Generated by All in One SEO v4.9.1.1, this is an llms.txt file, used by LLMs to index the site. # Chris Lever ## Sitemaps - [XML Sitemap](https://chrisleverseo.com/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website. ## Posts - [Grounding Pressure - A useful Metric for LLM visibility tracking](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/grounding-pressure-a-useful-metric-for-llm-visibility-tracking/) - There are clear gaps in the way our industry measures visibility in the age of LLMs and soon AI agents. Traditional SEO metrics were built for a world where search engines retrieved documents, ranked them and sent traffic back. That world is changing. Modern and newer LLM models answer many questions internally and only fetch - [What I now understand about content chunking and extraction for LLMs](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/what-i-now-understand-about-content-chunking-and-extraction-for-llms/) - Like most within the circles I run in, I have spent a fair chunk (no pun intended) of time this year looking more closely at how LLMs read and interpret web content. Most of which, is what I kept seeing across the SEO industry. LinkedIn posts, conference sessions and webinars, including Sitebulb’s recent AI and - [When Google will add AI reporting to Search Console](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/when-google-will-add-ai-reporting-to-search-console/) - Everyone in the industry can feel the shift. AI mode, AI Overviews, the new chat interface and the growing sense that classic blue link behaviour is slipping away. People are nervous about traffic, nervous about job security and trying to work out what on earth they are meant to optimise for. The irony is that - [How to Work out your ChatGPT CTR](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/how-to-work-out-your-chatgpt-ctr/) - Over the past several months, I have been tracking how often ChatGPT cites my site, how often it sends traffic and how those two numbers compare. Out of this came something surprisingly useful: a way of calculating what is basically a ChatGPT CTR, the ratio between how often you are cited and how often someone - [AI Search is moving fast, but the foundations still decide who gets seen](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/ai-search-is-moving-fast-but-the-foundations-still-decide-who-gets-seen/) - AI is reshaping organic search at a pace most of us have never seen before. New formats, new behaviours, new layers of visibility. Every week brings another acronym, another model, another suggestion that the entire industry is about to be rewritten. It is exciting, but it is also noisy. The temptation is to dive straight - [Will paid ads in AI search influence organic LLM visibility?](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/will-paid-ads-in-ai-search-influence-organic-visibility/) - For years I have had the same question thrown at me: if we spend money on Google PPC, will it help our organic rankings? My answer has always been fairly straightforward. Yes, in a nuanced and very indirect way. Running PPC can force you to improve landing pages, site speed or general experience, which helps - [How ChatGPT finds and Cites content across the Web](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/how-chatgpt-finds-and-cites-content-across-the-web/) - A lot of people picture ChatGPT sending one simple query to a search provider and then building an answer from whatever comes back. It is not quite that straightforward. The process under the hood is much closer to a small search engine working inside the model, taking your prompt, branching it into several intent variations, - [When your VPS slows to a crawl: my experience fixing a cpHulk lock-up](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/when-your-vps-slows-to-a-crawl-my-experience-fixing-a-cphulk-lock-up/) - I moved several of my sites from shared hosting to my own cPanel VPS recently. Everything was running smoothly, the sites felt faster, and the server was barely breaking a sweat. Then out of nowhere, at around three in the morning, the VPS hit a wall. The load average shot up, the cPanel dashboard locked - [Introducing the LLM IP verification tool and API](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/introducing-my-llm-ip-verification-tool-and-api/) - For around six months I have been tracking LLM bot behaviour and their user-agents across my own sites and across other projects. Patterns are changing fast. Some models are crawling heavily, some barely touch the site, and a growing number of requests arrive pretending to be something they are not. I have seen a noticeable - [How a simple hosting migration improved crawl behaviour and site speed](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/how-a-simple-hosting-migration-improved-crawl-behaviour-and-site-speed/) - Every so often, you make a change to your own site that reminds you how important the basics are. Recently, I moved my personal website from a shared hosting setup to a VPS. Nothing complicated, just a cleaner and more dedicated environment. The improvement was clearly noticeable. Googlebot picked up the faster response times within - [The Confidence in Search Systems