SEOKeyword difficulty and search volume in 2026: why the numbers disagree
Keyword difficulty and search volume are estimates, and tools disagree by 30+ points. How each score is built, and a way to pick targets without trusting one.
NOV 10, 2026
SEO essays.
Search engine optimization in the AI-search era. Technical, content, link-building — the playbook that still works after the Helpful Content Update.
39 essays tagged seo
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Crawl budget in 2026: who needs to worry and how to run a crawl waste audit
Google says crawl budget matters mainly for 1M+ page sites and 10,000+ page sites that change daily. How to tell if you are one, and a five-step crawl waste audit.
NOV 14, 2026·Read essay →
SEO
SEOEcommerce SEO in 2026: category pages, faceted URLs, product schema
Ecommerce SEO in 2026 is won on category pages, crawl control, and complete product data. A practical playbook built on Google's own documentation.
OCT 31, 2026
PR · GEOHow to get featured in Forbes in 2026: staff, contributor, Councils, or paid
Four ways to get featured in Forbes: staff coverage, contributor byline, Forbes Councils, and paid placement. What each costs, what it's worth, and how to choose.
OCT 29, 2026
GEOAI Overviews and click-through rate: what the data says in 2026
Three large studies agree AI Overviews cut organic clicks, by roughly a third to more than half. Being cited inside the Overview roughly doubles your CTR.
OCT 28, 2026
SEOHow much does SEO cost in 2026? Retainers, hourly and project prices
Two surveys put the average SEO retainer near $3,000 a month, yet 64% of agencies charge under $1,000. What each price band buys, and how to compare.
OCT 28, 2026
SEOWhat schema markup do top SaaS homepages use? A Cloud 100 study (2026)
We parsed JSON-LD on 92 Forbes Cloud 100 homepages: 74% mark up their Organization, 19 ship no structured data, 15 still declare a retired search box.
OCT 28, 2026
SEOOnly 23 of the Forbes Cloud 100 pass Core Web Vitals on mobile (2026 data)
Real-user CrUX data for all 100 Forbes Cloud 100 websites: 23 pass Core Web Vitals on mobile. INP is the metric that fails them; 63 miss the 200 ms bar.
OCT 28, 2026
GEOWho uses llms.txt? Adoption across the Forbes Cloud 100 (2026 data)
We checked all 100 Forbes Cloud 100 websites for llms.txt. 58 of 94 readable sites (62%) publish one, from a 1.6 KB summary to a 369 KB link index.
OCT 28, 2026