GageRef: 262 Bing clicks in September 2026, and 1 Google click in 240 days
For welders and fitters who need an exact spec while standing at the machine.
Built for someone who needs the answer before the puddle cools. GageRef is my free reference for welding electrode settings and hydraulic fitting threads, and Bing is where its readers find it.
8 months in In search since Feb 23, 2026; data through Oct 16, 2026
- First recorded version Feb 21, 2026
- Seen Feb 23, 2026
- First click Aug 17, 2026
- First 100-click month None yet
- Data through Oct 23, 2026
Bing
- Seen Apr 12, 2026
- First click Apr 28, 2026
- First 100-click month Jun 2026, 127
- Data through Oct 25, 2026
- Now, 8 months in Sep 2026, 262 Google and Bing clicks
- 69comparisons on the live site, up from 67 in March
AStart from the personIts mascot: Espeon
Who is on the other end of the search?
GageRef serves someone standing in front of a welding machine who needs to know the amperage range for 1/8-inch E7018 right now. Or a mechanic lying under a piece of equipment trying to figure out which hydraulic fitting standard they are looking at. The session is short. The need is immediate.
Are they at a desk or in a shop? Do they have two minutes or ten seconds? Can they scroll or are they wearing gloves? Those constraints do not show up in keyword research. You have to think about who is actually on the other end of the query.
From my GageRef case study, published March 1, 2026.
What GageRef shows first, and the library behind it
Quick lookup on the GageRef homepage
E7018 70-400A
The full range across every rod size. Each size has its own, narrower range on the E7018 page.
The amperage range is shown right in the homepage menu (read on the live site 2026-10-11). The tools on the site:
Between March and October, the catalog of rods stayed the same size. The comparisons and the guides grew around it.
| What | Mar 1, 2026 | Oct 11, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Welding consumables | 30 | 30 |
| Comparisons | 67 | 69 |
| Guides | 25 | 33 |
| Fitting standards | 7 | 7 |
March: my GageRef case study on this site, published March 1, 2026. October: the homepage's library counts, read 2026-10-11.
Welders and fitters find it on Bing, slowly
Bing sent 4 clicks in April 2026 and 262 in September 2026. In September 2026, Bing clicks were about level with August (271 to 262).
On Google, no. Search Console shows 1 click in 240 days of data. The data does not say why.
How I measured it. Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console daily totals, pulled 2026-10-20 and 2026-10-19. Clicks only; these tools can't see visitors who arrive any other way.
GageRef's search clicks by month
- September, compared with Augustdown 4%262 search clicks, down from 272
- August, compared with Julyup 39%272 search clicks, up from 196
- Best month on recordAugust272 search clicks
Search clicks held level in September, down 4% on August, holding near the best month.
Data through
- 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
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.
This is what else was going on that month. I list it for context; nothing here shows any of it moved my 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.
This is what else was going on that month. I list it for context; nothing here shows any of it moved my 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.
This is what else was going on that month. I list it for context; nothing here shows any of it moved my 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.
This is what else was going on that month. I list it for context; nothing here shows any of it moved my clicks.
HI-SCORE the best month so far
| Month | Search clicks | Change from the month before |
|---|---|---|
| April | 4 | first month |
| May | 42 | up 950% |
| June | 127 | up 202% |
| July | 196 | up 54% |
| August | 272 | up 39% |
| September | 262 | down 4% |
The numbers, month by monthGageRef's search clicks and the changes I made, data through Oct 23, 2026
| Month | Changes made | Bing | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 2026 | 48 | first month | partial month |
| Apr 2026 | 2 | too few to tell | first month |
| May 2026 | 0 | too few to tell | too few to tell |
| Jun 2026 | 0 | too few to tell | up 202% |
| Jul 2026 | 3 | too few to tell | up 54% |
| Aug 2026 | 3 | too few to tell | up 38% |
| Sep 2026 | 0 | too few to tell | down 3% |
content technical data other
What I got wrong building it
The mid-task framing helped me build the right pages. It did not prevent me from building them in the wrong order or at the wrong depth.
The fittings side went live too thin
I was excited about having two verticals live and rushed the second one.
Welders search by the name on the box
Welders search by brand name more than I expected. I had to retrofit brand names and manufacturer equivalents into existing pages after seeing the data. The live site now has a brand cross-reference covering Lincoln, ESAB, Hobart and Forney (read 2026-10-11).
A confident answer for a fitting that doesn't exist
In August 2026 I added the -5 and -32 sizes to the fitting data, and the adapter finder put them in its menus for every standard. Selecting NPT -5 produced a full adapter card, seal notes, installation warnings and pressure ratings included, for a size NPT doesn't have. The data already listed which standards lack each size. The tool never read that list, so it was already doing the same for -2 and -3.
Now it checks both sides before anything else and answers "NPT -5 does not exist," quoting the reason from the data. A side with no published pressure rating says so, and the tool won't give an assembly rating from the other side alone.
Plausible and accurate are not the same thing, and on reference sites, the gap between the two has real consequences if not done right.
Quoted lines are from my GageRef case study, published March 1, 2026, except the line on plausible answers, from my personal audit, published March 4, 2026. The adapter finder fix is dated August 17, 2026; on October 13, 2026 the live tool answered JIC -5 to NPT -5 with "NPT -5 does not exist" and still gave JIC -8 to NPT -8 its full card.
Where these numbers come from
Receipt from GageRef