Framework](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/the-confidence-in-search-systems-framework/) - TL;DR Search has changed. It is no longer about rankings or clicks but about whether systems understand and trust your information. The Confidence in Search Systems Framework helps close that gap. It combines what we can control with what we can only influence and measures how confident systems are in our content. It began as - [Stable Numbers: a new website I have built and published](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/stable-numbers-a-new-website-i-have-built-and-published/) - I have been working quietly on something new and it is finally ready to share. It is called Stable Numbers. This idea has been in my head for quite some time. I wanted to build a simple, useful, and timeless website that brings together everyday calculators, converters, finance tools, and a few developer utilities in - [Agentic Commerce: How AI-Powered buying will reshape eCommerce](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/agentic-commerce-how-ai-powered-buying-will-reshape-ecommerce/) - A new wave is forming across retail, and this one is not about another channel or marketplace. It is about AI buying for people, quite literally. The term you will hear more over the next year is Agentic Commerce. In simple terms, it is when an AI agent such as ChatGPT, Amazon Rufus or Google - [Introducing OAPP: An Open Protocol for Agentic Commerce](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/introducing-oapp-an-open-protocol-for-agentic-commerce/) - The rise of agentic commerce is one of the biggest shifts happening across digital marketing and eCommerce. AI agents are already discovering, comparing, and in some cases completing purchases on behalf of users. Platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s new agentic interfaces are exploring how to make this secure and seamless. The question is not - [Speaking at The Magento Smackdown](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/speaking-at-the-magento-smackdown/) - Last night I spoke at The Magento Smackdown in Manchester. My first time presenting at a developer event. I’m used to standing in front of SEOs and marketers, so walking into a room packed with Magento developers felt very different. The event itself was classic Smackdown style. Thrown together quickly, hosted by PushON, sponsored by - [Do LLMs / AI Assistants respect the X-Robots-Tag?](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/do-llms-ai-assistants-respect-the-x-robots-tag/) - I asked this recently on LinkedIn and got silence. So let’s dig into it properly here. The question is simple: do LLMs and AI assistants actually respect the X-Robots-Tag? Search engines do. Google, Bing, and the rest have long-established rules. Add x-robots-tag to your PDFs, images, or CSVs and you can trust that content won’t - [Do Backlinks still matter if the source Page isn’t Indexed?](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/do-backlinks-still-matter-if-the-source-page-isnt-indexed/) - Backlinks still sit at the heart of SEO. That much we can all agree on. They remain one of the strongest signals in Google’s ranking system, and we spend a lot of time chasing them, auditing them, and benchmarking them. But here is something I don’t hear talked about very often: what if the page - [How to fix Shopify crawl issues in Screaming Frog and Sitebulb using Web Bot Auth](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/how-to-fix-shopify-crawl-issues-in-screaming-frog-and-sitebulb-using-web-bot-auth/) - If you’ve ever tried crawling a Shopify site at scale, you’ll know how quickly those dreaded 429 Too Many Requests errors can derail your audit. For years, it has been one of the most common frustrations for SEOs working with Shopify stores, and this issue has been worsening in recent months. Good news, though. Shopify - [Bringing Back Windows XP, MSN Messenger and Even Windows 3.1](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/bringing-back-windows-xp-msn-chat-and-even-windows-3-1/) - Every now and again I take a break from the serious side of technical SEO and dive headfirst into side projects that are more about fun than function. This week I have gone down a proper nostalgia rabbit hole. If you were around in the days of MSN Messenger, Windows XP start-up jingles and even - [TechSEO North – Sheffield Meetup: November 2025](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/techseo-north-sheffield-meetup-november-2025/) - We’re heading to Sheffield for the final TechSEO North of 2025, and it’s shaping up to be a brilliant evening of technical SEO talks, networking, and good community vibes. I’ll be hosting and greeting everyone on the night, and if you’re local to Sheffield, this is your chance to grab a free ticket and join - [Hack the Planet -30 year anniversary of Hackers movie](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/hack-the-planet-30-year-anniversary-of-hackers-movie/) - 2025 marks the 30 year anniversary of the cult classic film Hackers – the very movie that first got me into tech. I’m looking at hosting the (UK) Manchester leg of a celebration screening, and I’d love to get a few volunteers involved to help make it happen. Think of it as a community-driven event: - [How I Integrated