# Alin Boatca > Technical SEO, web development and digital PR from one technical lead. The work is diagnosing the real root cause of a ranking or performance problem, building the fix, and proving it on the live site. Run by Alin Boatca (Remote, United Kingdom). Contact: info@alinboatca.com. This file indexes the site for language models; a fuller version with page summaries is at https://alinboatca.com/llms-full.txt, a human sitemap at https://alinboatca.com/sitemap/, and the XML sitemaps at https://alinboatca.com/sitemap_index.xml. ## Overview - [Home](https://alinboatca.com/): Technical SEO, web development and digital PR from one technical lead. - [Case studies](https://alinboatca.com/work/): Real problems, the diagnosis behind each, and what changed. - [Rates](https://alinboatca.com/rates/): Published hourly rates and how time is logged. - [Find a service](https://alinboatca.com/find-a-service/): A filterable directory of every service and sector, by discipline, industry, platform and location. - [CV](https://alinboatca.com/cv/): Background, working stack and standards, written to be checked. - [Privacy notice](https://alinboatca.com/privacy/): What the site collects (a contact form, nothing else), who processes it, and how to have it removed. - [Clients outside the UK](https://alinboatca.com/international-clients/): The real timezone overlap, invoicing in pounds, and where a local supplier is better. - [Contact](https://alinboatca.com/contact/): Start a project or ask a question directly. ## SEO services - [SEO services](https://alinboatca.com/seo-services/): Every SEO service in one place, and where each one fits. - [Technical SEO services](https://alinboatca.com/technical-seo-services/): Indexation, schema, architecture and Core Web Vitals, with the fixes built. - [On-page SEO](https://alinboatca.com/on-page-seo/): Titles, structure, internal links and content that earn the ranking once the crawl is clean. - [AI SEO](https://alinboatca.com/ai-seo/): Getting cited by AI search, without the guarantees nobody can keep. - [LLM SEO](https://alinboatca.com/llm-seo/): Being the source a language model quotes, also sold as AI search optimisation. - [Programmatic SEO](https://alinboatca.com/programmatic-seo/): Data-driven pages at scale that index, not a template of swapped place names. - [International SEO](https://alinboatca.com/international-seo/): Hreflang, country and language structure, and multi-region migrations. - [SaaS SEO](https://alinboatca.com/saas-seo/): SEO for software companies, where the buyer and the free-tier user differ. - [B2B SEO](https://alinboatca.com/b2b-seo-agency/): SEO for long sales-cycle B2B, where pipeline matters more than raw traffic. - [Local SEO](https://alinboatca.com/local-seo-services/): Map pack and local rankings for a business that sells to one area. - [Travel SEO](https://alinboatca.com/travel-seo/): Guide sites, hotels and directories, where taxonomy and images decide it. - [Healthcare SEO](https://alinboatca.com/healthcare-seo/): Clinics and medical sites, where Google checks the author first. - [Dental SEO](https://alinboatca.com/dental-seo/): Practices and groups, where the map pack decides more than the blog. - [Automotive SEO](https://alinboatca.com/automotive-seo/): Dealerships, where the inventory changes faster than Google recrawls. - [Real estate SEO](https://alinboatca.com/real-estate-seo/): Estate agents, where the listings are borrowed and the areas are yours. - [Ecommerce SEO](https://alinboatca.com/ecommerce-seo-services/): Category and product-page SEO for stores that have plateaued. - [Shopify SEO](https://alinboatca.com/shopify-seo/): The Shopify-specific version: themes, apps and the platform's URL quirks. - [SEO migration](https://alinboatca.com/seo-migration/): Replatforms, redesigns and domain moves done without losing rankings. ## Links, PR and audits - [Link building](https://alinboatca.com/link-building/): Earned links through digital PR and manual outreach, plus backlink audits. - [Digital PR](https://alinboatca.com/digital-pr/): Coverage and links earned with stories and data, not guest-post spam. - [SEO audit](https://alinboatca.com/seo-audit-services/): Technical, content and links assessed in one prioritised pass. - [Technical SEO audit](https://alinboatca.com/technical-seo-audit/): A deep technical diagnosis: