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SEO Guides
Audits, penalties and the decisions that sit above any single discipline. 8 guides, written by me from project work.
How Much Does an SEO Audit Cost, and What Should It Include?How much does an SEO audit cost? Anything from nothing to a substantial fixed-price project. The price mostly reflects how many days of experienced, hand-checked work your site needs, which depends on its size, history and the scope you agree.8 min readHow Often Should You Do an SEO Audit?How often should you do an SEO audit? For most sites, a full audit every 12 to 24 months, a light health check every month or quarter, and an extra audit before a redesign or after an unexplained drop. Bigger, faster-changing sites need the shorter end.6 min readHow to Read an SEO Audit Report and Decide What to Fix FirstTo read an SEO audit report, start with the summary and priority list, check every important finding for evidence and affected pages, then rank the fixes by impact on your money pages against the effort to ship them.6 min readHow to Tell If You Have a Google Penalty (7 Checks)To tell if you have a Google penalty, open the Manual actions report in Search Console. If it is clear, your drop is algorithmic, technical, seasonal or a reporting quirk, and the date of the fall usually tells you which.6 min readManual Action vs Algorithmic Penalty: How to Tell Them ApartThe difference between a manual action vs algorithmic penalty is who decided. A manual action is applied by a Google reviewer and shows in Search Console. An algorithmic drop comes from automated systems, arrives with no notice and has no review button.8 min readSEO Audit Checklist: 24 Checks Across Every Area, Then What to Fix FirstThis SEO audit checklist reviews a whole site, not one layer: 24 checks grouped by the six questions an audit has to answer, followed by a simple scoring method that turns your findings into an order of work.10 min readToxic Backlinks: Do They Hurt Rankings, and What Should You Do?Toxic backlinks are links that an SEO tool flags as spammy. Google does not use the term, says it can judge most links without help, and recommends the disavow tool only for large volumes of manipulative links tied to a manual action.6 min readTypes of Google Manual Actions: All 16 and How to Fix EachThere are 16 types of Google manual actions listed in Search Console's help documentation, as of October 2026. Each one names a specific spam policy breach, and each has its own cleanup before you can request a review.9 min read
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Diagnosing and fixing manual actions and algorithmic drops: link cleanup, thin or scaled content, spam, and reconsideration requests that hold up.
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