Google NLP with Screaming Frog Using a PHP Proxy](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/how-i-integrated-google-nlp-with-screaming-frog-using-a-php-proxy/) - Google’s Natural Language API is seriously underrated in SEO. It gives you insight into how Google might interpret a piece of content beyond just keywords, sentiment, topical category, and key entities. The catch? It’s not built for SEOs. It’s built for developers. Getting access involves service accounts, bearer tokens, and APIs that are not exactly - [llms.txt: AI-First Optimisation or a SEO Distraction?](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/llms-txt-ai-first-optimisation-or-a-seo-distraction/) - There’s a growing discussion in SEO and AI circles about a small but potentially important text file: llms.txt. On the surface, it looks familiar. Like robots.txt, it’s a flat text file placed in the root directory of your website. But where robots.txt tells search engines what not to crawl, llms.txt is written for an entirely - [Technical SEO for Digital PR - Webinar](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/technical-seo-for-digital-pr-webinar/) - Join us for the next TechSEO North webinar as we dig into the technical side of digital PR. 📅 Thursday 17th July, 4pm (UK time) We’re bringing together SEOs and Digital PRs for a proper conversation about where the two disciplines overlap and where things often break down. We’ll examine whether PR teams are making the - [How to spot Technical SEO Problems yourself (before you call in a Consultant)](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/how-to-spot-technical-seo-problems-yourself-before-you-call-in-a-consultant/) - Technical SEO sounds complicated from the outside. And to be fair, sometimes it is. But you don’t need to be an expert to notice when something’s off. If you’re a business owner or run your own website, there’s plenty you can do before calling in outside help. The key is knowing where to look and - [My New Tool - SEO Security Header Checker](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/my-new-tool-seo-security-header-checker/) - I’ve built a new free tool for the technical SEO community: the SEO Security Header Checker. It’s designed for a specific job; to audit key HTTP headers across any number of URLs, fast. No logins, no fluff, no third-party API calls. You paste in a list of URLs, and it tells you whether the security - [My TechSEO North Talk in Leeds: Before the Prompt](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/my-techseo-north-talk-in-leeds-before-the-prompt/) - Last week in Leeds (Thursday 5th June 2025), I had the privilege of speaking at the second in-person TechSEO North event. And I don’t use the word “privilege” lightly. We packed out the room. The talks were solid, the crowd was sharp, and the energy reminded me why I still enjoy being part of this - [Manchester DM: Facets, Crawl Waste and a Cracking Night](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/manchester-dm-facets-crawl-waste-and-a-cracking-night/) - Had a blast at Manchester DM on Thursday night (1st May 2025). A proper room full of smart marketers, great energy, and some sharp questions flying around. Massive thanks to Amanda Walls for inviting me to speak. You pulled off a top night. The whole thing ran smooth, the vibe was spot on, and it’s - [Understanding HTTP Status Codes](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/understanding-http-status-codes/) - You see HTTP status codes every day in logs, audits, tools and error messages, but most people never stop to ask where they came from or why they’re structured the way they are. I did. As someone who’s spent over a decade working across technical SEO, server logs, and diagnostics, I’ve grown to respect the - [Exploring MCP Servers for Technical SEO Monitoring](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/exploring-mcp-servers-for-technical-seo-monitoring/) - I’ve been thinking about Model Context Protocol (MCP) and what it could mean for technical SEO monitoring and support. What is a MCP Server in SEO? An MCP server is a core part of the Model Context Protocol, an new open standard that lets AI models access and interact with external tools and data. In - [AI overviews and the shift in search - what matters for SEO](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/ai-overviews-and-the-shift-in-search-what-matters-for-seo/) - Search is changing, and not quietly. Google’s AI overviews are now mostly rolled out across core search results in the USA and UK. They’ve said they have already served billions of search queries. This isn’t a Labs experiment anymore. It’s a structural change in how users interact with Google and how it plans to monetise - [Edge SEO strategies from my BrightonSEO talk](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/edge-seo-strategies-from-my-brightonseo-talk/) - At BrightonSEO this year, I shared a talk titled Unlocking SEO Wins Using Cloudflare Workers, no devs required. The session focused on how to use Cloudflare Workers to solve real-world SEO problems at the edge, without relying on dev cycles or waiting around for platform updates. This approach is often referred to as Edge SEO. - [Unlocking SEO wins without Devs - My BrightonSEO 2025 