Hayden Schuster
Senior SEO Manager at Optimal, Austin
I build the systems that make complex sites visible. So the right people find you, trust you, and choose you.
I make big sites easy for search and AI to find and read.
Clean crawling and indexing, a structure that matches how people search, and fixes at the template so one change reaches every page.
From my own sites: 1.1M times they showed up in Google and Bing search in September 2026, through Oct 17, 2026
I start from the searcher's intent, then say plainly what each page is.
Before any page, report or fix, I name who is searching, what they typed and what they need to do next, for people and for AI.
From my own sites: 634K times Bing's AI answers cited them in September 2026, through Oct 11, 2026
I give the pages that matter something a competitor can't copy.
First-party detail and straight answers, planned with the teams who ship it: PR, paid search, analytics and the client's developers.
From my own sites: 24K times a searcher picked one from Google or Bing results in September 2026, through Oct 15, 2026
Clear a line, unlock a real result
Press Play, or just watch it run. Every result comes from my own sites' data, and the red rows are my misses.
- Left arrowRight arrow slide (hold to glide)
- Up arrowZ turn
- Down arrow faster
- Space drop
- C hold
- V verify
- Esc pause
- Drag the piece, or hold an arrow, to slide
- Tap the board to turn (the left edge turns it the other way)
- Flick down or tap Drop to place
- Tap Hold at the top to save a piece
- Tap Verify to fix the lowest unfinished row
Fill a row to clear it. Combos, back-to-back four-line clears, T-spins and a clean board pay extra, and it speeds up every 5 lines. Every level charges Verify, this site's own move: it fills the gaps in the lowest unfinished row and clears it, the way a check fixes a page. From line 10, every ten lines one of my misses rises from the bottom as a red row: clear it to read what went wrong.
Best streak yet: 97 days in a row with 100+ Google clicks each day, on The Crawler's Cookbook, and still going, data through Oct 16, 2026. See every high score
Game over
What changed:
The full storyHigh scores
- 1You?any score gets on
Top 10 on this site, up to 8 letters each. Beat the last row and the board asks for your name. Every high score
What I do for enterprise brands
At Optimal, a OneMagnify company, I work on SEO and AI visibility for enterprise brands across many industries. Every account starts from the same place: who is searching, what they typed and what they need to do next. How I work
- 1Strategy for search and AI answers Where a brand should show up, in Google and in the answers AI tools give, and what it takes to earn that.
- 2Roadmaps built around how customers search Each brand gets its own plan, built from who is searching, how they decide and what they need next.
- 3Programs that hold up at scale Templates, content programs and structured data that have to stay right across hundreds of pages, because one bad template repeats everywhere.
- 4Measuring AI visibility How AI tools mention, cite and describe a brand, against its competitors, so the work is judged on what searchers did, not on what we shipped.
- 5Getting the right people in early Developers, design, data, PR and paid search in the room before anything is built, so good ideas don't die in a ticket queue.
- 6Checks that keep the work right A wrong fact or a broken page gets stopped before anyone sees it, so the same mistake doesn't happen twice and the next project starts ahead.
One system: get found, get understood, get chosen
Everything I do on a site serves one of three outcomes. A page nobody sees can't help anyone, a page people can't make sense of loses them in seconds, and a page they don't trust sends them to someone else.
- 1 Get found Can the person with this need find the right answer?
- 2 Get understood Can they quickly tell what the answer means for their situation?
- 3 Get chosen What makes this answer worth trusting and acting on?
Why it adds up: when something goes wrong, the fix goes into the process as well as the page, so the next project starts where the last one finished. The process keeps changing too: what changed in how I work, and the data behind each change.
How my own sites are doing
Each site gets a block below and a write-up of its own, with the misses right next to the wins. Every site, and what happened on each or the month-by-month dashboard
One block per site, by search clicks in the last 28 days against the 28 before them: 2 up more than 10%, 3 down more than 10%, 1 within 10% either way, and 4 under 50 clicks or not measured yet.
Filled: up more than 10%Outline: down, or within 10%Dotted: under 50 clicks, or not measured yet
| Site | State | Last 28 days | Age |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Crawler's Cookbook | Filled: up more than 10% | 15K clicks, up 14% | 7 months in |
| The Quack Report | Filled: up more than 10% | 1.6K clicks, up 35% | 7 months in |
| WireRef | Outline: down, or within 10% | 2.3K clicks, down 17% | 8 months in |
| GageRef | Outline: down, or within 10% | 237 clicks, down 7% | 8 months in |
| Title Town PDX | Outline: down, or within 10% | 162 clicks, down 59% | 7 months in |
| CheckMyTap | Outline: down, or within 10% | 98 clicks, down 41% | at least 8 months in |
| UpOrbit | Dotted: under 50 clicks, or not measured yet | 17 clicks | at least 8 months in |
| RatingPlate | Dotted: under 50 clicks, or not measured yet | 12 clicks | 7 months in |
| Hear Homer | Dotted: under 50 clicks, or not measured yet | 5 clicks | 3 months in |
| SaltCellCheck | Dotted: under 50 clicks, or not measured yet | No search data yet | age not measured yet |
The numbers, month by monthSearch clicks across my sites, data through Oct 15, 2026
Search clicks across my sites, month by month
September 2026: The Crawler's Cookbook's best Google month yet (13.8K clicks), WireRef's best Bing month yet (2.8K clicks), and 97 days in a row of 100+ Google clicks.