crawling, indexation, schema, rendering and speed. - [Penalty recovery](https://alinboatca.com/google-penalty-recovery/): Recovering from a manual action or a toxic link profile. - [Small business SEO](https://alinboatca.com/small-business-seo/): Senior hours against a finite budget, or a clear no. - [Financial services SEO](https://alinboatca.com/financial-services-seo/): Regulated firms, where authority has to be provable. - [White label SEO](https://alinboatca.com/white-label-seo/): Technical work under your brand, at the same published rate. - [Enterprise SEO](https://alinboatca.com/enterprise-seo/): Large sites, where the template is the page. - [Law firm SEO](https://alinboatca.com/law-firm-seo/): Solicitors, where the named person is the ranking signal. - [SEO copywriting](https://alinboatca.com/seo-copywriting/): Pages that answer the question and then stop. - [Organic SEO services](https://alinboatca.com/organic-seo-services/): Earned at every layer, including the links. - [UK SEO agency](https://alinboatca.com/seo-agency-uk/): Remote, UK hours, published rates, and no office pretended into existence. - [London SEO](https://alinboatca.com/london-seo/): A remote practice with real London clients and no London office. - [SEO Leeds](https://alinboatca.com/seo-leeds/): The least defended major city in England, on measured difficulty. - [SEO Birmingham](https://alinboatca.com/seo-birmingham/): One contested head term, four service variants nobody defended. - [SEO Liverpool](https://alinboatca.com/seo-liverpool/): No dominant incumbent, which is the whole opportunity. - [SEO Milton Keynes](https://alinboatca.com/seo-milton-keynes/): The largest undefended city term measured, in a town that mostly sells elsewhere. - [SEO Brighton](https://alinboatca.com/seo-brighton/): One of the densest agency cities in the UK, and every city term still sits at zero. - [SEO Glasgow](https://alinboatca.com/seo-glasgow/): Consultants own their titles, nobody owns the city term. - [SEO Edinburgh](https://alinboatca.com/seo-edinburgh/): The most seasonal search market in the UK, planned too late. - [SEO Manchester](https://alinboatca.com/seo-manchester/): The one city page that argues the market is hard. - [SEO Sheffield](https://alinboatca.com/seo-sheffield/): Every main term at difficulty zero, which is the softest measured anywhere. - [SEO Nottingham](https://alinboatca.com/seo-nottingham/): One defended term, three beside it that nobody is defending. - [SEO Leicester](https://alinboatca.com/seo-leicester/): The buying terms are cheaper than the browsing term, which is backwards. - [SEO Newcastle](https://alinboatca.com/seo-newcastle/): The one city where buyers search for an agency more than for the city. - [SEO Surrey](https://alinboatca.com/seo-surrey/): A county has no map pack centroid, which changes the whole job. - [Generative engine optimisation](https://alinboatca.com/generative-engine-optimisation/): GEO and AEO, minus the pretence that it is a new discipline. - [UK SEO difficulty index](https://alinboatca.com/uk-seo-difficulty-index/): Original data: 38 UK local markets measured on one day, free to cite. - [UK SEO statistics](https://alinboatca.com/uk-seo-statistics/): Every figure measured here, dated, and free to cite. Short, because nothing is borrowed. - [Client feedback](https://alinboatca.com/client-feedback/): Every quote we have permission to publish, verbatim and anonymised by sector. - [Link spam log](https://alinboatca.com/link-spam-log/): Original data: 130 unsolicited spam domains hit a new site in six days. - [Press and brand assets](https://alinboatca.com/press/): Correct name, boilerplate, logo files and colours. Not a link exchange. - [Build roadmap](https://alinboatca.com/roadmap/): An open build log for this domain: live, in progress and next. - [Construction SEO](https://alinboatca.com/construction-seo/): Long lead cycles, two buyers, and galleries that do not load. - [Insurance SEO](https://alinboatca.com/insurance-seo/): The head terms belong to comparison sites. The rest does not. - [SEO for accountants](https://alinboatca.com/accountant-seo/): Seasonal work planned six months early, and specialism over generic services. - [Plumber and trades SEO](https://alinboatca.com/plumber-seo/): Decided in three map results, on a phone, in under a minute. - [Restaurant SEO](https://alinboatca.com/restaurant-seo/): Taking