talk recap](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/unlocking-seo-wins-without-devs-my-brightonseo-2025-talk-recap/) - Yesterday I wrapped up my very first talk at BrightonSEO 2025. It was warm enough that I delivered it in a t-shirt and shorts. In April. In England. The weather felt more like July, and so did the energy. My talk was titled “Unlocking SEO Wins with Cloudflare Workers: No Devs Required.” The idea came - [What Is Crawl Budget and why should you care?](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/what-is-crawl-budget-and-why-should-you-care/) - Crawl budget is the amount of attention search engines are willing to give your site. It's a combination of how many pages they want to crawl and how many they can crawl within a certain timeframe. If you've got thousands of pages and Google only crawls a few hundred each day, you've got a problem. - [I’m speaking at BrightonSEO 2025](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/im-speaking-at-brightonseo-2025/) - I’ve got some news I’ve been waiting years to share. This April, I’ll be speaking at BrightonSEO. It’s the world’s biggest SEO conference, and it’s been sat on my personal and professional bucket list for a long time. I’ve attended it, learned from it, and quietly hoped that one day I’d be part of the - [SEO Tools that I have built and actually use](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/seo-tools-that-i-have-built-and-actually-use/) - Most SEO tools are either over-engineered, too expensive or try too hard to be everything to everyone. I’ve always preferred small, focused tools that solve a specific problem without getting in the way. That’s why I started building my own. Over the last couple years, I’ve created a suite of basic but practical SEO tools - [Quiet SEO Wins at Server-level with Nginx](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/quiet-seo-wins-at-server-level-with-nginx/) - Nginx doesn’t get much airtime in SEO conversations, but when you understand how it works, it opens up a layer of control that most sites never take advantage of. It’s often treated as a hands-off reverse proxy or left entirely to DevOps guys. But if you’re serious about fixing structural issues at scale, especially on - [What Shared Hosting Providers Don’t Tell You About Limits](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/what-shared-hosting-providers-dont-tell-you-about-limits/) - Shared hosting is where most websites begin life. It’s affordable, convenient, and comes with all the right checkboxes ticked on the packages comparision pages. But as your site grows it's traffic, the cracks start to show. And the reason behind those slowdowns isn’t always obvious. Let me lift the lid on one of the quietest - [What a XML Sitemap Index File Does?](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/xml-sitemap-index-files/) - Sitemaps often get treated as an afterthought. One of those jobs that gets done at the start of a project, ticked off, and then ignored. But when a site starts growing — whether that’s new products, new regions, or new content types — the way your sitemaps are structured starts to matter. That’s where sitemap - [Hreflang Tags: What They Are, What They Do](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/hreflang-tags-what-they-are-what-they-do/) - Hreflang tags look simple on the surface. They tell search engines which language and regional version of a page to show to users. That is it. No ranking boost, no shortcut to higher visibility, just a way to help Google send people to the right version of a site. But hreflang only works if the - [Replatforming? Make Sure International SEO Is in the Scope](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/replatforming-make-sure-international-seo-is-in-the-scope/) - Replatforming is a big step. A fresh start, faster site, better UX, and all the integrations and backend improvements that allegedly make life easier. It is the kind of project that gets people focused on design, functionality, performance and the bigger picture. But if international expansion is part of the plan, SEO needs to be - [Expanding Into New International Markets - The SEO Challenges That You Should Know About!](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/expanding-into-new-international-markets-the-seo-challenges-that-you-should-about/) - Expanding a website internationally seems like a natural next step for lots of businesses these days. More markets, more customers, more revenue. It’s an exciting opportunity, but one that comes with hidden complexities. Businesses dive in, assuming that translating their site and adding hreflang is enough to make it work. But search engines don’t always - [AI Content Detection is a Farce but Businesses Still Panic](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/ai-content-detection-is-a-farce-but-clients-still-panic/) - Got a voice note last night from my mate. He’d been having a pint, talking SEO, when his mate, who runs a small plumbing business, dropped a classic: "I got an email from an SEO company saying all my blog posts are AI-written and Google’s going to penalise me. Should I be worried?" Where do - [Exploring Embeddings for Redirect Mapping – A New Approach Worth