Hayden SchusterHelping brands get found

What would you like to know?

Pages shown most in search
  1. What is commercial search intent, and what page does it need?What is commercial search intent?
  2. What is navigational search intent?What is navigational search intent?
  3. What has he written about search behavior and intent, and how does he think about it?Search behavior and intent

Ranked by page impressions, including former addresses redirected here. These are search appearances, not visits or searches for these questions.

Google: Jun 22, 2026 to Oct 19, 2026
Bing: Jun 25, 2026 to Oct 15, 2026

Use arrow keys to move. Enter opens. Esc closes.

What I've built, and what happened

I'm a Senior SEO Manager at Optimal, working on SEO and AI visibility for enterprise brands. My own sites are public tests, with case studies that show what worked and what didn't.

My biggest win and my biggest miss

Took off The Crawler's Cookbook 119 to 14.9K whole-site search clicks a month, Apr to Sep 2026 The site grew month by month. Its Book 9 page became one major entry point. Read the story Didn't hold CheckMyTap 1.6K to 218 pages in Google's index, Apr 26 to Oct 3, 2026 A water-quality site for cities across the US that Google mostly stopped showing, and what I changed. Fix live and a check stops a repeat. Still open: why it happened and holding the build when the check itself crashes. Read what happened

My full-time work

Every public site, by who it's for. Each one is a case study.

For people deciding what to buy or use

For people mid-task who need a number

For fans

Sites I built because I couldn't not build them.

Last 4 weeks compares each site's search clicks in Google's 28 days to Oct 19, 2026 and Bing's to Oct 16, 2026 with the 28 days before, per engine; it doesn't say why a site moved.

The numbers, month by monthSearch clicks across my sites, from Google Search Console and Bing, data through Oct 16, 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 99 days in a row of 100+ Google clicks.

Search clicks up 21% in September, a new best month, and the fifth month in a row it grew.

Data through

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

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

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

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

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

Google Bing A measured result A mistake, and the fix Each marker sits under its month; tap one for the 28 days before and after. A Google or Bing change The row under the markers is what else happened; tap a month for it. Under each month, how much it rose or fell from the month before. Complete months only. Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, data through .

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.

Do the side sites pay for themselves?

The goal: Every side project pays its own way. Readers buy through the product links on some of my sites, and this is how those earnings are moving across all of them together.

Affiliate earnings, every side site added together, shown as change only. Data through . Earnings count on the day an item ships, so one big order can swing a week.

When each site reached search, month by month

Eight of my sites first showed up in search in February and March 2026. Hear Homer followed in July, and nothing new has reached search since. SaltCellCheck has no search data yet, so its piece is outlined in July, the month I started building it.

Reached search: first impression in Google or BingOutlined: no search data yet, shown in the month I started building it

SiteReached searchAge
CheckMyTapOn or before Feb 12, 2026at least 8 months in
UpOrbitOn or before Feb 12, 2026at least 8 months in
GageRefFeb 23, 20268 months in
WireRefFeb 23, 20268 months in
The Crawler's CookbookMar 15, 20267 months in
The Quack ReportMar 16, 20267 months in
Title Town PDXMar 16, 20267 months in
RatingPlateMar 19, 20267 months in
Hear HomerJul 18, 20263 months in
SaltCellCheckNot measured yet (started Jul 25, 2026)age not measured yet
Google Search Console (from Feb 10, 2026) and Bing Webmaster Tools (from Mar 27, 2026), first impression per site, data through .

The rest of the work

My full-time job Enterprise SEO and AI visibility: how I think, build and track results in my full-time work. The one-page version: my resume Title, dates and skills, with these case studies as the receipts behind each line. What I've written about it Posts that start from a problem on one of these sites, with the method and the numbers. The systems behind the sites The checks that stop a wrong fact or a broken page before it ships, and the failure behind each one.

Want to judge one skill instead of one site? Start with the person searching, the technical build, the writing or the dashboard.

Questions about something here? Write to me

Ask Bella

Ask Bella Hayden's corgi, who answers from this site and cites every fact.

BELLA

WOOF. I'm Bella, Hayden's corgi. He's my human. Ask me about him; every answer cites its source.

How it works: the answers are written ahead from this site's pages, and anything else gets a search of the site that shows you its exact words. Every claim has a numbered source you can tap. Nothing is generated while you wait, nothing is made up, and nothing you type leaves your browser. Every answer, in plain HTML

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