Articles by Akash Mansukhani
AI-Style Queries: The Questions People Now Ask Google About Your Site (And the Third of Your Clicks Google Hides)
A thin slice of your Search Console queries now looks like prompts: ten words long, sometimes with the instructions still attached. The bigger AI-shaped number is the one Google hides. On our own sites, 24.1% of impressions and 33.4% of clicks come from queries nobody gets to see. How to find both.
Read article →SEO KPIs: The 7 Numbers Worth Tracking (and the Ones That Just Decorate Slides)
A KPI earns the K by driving a decision, and by that test there are seven, not thirty-two. Each with the decision it drives, the formula, where to read it free, and honest target-setting. Plus the vanity bench and KPIs by role.
Read article →Why Is My Website Not Showing Up on Google? (The Calm 5-Minute Diagnosis)
"We're not on Google" is three different problems wearing the same panic: never indexed, indexed but deep, or suddenly vanished. The 5-minute check sequence that tells you which one you have, and the fix path for each.
Read article →The Google Search Console API, Explained by Someone Who Calls It All Day
The UI shows 1,000 rows; our sites appeared for 15,211 queries last month. The five ways in (three need zero code), what the API actually unlocks, and the operational gotchas the docs undersell, from a team that runs it as core infrastructure.
Read article →Zero-Click Searches: The Industry Says 68%. Here's How to Find YOUR Number.
Across our own top-10 queries, 89 of 96 convert under 1% of impressions into clicks, and we're calm about it. The three species of zero-click (only one is a real loss), the 20-minute exposure audit, and the measurement reallocation that follows.
Read article →Long Tail Keywords: You're Already Ranking for Hundreds (Here's How to See Them)
84% of the 15,211 queries our sites appeared for last month were 3+ words, nobody chose them, and they deliver 42% of our clicks. The long tail is an inventory you already own: the four GSC filters that surface it, and how to act without spawning thin pages.
Read article →SEO Reporting Without the 40-Page PDF (What to Report and Why)
A report exists to transfer decisions, not to prove work happened, and report length correlates inversely with being read. The one-page five-block structure, the metric-earns-its-slot test, the vanity metrics to cut, and honest automation routes.
Read article →Why Rankings Fluctuate Every Day: SERP Volatility and the Google Dance That Never Stopped
We measured ~30,000 day-over-day position readings on our own keywords: page-3 rankings move 2.4 positions on a typical day and jump 5+ one day in four, with nothing happening. The noise floor by position band, and the thresholds that filter it.
Read article →The Blogger's Rank Tracking Setup (Free, and Done in 15 Minutes)
Googling your own posts is the world's most popular rank tracking method, and it produces nothing. The 15-minute free setup that watches every post daily, which keywords to track per post, alert thresholds that don't cry wolf, and the monthly ritual.
Read article →AI Overviews and Your Traffic: How to Measure the Hit (Before You Panic)
One of our keywords ranks #1, got 1,555 impressions in a month, and earned zero clicks. What the studies actually say, the absorption fingerprint that identifies exposed queries in Search Console, and the three response plays that beat panic.
Read article →Share of Voice in SEO: What It Actually Measures (and the Exact Formula We Use)
Every tool computes "share of voice" differently and none of them show their math. The exact formula our SOV chart runs in production, a fully worked 3-keyword example, the x400 normalization explained, and the honest ways the metric misleads.
Read article →Google Core Updates: How to Tell If One Actually Hit You (and What To Do)
A named Google update lands every few weeks, and 57% of big one-day drops heal themselves, so "it was the update" is always available and usually unexamined. The overlay method that verifies it, the site-wide vs page-level fingerprints, and the honest recovery playbook.
Read article →How to Track Keyword Rankings: The Complete Guide
Which keywords deserve a tracking slot, the three methods honestly compared (spreadsheet, Search Console, rank trackers), the tiered thresholds that separate signal from weather, and the 15-minute weekly ritual that makes tracking worth doing.