Testing](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/exploring-embeddings-for-redirect-mapping/) - Redirect mapping has always been one of those tedious but necessary parts of technical SEO. Whether it’s a site migration, a rebrand, or restructuring URLs, ensuring that old pages correctly point to their new equivalents goes without saying. The standard methods I've relied on for years are fuzzy matching, exact URL pattern recognition, and manual - [Nested Schema: Is It Worth the Effort?](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/nested-schema-is-it-worth-the-effort/) - I’ve spent pently of time working with structured data implementations, and recently (in the last 12 months) one thing that keeps coming up is the idea of nesting all Schema.org JSON-LD data within a single script tag. The logic makes sense on the surface. Keeping everything in one place should make structured data easier for - [Diary of an SEO: The Biggest Shift in Search We’ve Ever Seen](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/diary-of-an-seo-1/) - AI is reshaping search, automation is taking over, and traditional SEO is evolving. Discover what’s changing, why it matters, and how to stay ahead. - [Why I Increased My Freelance SEO Hourly Rate](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/why-i-increased-my-freelance-seo-hourly-rate/) - For a long time, I charged £35 per hour for my freelance SEO work. It felt like a fair compromise. I have a full-time role, and my freelance work happens in the evenings and weekends. I wasn’t always immediately available like a full-time consultant, so I thought a lower rate balanced things out. But over - [Choosing SEO as a Career Path – What You Need to Know](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/choosing-seo-as-a-career-path-what-you-need-to-know/) - SEO is not an easy career. It is not a quick way to make money and it is not something you can master overnight. It is a constantly changing field that requires problem-solving, technical knowledge, and strong communication skills. But if you are willing to put in the work, it can be a rewarding career. - [What SEO Really Means for Your Business](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/what-seo-really-means-for-your-business/) - SEO gets thrown around a lot. Some people think it is just about getting to the top of Google, others assume it is all about keywords, and some think it is a trick to manipulate rankings. The truth is, SEO is about making your website as clear and accessible as possible so search engines and - [OpenAI Wiped My API Credits Without Warning](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/openai-wiped-my-api-credits-without-warning/) - I knew OpenAI was pay-as-you-go, but I did not expect them to take my credits away just because a year had passed. I had topped up, paid for them fair and square, and assumed they would be there when I needed them. Turns out, if you do not use your credits within 12 months, they - [Indexing Strategies for Large New Websites](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/indexing-strategies-for-large-new-websites/) - Launching a site with 100,000+ URLs is a reality check. Just because the pages exist, it does not mean Google will rush to index them. I have seen it so many times – people assume submitting a sitemap means instant results. It does not. Google does not trust new sites at scale. Most of those - [Optimising XML Sitemaps: Getting It Right Without Sending the Wrong Signals](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/optimising-xml-sitemaps-getting-it-right-without-sending-the-wrong-signals/) - XML sitemaps should be one of the easiest wins in technical SEO, but too often I see them working against a site rather than helping it. They are meant to help search engines discover and prioritise content, but a poorly managed sitemap can waste crawl budget, reduce trust, and send all the wrong signals. Over - [The First TechSEO North Was a Huge Success – Thank You!](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/the-first-techseo-north-was-a-huge-success-thank-you/) - Last night, we pulled off something special. The first-ever TechSEO North event took place at the Burgess Foundation in Manchester, and it was an incredible night from start to finish. When Nikki and I first started talking about this, we knew there was a gap. There wasn’t a technical SEO-focused community in the North, at - [Why Reviews and Reputation Matter for Local Businesses](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/why-reviews-and-reputation-matter-for-local-businesses/) - Reputation can undo years of hard work in an instant. It does not matter if your business has the best service in town. If a potential customer searches for your name and the first thing they see is a pile of negative reviews, they will look elsewhere. Online reviews are not just influencing potential customers. - [How Schema Markup Helps Local SEO](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/how-schema-markup-helps-local-seo/) - Search engines are getting smarter, but they still rely on structured data to understand businesses properly. That is where schema markup comes in. If you have ever seen a Google result with star ratings, business hours, or location details, that is structured data at work. It helps search engines display rich results, making your business - [Building a Location Page That Works](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/building-a-location-page-that-works/) - A good location page needs original, useful content that is structured properly. It should feel unique and relevant to that specific location. Here is how I build location pages that rank and drive actual business. 