your own name back from the delivery apps. - [SEO for architects](https://alinboatca.com/architect-seo/): Nobody searches for the name you gave the project. - [Manufacturing SEO](https://alinboatca.com/manufacturing-seo/): Buyers search part numbers and the catalogue is a PDF. - [Recruitment SEO](https://alinboatca.com/recruitment-seo/): Your inventory expires, and that is the whole technical problem. - [Adult SEO and directory builds](https://alinboatca.com/adult-seo/): Fourteen years in the sector, and directories built from scratch. - [Accessibility audit](https://alinboatca.com/accessibility-audit/): WCAG 2.2 AA, scanned and then tested with a keyboard and a screen reader. - [Conversion rate optimisation](https://alinboatca.com/conversion-rate-optimisation/): More from the traffic you already have, with tests to prove it. - [Online reputation management](https://alinboatca.com/online-reputation-management/): Reputation work on the brand SERP, with the unlawful parts of the industry declined up front. - [SEO consultant](https://alinboatca.com/seo-consultant/): Strategy and direction when you need more than a task list. ## Build and WordPress - [Web development and design](https://alinboatca.com/web-design/): Web development services for sites that have to rank as well as look right, including ecommerce and Shopify. - [WordPress development](https://alinboatca.com/wordpress-development/): Custom themes, plugins and PHP, built properly the first time. - [Website redesign](https://alinboatca.com/website-redesign/): A rebuild that keeps the rankings while the look changes. - [Custom software and web apps](https://alinboatca.com/custom-tools/): Custom software and bespoke web development when no plugin does the job. - [WordPress SEO consulting](https://alinboatca.com/wordpress-seo-consultant/): The WordPress-specific SEO problems generic consultants miss. - [WordPress speed optimisation](https://alinboatca.com/wordpress-speed-optimisation/): Caching, images and Core Web Vitals, measured on real field data. - [Maintenance and support](https://alinboatca.com/wordpress-maintenance/): Tested updates, security and monitoring by the people who know the site. - [SERP preview and meta description length checker](https://alinboatca.com/tools/meta-description-length-checker/): A SERP preview measured in pixels, because that is how Google truncates. - [Hreflang generator (free tool)](https://alinboatca.com/tools/hreflang-generator/): Builds a complete reciprocal hreflang set, in your browser. - [Free tools](https://alinboatca.com/tools/): All five free tools in one place. No accounts, no email, nothing uploaded. - [llms.txt and llms-full.txt generator (free tool)](https://alinboatca.com/tools/llms-txt-generator/): Builds both files in your browser, and admits that nobody has confirmed reading them. - [robots.txt generator (free tool)](https://alinboatca.com/tools/robots-txt-generator/): Presets for WordPress, Shopify, staging and AI crawlers, and a warning before you break it. - [Schema markup generator (free tool)](https://alinboatca.com/tools/schema-markup-generator/): Builds valid JSON-LD for six common types, in your browser. ## Guides - [Guides index](https://alinboatca.com/guides/): Write-ups of real problems diagnosed and fixed on live sites. - [Every Search Console index status, explained](https://alinboatca.com/guides/search-console-statuses/): A hub decoding the Page Indexing report: which statuses are fine, which hide a problem. - [A strong domain ranking for nothing](https://alinboatca.com/guides/strong-domain-ranking-for-nothing/): A DR-72 domain ranking for nothing, and why links were not the answer. - [Migrate without losing rankings](https://alinboatca.com/guides/migrate-without-losing-rankings/): The redirect map, continuity checks and monitoring that protect a migration. - [Discovered, currently not indexed](https://alinboatca.com/guides/discovered-currently-not-indexed/): Google found the URL and chose not to fetch it. That is the whole status. - [Crawled, currently not indexed](https://alinboatca.com/guides/crawled-currently-not-indexed/): Why Google reads a page and then declines to index it. - [Duplicate without user-selected canonical](https://alinboatca.com/guides/duplicate-without-user-selected-canonical/): Google found duplicates, you declared no canonical, so Google chose. - [How