Read article →Why Did My Rankings Drop? (And Was It Even Real?)
Across 250 of our keywords, 57% of big overnight drops healed themselves within a week, untouched. The four-question triage that tells a real drop from weather, the cause table with fingerprints, and the 10-minute GSC diagnosis.
Read article →CTR by Position: What Click-Through Rate Should You Actually Expect?
Published CTR studies put position 1 anywhere from 19% to 40%, and your site will match none of them. The 13-level expected CTR curve we ship in production, real observed-vs-expected data from our own portfolio, a calculator, and the per-keyword gap method that works.
Read article →A Rank Tracker Built for Keywords Everywhere Users (From the Team That Runs KE)
KE shows you volume and CPC for every keyword you meet, but it can't tell you where you rank for them. The 3 ways KE users add rank tracking, why the free Search-Console-powered route beats $30-200/mo scrapers, and its honest limits.
Read article →Content Decay: How to Spot Pages Losing Traffic Before It's Too Late
One of our posts went from 440 weekly clicks to 44 in eight weeks, and nobody touched it. What content decay looks like in real numbers, the 3 decay patterns, how to tell it from seasonality and noise, and the refresh playbook that brings pages back.
Read article →Where Does My Website Rank on Google? Here's How to Find Out
The honest answer is "it depends who's searching": one of our keywords ranks 8 in India and 25 in the US on the same day. Where to spot-check your rank, why the real answer lives in Google Search Console, and how to read it once you have it.
Read article →The Best Free Rank Trackers in 2026: An Honest Comparison (and Why My Own Tool Isn't on the List)
Most "free" rank trackers are trials or hard-capped freemium. An honest, conflict-free comparison of the genuinely free ones, starting with Google Search Console, graded by what "free" actually costs you, from the one list that refuses to rank its own tool.
Read article →Why Google Search Console Isn't a Rank Tracker (and How to Make It One)
Search Console has the most accurate ranking data anywhere and the worst interface for tracking it. Why "average position" is a blend you rank at nowhere, the limits that actually matter, and how to track from GSC's truth instead of a scraped SERP.
Read article →Stop Guessing: Use Google Search Console for Keyword Research
Search Console is the most under-used keyword research tool you already own: the exact queries you rank for, pre-validated by the fact that you rank. The 4 tactics for mining them, how to get past the query cap, and the one thing GSC can't tell you.
Read article →Quick Wins SEO: Find the Page-2 Keywords You Can Push to Page 1 (and the Math That Tells You Which Ones Are Worth It)
A first-person, data-backed guide to the highest-ROI SEO quick win: finding the keywords you already rank for on page 2 and pushing them to page 1. With the real click math from our own sites, a 5-move playbook, and when not to bother.
Read article →Why Your Mobile Rankings Differ From Desktop (and the 3 Patterns That Tell You What to Do About It)
A first-person look at how often mobile and desktop rankings actually diverge, the 3 patterns the gap takes, and the fix for each one. With real data from 4,792 keywords across our own portfolio of sites.
Read article →Daily Rank Tracking: Is It Actually Worth It? (An Honest Take from Someone Who's Done It Both Ways)
A first-person look at when daily rank tracking pays off, when weekly is plenty, and the tiered 3/5/10 alert framework that filters real signal from daily noise. With real day-to-day position variance data from our user base.
Read article →How to Check Your Website's Ranking on Google: 5 Methods (And Which One You Should Actually Use)
A practical, first-person comparison of the 5 ways to check your website's rank on Google: incognito search, browser extensions, Google Search Console, paid rank trackers, and GSC-powered hybrids. With a decision tree to pick the right one.
Read article →What Is Keyword Cannibalization? (And When It Actually Matters)
A practical, first-person guide to keyword cannibalization: how to spot it in Google Search Console, when it is hurting you, and when to leave it alone. With a real example from my own site.
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