1. Start with a Strong Page Structure Every location page should have a clear structure that makes it easy to - [Why Technical SEO Is All About Scaling: Lessons from SimCity](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/why-technical-seo-is-all-about-scaling-lessons-from-simcity/) - Technical SEO is more than just fixing errors and improving page speed. It is about scaling. A website that works well today might not hold up as it grows. More content, more traffic, and expanding into new markets all introduce complexity. If SEO infrastructure is not built for scale, growth leads to inefficiencies, lost rankings, - [Why I Use a Cloud SEO Workstation for Large-Scale SEO](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/why-i-use-a-cloud-seo-workstation-for-large-scale-seo/) - SEO tools are essential for handling technical audits, automation, and data extraction, but relying solely on SaaS platforms can become expensive and restrictive. Many cloud-based tools charge based on usage, limiting how much you can crawl or automate unless you upgrade to an expensive enterprise plan. I take a different approach. I run my own - [Talking Technical SEO on the SpaceBar Podcast](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/talking-technical-seo-on-the-spacebar-podcast/) - At the end of January, I was on the SpaceBar Podcast with Pete Robertshaw to talk about technical SEO and how AI is changing search. I spend most of my time solving problems, running audits, and keeping up with Google's changes, so sitting down for a proper conversation about it was a refreshing change. I - [?gQT= Parameters popping up in Google Search Console](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/gqt-parameters-popping-up-in-google-search-console/) - Lately, I’ve been spotting a new parameter creeping into Google Search Console reports. Different URLs, same content. That means impressions, clicks, and rankings get scattered across variations instead of consolidating under the canonical version. From what I’ve seen, ?gQT= parameters (and it's variant ?gQT=1 and ?gQT= 2) are being injected by Google Merchant Center. I - [How to Use Original Images for Link Building](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/how-to-use-original-images-for-link-building/) - Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay Most businesses think of link building as writing guest posts, submitting to directories, or trying to get mentioned in blogs. One of the most underused tactics is image-based link building, where you share original photography, graphics, or illustrations that others can use in exchange for credit. If you create - [How to Build Local Links That Actually Help Your Business](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/how-to-build-local-links-that-actually-help-your-business/) - Getting links from the right local sources can strengthen your search visibility, improve credibility, and bring in customers. But too many businesses either ignore local link building or focus on the wrong types of links. A handful of relevant, high-quality local links will always outperform hundreds of random directory listings. The goal is not just - [Why Cheap Citation Building Won’t Fix Your Local SEO](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/why-cheap-citation-building-wont-fix-your-local-seo/) - Local SEO advice often comes with the same checklist. Sort out your Google Business Profile, get local backlinks, and build citations. The problem is too many businesses throw money at third-party providers who promise hundreds of citations, thinking it will boost their rankings. It won’t. The Citation Spam Trap Most citation-building services follow the same - [Embeddings - Unlocking Smarter Search Optimisation](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/embeddings-unlocking-smarter-search-optimisation/) - Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has always been about understanding how search engines interpret and rank content. As Google's algorithms become more sophisticated, leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques like embeddings is no longer just for data scientists, it’s becoming a powerful tool for SEOs looking to stay ahead. Embeddings allow us to move beyond traditional - [Using Cosine Similarity to Find Cannibalisation Before Google Does](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/using-cosine-similarity-to-find-cannibalisation-before-google-does/) - If you've been in SEO for a while, you'll know that keyword cannibalisation is one of those annoying issues that can quietly wreck your rankings. Two or more of your own pages end up competing against each other in Google, causing them to flip-flop in rankings or, worse, get buried entirely. For years, we’ve relied - [LCP Subparts – We're Finally Getting a Breakdown of What Is