Our Methodology
How we decide what to publish, what to claim, and what to leave uncertain.
Why This Page Exists
SEO is an industry with an enormous amount of contradictory, overclaimed, and outdated information.
"Do X to rank #1." "Google rewards Y." "AI search responds to Z."
A lot of this advice exists with no documented evidence behind it. Some of it was accurate years ago and no longer is. Some of it has never been validated at all.
SEOAcademys follows a documented methodology for evaluating what we publish — because the quality of what we claim matters more than the volume of what we produce.
Our Evidence Hierarchy
When a claim appears on SEOAcademys, it is based on one or more of the following sources, listed in order of priority:
Tier 1 — Official Documentation
Sources: Google Search Central, Google's official developer documentation, official Google blog announcements, official documentation from AI search platforms (OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, Microsoft)
Why it's Tier 1: These are statements made directly by the platforms. They represent the highest-confidence information available to anyone outside these companies.
Limitation: Official documentation is sometimes incomplete, sometimes delayed, and sometimes changed without announcement.
Tier 2 — SEOAcademys Experiments
Sources: Tests conducted on real websites — including SEOAcademys.com itself — with documented methodology, defined variables, measurement periods, and observed results.
Why it's Tier 2: First-hand experimental evidence is more reliable than secondhand reports, but individual experiments have real limitations — small sample sizes, confounding variables, and results that may not generalise.
How we document it: Every SEOAcademys experiment includes: hypothesis, method, website context, duration, results, limitations, and conclusion.
Tier 3 — Primary Research
Sources: Published academic or industry studies with documented methodology, peer review where applicable, and clearly reported data.
Limitation: Research quality varies significantly. We assess methodology, sample size, and potential biases before treating research as strong evidence.
Tier 4 — Established Industry Evidence
Sources: Documented case studies from credible SEO practitioners with verifiable methodology and results. Multiple consistent observations from independent sources.
Limitation: Practitioner evidence is anecdotal without independent replication. We use it to identify patterns, not to make definitive claims.
Tier 5 — Community Signals
Sources: Reddit discussions, X/Twitter observations, SEO community forums — used to identify real-world problems, patterns, and questions worth investigating.
Limitation: Community discussions reflect individual experiences and cannot be treated as evidence of universal patterns. They are useful for generating hypotheses, not confirming them.
How We Separate What We Know From What We Don't
Every article on SEOAcademys distinguishes between:
What is confirmed
- →"Google's documentation states that..."
- →"Our experiment showed that..."
- →"Multiple independent studies have found that..."
What is supported but not confirmed
- →"Evidence suggests that..."
- →"Several practitioners have reported..."
What is our hypothesis
- →"We believe that... [reason], but this is not confirmed"
- →"Our working hypothesis is..."
What is unknown
- →"Google has not documented this publicly"
- →"The evidence on this is limited and conflicting"
What is a myth
- →"This is commonly claimed, but no credible evidence supports it"
What We Don't Do
We don't promise guaranteed rankings.
No credible SEO source can. Google's systems involve hundreds of factors, many undisclosed, and rankings depend on competitive context that changes constantly.
We don't publish correlation as causation.
"Site X did Y and ranked higher" does not mean Y caused the ranking increase. We note correlation honestly and avoid presenting it as confirmed cause.
We don't claim insider knowledge.
We don't have access to Google's ranking algorithm, AI search systems' retrieval logic, or any non-public information from these platforms.
We don't hide financial relationships.
We don't present affiliate-influenced recommendations as objective analysis. If financial relationships affect what we write about, this is disclosed clearly.
What This Means for You
When you read something on SEOAcademys, you can expect:
- To know where the information comes from
- To know how confident we are in it
- To understand its limitations
- To see the evidence we're basing it on
You should still apply critical thinking. SEO advice that works in one context may not work in another. Test recommendations on your own site where possible.