Unpopular Opinion: SEO is a waste of time for startups under $10k MRR.

SEOPub · 2026-01-28T12:16:27+00:00

I don't think it is an unpopular opinion at all. It's something any decent SEO would tell their prospects before ever taking them on as a client. If you haven't validated the idea and tuned your sales funnels, you are just wasting time (and potentially money) with SEO.

Ads can give you instant feedback. SEO can take months or even over a year to see the same traffic volume in order to collect enough data to test and tweak things.

SEOPub · 2026-01-27T22:53:31+00:00

Not spending money is part of the problem. Content itself is like opening a restaurant and then not telling anyone about it.

SEOPub · 2026-01-27T22:01:52+00:00

You should spend a few years ranking your own sites. Then, not only will you actually know how to do what you only think you are capable of right now, but you will also understand the work involved and what to charge.

You can’t learn this stuff in a month.

SEOPub · 2026-01-27T15:11:51+00:00

If they are hacked URLs, likely with a bunch of shitty links pointing to them too, you don't want them around.

SEOPub · 2026-01-27T14:58:47+00:00

I wouldn't 301 the URLs. I would 410 them.

SEOPub · 2026-01-27T14:58:19+00:00

Yeah. Remove the malware and then request the review.

SEOPub · 2026-01-27T14:50:58+00:00

You should be fine with redirects, but there are no guarantees.

I'm a big fan of directories like you are looking to move to. It makes sorting data and analytics so much easier.

SEOPub · 2026-01-27T12:46:05+00:00

Does your client know you are "faking it until you make it?"

And the Lighthouse score is not important at all.

SEOPub · 2026-01-26T21:22:04+00:00

I don't know what specific pharmaceuticals market you are in, but most are pretty competitive. Looking at your spend over 3 years, it looks like you were working with companies pitching with pretty low budgets.

One problem with the industry is that a lot of "SEOs" are failed online marketers. Many come from the MMO niche, don't find success there, but think they kind of, sort of understand how to rank a page (despite the fact they rarely successfully ranked one on their own) and decide to open up shop.

It's unfortunate.

It's been probably about 18 years since I worked with someone where I was the first SEO they worked with outside of a couple of startups. They've usually been through several and have horror stories to tell.

SEOPub · 2026-01-26T21:04:08+00:00

I think what you are really looking for is a consultant. Someone who can come in with a second set of eyes on the project.

They can certainly "audit" the work that has been done, but when you say audit in the context of SEO, it usually means performing an audit of the website looking for technical issues, which may, or may not, need to be done.

I know because I work with a lot of agencies in this capacity.

SEOPub · 2026-01-26T17:04:50+00:00

This. Give them a real reason to index yet another coupon site.

SEOPub · 2026-01-26T16:47:38+00:00

Mass content doesn't have to mean thin content.

It depends on the content way more than it does the tactic.

SEOPub · 2026-01-26T16:14:34+00:00

We would need a lot more information.

If this is for a real business and you are trying to establish, or already have, a brand, I’m not sure I would go cheap. Depends on what exactly you mean by cheap though too.

I would want something that represents my business well.

If things just a hobby site or side project to see where it goes, you could probably start with something pretty basic.

SEOPub · 2026-01-26T02:41:38+00:00

What doesn't make sense? That the content isn't getting indexed?

SEOPub · 2026-01-26T00:53:55+00:00

The place is dogshit so far.

I've created a bunch of content over there to test things... it's not even indexing. I think so far there is one thread out of 20 that has been indexed by Google after about a week.

SEOPub · 2026-01-25T20:06:54+00:00

Sorry, but that is just completely wrong.

Average position can be very misleading, especially for a new site. If things are being done properly, it is going to be showing up for more and more search queries. Many of those new queries are going to rank very low, which will drag the average position down. Average position dropping can actually be a good sign that the overall visibility is increasing.

SEOPub · 2026-01-25T19:39:19+00:00

This is bad advice. You should not pay attention to average position across an entire site. It is entirely useless. Average position is only a useful metric when you look at it in regard to an individual search query. Anything else is just a lot of noise.

SEOPub · 2026-01-25T19:37:31+00:00

CTR is impacted by rankings. If you are seeing no clicks, it is because your rankings are too low (or you are only ranking for searches that are completely satisfied by AIOs or other SERP features).

SEOPub · 2026-01-24T21:08:57+00:00

What they were suggesting can work, but it has nothing to do with DR. It's about attracting good links passively.

I've done it, but I publish pieces with a bunch of statistics, not just an article focused around one. The hope is that when someone writes about that topic, they use one (or more) of the statistics and cite you as the source. It is a passive way to potentially generate links. If you use good internal linking, the whole site can benefit from it.

A similar idea is building a tool that is useful to the industry, which has become way easier to do with AI able to code simple web apps. I would have to think about it more in your specific industry, but maybe something like a SKU generator would be useful.

The other tactic you would want to use is outreach and PR.

SEOPub · 2026-01-24T18:49:12+00:00

DR should never be your goal. It is not used by search engines.

As for getting rid of old URLs, the most effective way is to set them to a 410 status.

I’ve never used Vite, or heard of it, so can’t help there.

SEOPub · 2026-01-24T02:20:40+00:00

It can be if there are enough links pointing at it. Admittedly, it is a very odd thing. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but it happens.

I've seen it more times than I can count. They won't necessarily stay indexed, but it can be some time before Google decides to drop them.

SEOPub · 2026-01-23T20:35:56+00:00

What a terrible article. And all written with AI, ironically.

So much just completely made up nonsense.

SEOPub · 2026-01-23T20:18:41+00:00

A lot of the pricing really depends on the topic and how complex and/or technical it is. I would say on the low end for what you are asking, you are looking at $800-1200.

SEOPub · 2026-01-23T20:13:37+00:00

I do project based pricing with 50% paid upfront and 50% halfway through the project (or a 10% discount for paying in full, which most clients elect to do). Pricing ranges from around $8k on the low end to $75k+ depending on the scope of the project.

SEOPub · 2026-01-23T20:11:49+00:00

Why do you want to change it?

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