We are our own
worst case study.
A domain rating of zero, one referring domain and no organic traffic. This page carries our own search numbers from the day we started, updated from the same tools we would use on your site, including the months nothing moves.
Updated from a live pull · every figure names the tool that reported it
Why we publish our own numbers
Every figure we have recorded, on every date we recorded it
Read from the dated pulls themselves. Each row names the tool that reported it, because the two we use disagree about this domain.
| Metric | Tool | 2 September 2026 | 3 September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain Rating | Ahrefs | 0 | 0 |
| Referring domains | Ahrefs | 1 | 1 |
| Total backlinks | Ahrefs | 16 | 16 |
| Organic keywords ranking | Semrush | 2 | 2 |
| Monthly organic traffic | Semrush | 0 | 0 |
| AI visibility score | Semrush | 0 | 0 |
| AI mentions | Semrush | 0 | 0 |
| Pages cited by AI answers | Semrush | 0 | 0 |
Nothing has moved yet, and the table says so. The pages built on 2 and 3 September have not reached the live site, so a change in these figures at this point would mean the tools were wrong rather than that the work had landed.
Three reasons this is more useful than a client win
You can verify every figure yourself
Those figures come from Ahrefs and Semrush, on a domain you can type into either tool right now and read for yourself. A client case study can only ever be checked by the client.
You see the starting line
Most case studies begin at the moment the work started, which is usually after a site already had authority. This one starts at zero, so the effect of the work is not mixed with the effect of a domain that was already trusted.
There is nowhere to hide a bad month
One domain, published on a schedule. We cannot quietly pick a different account to talk about, because there is no other account.
What has actually been done to this domain
Every change is a merged pull request with the reasoning in it. This is the list, so the numbers further down have a cause and not just a date.
2 September 2026
Measured the starting line before touching anything
Pulled the domain's authority and every candidate term against the UK database. Recorded a Domain Rating of 0, one referring domain and two ranking keywords, then published those figures on the service page rather than waiting for them to improve.
2 September 2026
Built three pages against live results, not guesses
A service page, a Middlesbrough page and a buyer's guide, each sized and structured from the results already ranking for its term. Each targets one intent, so none of them competes with the other two.
3 September 2026
Made the house rules run against the exported pages
The copy checks only ever read one folder, which did not contain the page copy. They now run over the words in the built HTML, so a claim or a supplier name cannot reach the site through a file nobody was checking.
3 September 2026
Recorded every term measured, and the verdict on each
Forty-nine terms with volume, difficulty, the number of referring domains behind the pages already ranking, and whether we judged it winnable. Three of them were dropped as unwinnable on links, which is the part of the record most agencies do not keep.
3 September 2026
Asked the AI engines whether they had heard of us
They had not, in every query that returned an answer. Recorded as a baseline before the pages went live, so the next run can be compared with it.
Whether answer engines quote us
Two ways of measuring the same thing: a third-party score, and a set of questions asked directly. Both currently read zero, which is what a new domain should expect.
- For "best AI SEO agency UK", every source the engine quoted was a third-party roundup rather than an agency's own page. That answer is won by being listed elsewhere, not by writing a better service page.
- For "how much does SEO cost in the UK", the two pages the engine cited are two of the nine we source our own cost figures from. We are reading the same pages the engine chooses to quote.
- For "SEO agency Middlesbrough", the local pack lists six agencies, every one with a street address. That is an eligibility requirement, not a ranking factor, and we do not meet it yet.
Only some of this can be automated. Two engines answered anonymously, one asked for a sign-up after two questions, and one served a bot check, which we did not work around. The rest is asked by hand once a month and dated when it is.
What we have committed to publishing
- The same five figures every month, from the same two tools, whether they rise, fall or sit still.
- The date each was measured, taken from the pull itself rather than typed alongside it.
- Which tool reported each figure, because the two we use disagree about this domain.
- The terms we judged unwinnable, and whether that judgement turned out to be right.
No forecast, and no target. A new domain with one referring domain has no business predicting when it will rank, and a page that guessed would be the same graph-that-goes-up we are arguing against.
Questions about publishing our own numbers
Straight answers. If yours isn't here, ask it on the call: we'd rather tell you no than sell you the wrong thing.
The method these numbers are testing is described on our SEO and AI search page. If you are choosing between agencies, the ten questions worth asking includes the two we answer badly.
Ask us what these numbers mean for you
Book 15 minutes and we will pull the same figures for your domain and the terms you care about, and tell you which of them are winnable from where you are standing.
No minimum term · we say when a term is not worth chasing