to check whether AI assistants recommend your business](https://alinboatca.com/guides/check-if-ai-recommends-your-business/): Prompt sampling you can run yourself in an hour, limits included. - [Soft 404 errors](https://alinboatca.com/guides/soft-404-errors/): A page returning 200 while looking empty to Google. - [Alternate page with proper canonical tag](https://alinboatca.com/guides/alternate-page-with-proper-canonical-tag/): The Search Console status that is usually Google working correctly. - [Stopping a wp-login brute force at the Cloudflare edge](https://alinboatca.com/guides/wordpress-brute-force-cloudflare/): A login page absorbing 46% of origin requests at 21,626 hits a day. - [Why your WordPress cache will not clear](https://alinboatca.com/guides/wordpress-cache-invalidation/): The four places a WordPress cache fails to clear. ## Blog - [Common SEO myths, debunked](https://alinboatca.com/blog/seo-myths/): The hub tying together every SEO myth we have taken apart, grouped by where they do most damage. - [Traffic is not the goal](https://alinboatca.com/blog/traffic-is-not-the-goal/): A means, not an end, and more of the wrong traffic costs money while flattering the report. - [The Google sandbox is a myth, but new sites wait](https://alinboatca.com/blog/the-google-sandbox-is-a-myth/): Not a penalty box on a timer, but the ordinary absence of signals plus time. - [Keyword density is not a thing](https://alinboatca.com/blog/keyword-density-is-not-a-thing/): No magic percentage; Google does not count words, and chasing a ratio makes writing worse. - [You do not need to submit your site to Google](https://alinboatca.com/blog/you-do-not-need-to-submit-your-site-to-google/): Google finds sites by following links, not by waiting for a submission. - [Nofollow links still have value](https://alinboatca.com/blog/nofollow-links-still-have-value/): A hint now, not a firewall, and a link was never only about passing authority. - [Bounce rate is not a ranking factor](https://alinboatca.com/blog/bounce-rate-is-not-a-ranking-factor/): An analytics metric Google does not read, and one number with five meanings. - [Duplicate content is not a penalty](https://alinboatca.com/blog/duplicate-content-is-not-a-penalty/): There is no duplicate content penalty. Google picks one URL and sets the rest aside. - [You are not being penalised, you are being outranked](https://alinboatca.com/blog/you-are-not-penalised-you-are-outranked/): A real penalty is rare and shows in Search Console. Most drops are something else. - [Meta descriptions do not affect rankings](https://alinboatca.com/blog/meta-descriptions-do-not-affect-rankings/): Not a ranking factor, and Google rewrites most of them anyway. - [You do not need a blog post for every keyword](https://alinboatca.com/blog/you-do-not-need-a-blog-post-for-every-keyword/): A page per keyword splits your own authority. One strong page beats five thin ones. - [The disavow file is a loaded gun](https://alinboatca.com/blog/the-disavow-file-is-a-loaded-gun/): Google already ignores most spam links. Routine disavowing demotes links that were helping. - [Core Web Vitals are a tiebreaker](https://alinboatca.com/blog/core-web-vitals-are-a-tiebreaker/): A real ranking signal and a small one. It settles close calls, not weak pages. - [Most SEO audits are a crawl export](https://alinboatca.com/blog/most-seo-audits-are-a-crawl-export/): A 200-page report that lists everything a crawler found is a data dump, not an audit. - [AI Overviews are not a traffic apocalypse](https://alinboatca.com/blog/ai-overviews-are-not-a-traffic-apocalypse/): They change which queries send clicks, not whether search sends clicks. - [Domain Rating is a scoreboard, not a strategy](https://alinboatca.com/blog/domain-rating-is-not-a-google-metric/): An Ahrefs metric, not a Google ranking factor. A useful proxy and a terrible target. - [Blog index](https://alinboatca.com/blog/): Shorter, opinionated takes on technical SEO and search. - [Page with redirect is not an error](https://alinboatca.com/blog/page-with-redirect-search-console/): The status means the URL redirects. That is what redirects do. - [Robots.txt does not stop indexing](https://alinboatca.com/blog/robots-txt-does-not-stop-indexing/): Blocking a page removes the ability to read it, not the ability to list it. - [Your ranking is not a single