Slowing Things Down](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/lcp-subparts-were-finally-getting-a-breakdown-of-what-is-slowing-things-down/) - Largest Contentful Paint has always been one of the hardest Core Web Vitals to diagnose and fix. It is a chained metric, meaning multiple factors contribute to the final LCP time. You could spend weeks optimising images only to find out the real problem is a slow server, delayed JavaScript execution, or the way the - [Fixing Core Web Vitals is Like Running a Restaurant – Here’s Why](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/fixing-core-web-vitals-is-like-running-a-restaurant-heres-why/) - I’ve been in SEO long enough to see businesses panic every time Google changes the rules. When Core Web Vitals were introduced, it was the same story. People scrambled to “fix” them, ran a few Lighthouse audits, and called it a day. But that is not how it works. I’ve seen businesses with fantastic content, - [SEO Disasterpieces – The SEO Disaster Podcast is Coming](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/seo-disasterpieces-the-seo-disaster-podcast-is-coming/) - If you’ve been in SEO long enough, you’ve seen it happen. Sites wiped out overnight. Businesses losing millions. Marketing teams scrambling for answers. Some recovered. Others never did. I’m launching SEO Disasterpieces, a new podcast that dives deep into the biggest SEO disasters of all time. It’s about the site owners, marketing teams, and businesses - [Calling All Post2Host Veterans – Let’s Reconnect & Record the Real Story](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/calling-all-post2host-veterans-lets-reconnect-record-the-real-story/) - I’m DJB, founder of Stonerocket. If you ran a Post2Host (P2H) service between 2004 and 2012 (and beyond), I want to hear from you. Back in the day, Post2Host was more than just a way to get free hosting. It was a grind. Managing communities, battling abusers, moderating forums, dealing with server meltdowns, and somehow - [DataForSEO: A Cost-Effective API for SEO Insights](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/dataforseo-a-cost-effective-api-for-seo-insights/) - I recently signed up for DataForSEO because I needed an SEO insights API that was affordable, flexible, and fit my workflow. For what I wanted, it ticked all the boxes. I’ve been using it in my Python and Google Apps Script projects, alongside APIs like Google’s NLP, Search Console, and Ahrefs’ backlinks data API. So - [Why I Switched from GA4 to Ahrefs Web Analytics](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/why-i-switched-from-ga4-to-ahrefs-web-analytics/) - I’ve been using Google Analytics for years, and like most people in SEO and digital marketing, I had no issues with Universal Analytics. It was functional, customisable, and easy to work with. Then GA4 came along and made everything harder. Want to see basic traffic stats? You have to dig through events, conversions, and a - [How a Google Exploit Led to a Bigger SEO Conversation](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/how-a-google-exploit-led-to-a-bigger-seo-conversation/) - I recently hosted a webinar on a Google exploit that Mark Williams-Cook and his team uncovered in 2024 for TechSEO North, featuring a panel of brilliant SEOs discussing what these findings mean in the real world. While the focus was on Mark Williams-Cook’s insights, the conversation naturally evolved into something much bigger—one of those discussions - [WordPress Plugin - Very Easy Headers & Footers](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/wordpress-plugin-very-easy-headers-footers/) - The Very Easy Headers and Footers Inserter is a lightweight, free WordPress plugin designed to simplify the process of adding meta tags, tracking scripts, and custom code snippets to your website. Whether you need to insert Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Matomo, or custom JavaScript, this plugin enables you to do so without directly modifying your - [My Thoughts of the Free Hosting Post2Host Era](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/free-hosting-post2host-era/) - If you’ve got memories of the Post2Host era, whether you were a dedicated forum poster, a lazy quota-hitter, or someone who just stumbled into this weird world, I’d love to hear your stories. - [Stonerocket: 20 Years Since Launch – The Story of a Post2Host Pioneer](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/stonerocket-20-years-since-launch-the-story-of-a-post2host-pioneer/) - Back in 2005, the internet was a different beast. Forums were buzzing, social media hadn’t swallowed the web yet, and free web hosting was the goto for student developers, hobbyists, and anyone wanting to get a website online without having to pay for hosting. That’s where Stonerocket came in. It’s been 20 years since I ## Pages - [Homepage](https://chrisleverseo.com/) - I'm an independent freelance SEO Consultant with over 10 years of experience in SEO Consultancy UK & Global. Helping brands solve problems & reach their goals. - [Diaries of an SEO](https://chrisleverseo.com/blog/) - Here's my personal space on the web. I post reviews, guides, and whatever else I decide to post about on the day. 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