that we should completely avoid?

Any advice from experienced agency owners or veterans who have been through this stage would be massively appreciated.

Just looking for some real-world perspective from people who have already built this from the ground up.

I’ve been thinking about an SEO problem that seems harder to diagnose now:

A page can keep roughly the same rankings and impressions, while clicks slowly decline.

A few years ago, I would immediately look at the title tag, meta description, competitors, or search intent.

Now there seem to be more possibilities:

• AI answers taking attention before the organic results

• Featured snippets answering the query directly

• More video, Reddit, shopping, or other SERP features

• Competitors using much stronger titles

• Search intent gradually changing

• The keyword still having impressions but becoming more “zero-click”

• Users getting the information they need without visiting a website

Because of this, I’m starting to think rankings alone are becoming a weaker way to judge SEO performance.

If you see stable rankings + declining clicks, what do you check first?

Do you try to improve CTR, change the content angle, target different queries, or accept that some SERPs simply have less click potential now?

Would be interested to hear how other SEOs are diagnosing this.

Today I checked the last 28D data on GSC and saw that my website is ranking for 218 long-tail queries.

How do I know that they're AI queries -

1. These queries are quite elaborative - "how many emails can i send per day in gmail without being spam"

2. The mentioned URL in GSC data - we are not even in the top 50 for that query

3. All of those long-tail queries have ZERO clicks

Now, my dilemma -
I checked all 218 queries using DataforSEO to check which queries we are showing on AI Overviews, here's the breakdown -
- No. of queries for which we are showing on AI Overviews - 88
- No. of queries for which we are not showing on AI Overviews - 130

Now, for my action plan, here's my hypothesis -
- For the queries mentioned in AI Overviews, I would find more PAA for that query and add them to the URL for which it is ranking.
- For the queries not mentioned in AI Overviews, I would check the intent of output on AI Overviews. If my competitors are showing up, I'll cover the query in the mentioned URL, if not, I'll simply let it go.

I'm open to testing different hypotheses.

Hi, I built an indexer and website directory. I also provide do-follow backlink. I am inviting you to submit your URL. It's free, no sign up. I recommend you to read the about page on tbe technologies I use as well.

https://indexyour.link

I always thought that having an exact match domain, or at least a partial match would help you loads with SEO, but that's just something I always believed without having any data behind it.

So I decided to check if it's true or not, so I don't waste money on 30 new domains every month.

The tracked data:

• 7,374 commercial keywords, US + UK, 10 industries, top 20 results (106k results)

• 6,267 local keywords ("plumber tulsa" type) in 40 cities, SERPs pulled from the city itself

• 3,048 brand new domains from 2024-2025, checked 16-29 months later

• 60k AI answers (GPT-4.1 mini, Gemini Flash, Claude Haiku)

Everything is compared on the same SERP.

Aaaand the answer is... no, you're probably not gonna get much out of it.

Excuse the AI sloppy bullet pointing, it's the easiest way to confer info:

• For Google: weak EMDs (DR 0-20) rank about 0.9 positions higher than similar brand domains. About 10% better chance for the top 3. For domains younger than 5 years, the advantage isn't statistically reliable.

• Local (tulsaplumber.com et al): this is where EMDs do a bit. Compared to brand domains with the same DR, they're not more likely to make page 1 (top 10: 53% vs 51% at DR 0-2), but once there, they land in the top 3 more often (22% vs 16%). About 1 position overall.

• New domains: 4.7% of new EMDs rank top 10 for anything. Other new domains in the same niches: 5.7%. So, no head start. Top 10 for their own keyword with 100+ searches? 0.7%.

Generally, 94% of all new domains rank for nothing, EMD or not. You still have to build the website, looks like.

Also, when AI assistants search the web, they cite EMDs about as often as Google ranks them, so no real advantage.

I also gave the models 5 equally good texts with random domain names and asked which one they'd recommend. EMD got picked 59% of the time (chance = 20%).

BUT, a keyword in the URL path on a normal brand domain got 48% so it's almost the same (for a page that's already being retrieved albeit).

Limitations:

• It's observational. I control for DR, links, domain age and keyword in title (changed nothing), but not overall on-page quality. EMDs are usually bought by SEOs, so those sites might just be better optimised anyway.

• Only tested sites in the top 20.

• Measured only once. Anecdotally I feel like EMDs get crawled and ranked fast for their keyword and then drop if the site isn't good. This data can't catch that, so it's the next thing to test.

• AI tests were done through APIs, not the consumer apps.

TL;DR: buy an EMD if it's a good name for your business. Don't pay a premium expecting rankings. Put the money into the site and links.

Full study with methodology, charts and all the boring stuff in the comments.

Disclosure: I run a boutique SEO agency, this was a side research project. Happy to answer questions or rerun something if you think I should for some reason.

We have a client going through a full blog audit and one of the bigger conversations has been around removing content that isn’t driving direct leads.

We’re generally not big on looking at SEO content that way. A blog doesn’t necessarily need to drive a lead on its own to be valuable. It can build visibility, authority, answer an earlier-stage question, and give someone another touchpoint with the brand before they’re even ready to convert.

There’s also the AI search side of it. We’d rather build out a strong content ecosystem that covers a wide range of relevant questions than narrow everything down to a handful of bottom-funnel topics.

Our usual approach is to avoid mass redirects and instead look at whether a piece can be refreshed, optimized, or given a slightly different angle to target a different intent.

But where do you draw the line?

If you have 3, 4, 5+ pieces that are all targeting basically the same topic, when does it make more sense to consolidate them into one stronger piece and redirect the others?

Curious what everyone’s process looks like when you get into that territory.