number](https://alinboatca.com/blog/your-ranking-is-not-a-single-number/): Results vary by location, device and history. A tracker reports one sample, not your position. - [Google rewrites your title tags too](https://alinboatca.com/blog/google-rewrites-your-title-tags/): The title tag is a strong suggestion, not the headline shown in results. - [Alt text is not a keyword slot](https://alinboatca.com/blog/alt-text-is-not-a-keyword-slot/): It replaces the image for someone who cannot see it. Stuffing it is named as spam. - [Exact-match domains are not a shortcut](https://alinboatca.com/blog/exact-match-domains-are-not-a-shortcut/): Targeted since 2012, and keywords in a URL are a very small factor. - [Social signals are not a ranking factor](https://alinboatca.com/blog/social-signals-are-not-a-ranking-factor/): Shares are not counted and the links are nofollow. The value runs a different route. - [You can have more than one H1](https://alinboatca.com/blog/you-can-have-more-than-one-h1/): Google has said multiple H1s are fine. The rule is an audit convention, not a requirement. - [Crawl budget is probably not your problem](https://alinboatca.com/blog/crawl-budget-is-probably-not-your-problem/): Most sites never need to think about it. What the real cause usually is. - [Publishing frequency is not a ranking factor](https://alinboatca.com/blog/publishing-frequency-is-not-a-ranking-factor/): No bonus for posting twice a week. Freshness belongs to the query, not the publisher. - [LSI keywords are not a thing](https://alinboatca.com/blog/lsi-keywords-are-not-a-thing/): Google has said it does not use LSI. The instinct underneath is fine, the mechanism is invented. - [A 301 redirect does not lose 15% of your link equity](https://alinboatca.com/blog/301-redirects-do-not-lose-link-equity/): Google confirmed no PageRank is lost through a 30x. The destination is the risk. - [404 errors do not hurt your rankings](https://alinboatca.com/blog/404-errors-do-not-hurt-your-rankings/): A correct answer for something that is gone. The count is never the signal. - [Domain age is not a ranking factor](https://alinboatca.com/blog/domain-age-is-not-a-ranking-factor/): Old domains do rank better, and age is not the cause. It is a proxy for accumulation. - [Word count is not a ranking factor](https://alinboatca.com/blog/word-count-is-not-a-ranking-factor/): No minimum length. The correlation is real and length is not what causes it. - [An XML sitemap does not get your pages indexed](https://alinboatca.com/blog/xml-sitemaps-do-not-get-you-indexed/): It tells Google which URLs exist. It cannot ask for indexing, or grant it. - [Google does not penalise AI content](https://alinboatca.com/blog/google-does-not-penalise-ai-content/): No authorship penalty and no detector. Worthless content at scale is the actual target. - [Schema markup is not a ranking factor](https://alinboatca.com/blog/schema-markup-is-not-a-ranking-factor/): It buys eligibility for a richer result and a legible entity, not a position. - [Why we stopped adding FAQPage schema](https://alinboatca.com/blog/why-we-stopped-using-faqpage-schema/): Why FAQPage markup earns most sites nothing since 2023. - [Technical SEO in 2026, in priority order](https://alinboatca.com/blog/technical-seo-guide-2026/): Four questions in strict sequence, not a flat checklist of ninety items with no order to them. - [The structured data types that change your listing](https://alinboatca.com/blog/essential-structured-data-types/): Hundreds of schema.org types exist and about seven change how your result looks. - [Mobile speed on WordPress is four problems](https://alinboatca.com/blog/mobile-speed-for-wordpress/): The same four causes in the same order, and stacking optimisation plugins makes it worse. - [Best WordPress SEO plugins for 2026, compared](https://alinboatca.com/blog/wordpress-seo-plugins-compared/): All of them output the same tags. The differences are real and they are not differences in SEO. - [Five custom tools worth building for SEO and UX](https://alinboatca.com/blog/custom-tools-for-seo-and-ux/): Tools you build on your own site, not software to subscribe to, with the failure rate stated. - [How to improve Core Web Vitals in 2026](https://alinboatca.com/blog/how-to-improve-core-web-vitals/): The three metrics broken into their parts, the fixes that move them, and when to stop.