- September, compared with Augustup 21%24K search clicks, up from 19.7K
- August, compared with Julyup 39%19.7K search clicks, up from 14.2K
- Best month on record, and the latestSeptember24K search clicks
Search clicks up 21% in September, a new best month, and the fifth month in a row it grew.
Data through
- April 2026: 1 decision, and what happened after
- July 2026: 1 decision, and what happened after
- September 2026: 2 decisions, and what happened after
- May 2026, what else happened: 1 search change
- June 2026, what else happened: 1 search change
- August 2026, what else happened: 1 search change
- September 2026, what else happened: 1 search change
April 2026
A measured result, , WireRef
Moved WireRef's effort from Google to Bing and AI answers
- Google: 0 clicks in the 28 days before, 1 in the 28 after, too few to tell
- Bing: no data
This lines up the four weeks before and after; it doesn't prove the decision caused the change.
July 2026
A measured result, , The Crawler's Cookbook
Answered a question fans kept asking before anyone had the answer
- Google: 1.8K clicks in the 28 days before, 6.6K in the 28 after, up
- Bing: 608 clicks in the 28 days before, 971 in the 28 after, up
This lines up the four weeks before and after; it doesn't prove the decision caused the change.
September 2026
A mistake, and the fix, , The Crawler's Cookbook
Put every reader correction on the Cookbook in public, fixed or not
- Google: 9.7K clicks in the 28 days before, 12.8K in the 28 after, up
- Bing: 1.2K clicks in the 28 days before, 1K in the 28 after, down
A mistake, and the fix, , The Quack Report
Stopped building fan features that need a crowd to work
- Google: 323 clicks in the 28 days before, 216 in the 28 after, down
- Bing: 600 clicks in the 28 days before, 933 in the 28 after, up
This lines up the four weeks before and after; it doesn't prove the decision caused the change.
May 2026: what else happened
- Google, : The May 2026 core update. Source: Google Search Status Dashboard; my sites' 14 days either side are on the log.
What else was going on that month, for context. Before and after, not cause: none of it is shown to have moved the clicks.
June 2026: what else happened
- Google, : The June 2026 spam update. Source: Google Search Status Dashboard; my sites' 14 days either side are on the log.
What else was going on that month, for context. Before and after, not cause: none of it is shown to have moved the clicks.
August 2026: what else happened
- Google, : The August 2026 spam update. Source: Google Search Status Dashboard; my sites' 14 days either side are on the log.
What else was going on that month, for context. Before and after, not cause: none of it is shown to have moved the clicks.
September 2026: what else happened
- Google, : The September 2026 spam update. Source: Google Search Status Dashboard; my sites' 14 days either side are on the log.
What else was going on that month, for context. Before and after, not cause: none of it is shown to have moved the clicks.
HI-SCORE the best month so far
| Month | Search clicks | Change from the month before |
|---|---|---|
| April | 1.7K | first month |
| May | 4.4K | up 159% |
| June | 7.6K | up 74% |
| July | 14.2K | up 87% |
| August | 19.7K | up 39% |
| September | 24K | up 21% |
These compare months; they don't prove what caused a change. Too few to tell means under 50 clicks in both months, where a percentage swings on a handful of clicks.
What I'm writing about
I post on LinkedIn about what I'm building and what the numbers show.
Follow on LinkedInLately on LinkedIn
- The Quack Report“Live and breathe Oregon Duck Football? Cool, same.”
- Poll: where people start a major purchase“My research habits have changed a lot recently, so curious where everyone is starting the process these days.”
- The recommendation layer“Like it or not, there’s a new decision-maker in town.”
The rest are on my profileFollow on LinkedIn
Off the clock
I'm from Portland, OR, and recently moved to Austin, Texas, where I'm currently melting in the sun.
I was going to Autzen Stadium before I could walk. I also follow the Seahawks, the Blazers and the Timbers. Bella is my corgi.
- Ducks
- Seahawks
- Blazers
- Timbers
- DCC
- Portland, home