Blog, page 2

Notes from the work, in the order we published them

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Founder's Notebook

PHP2Shell isn't a WordPress bug. Your WordPress site still runs the thing that broke.

The defenders are right: it is a PHP bug, and WordPress builds its pages with PHP. What to ask your host this week, and why a site that only gets leads may not need a PHP server at all.

Oct 25, 2026 10 min
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Measurement Truths

Should your analytics live in the tag manager?

Analytics belongs in the site code, where every build can check it. The tag manager should hold only short-lived ad tags, and a quarterly check keeps it that way.

Oct 22, 2026 5 min
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Local SEO Field Notes

Why your sitemap lastmod is the same date on every page

A sitemap where every page shows the same last-changed date often means the build cannot read git history at deploy time, not that nothing changed. Here is the fix that held.

Oct 21, 2026 4 min
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Ads Lab

Your Google Ads IP exclusion list has a ceiling

An exclusion list fills up fast if you only ever block one address at a time. Here is where we draw the line on collapsing addresses into ranges, and why we never trust a single signal.

Oct 20, 2026 3 min
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Measurement Truths

Installed is not the same as working: a ten minute analytics check

A tracking tag in your page source proves it was installed. It does not prove your analytics property ever recorded a visit, and here is the short check that tells you which one you have.

Oct 19, 2026 6 min
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Ads Lab

Three places a relaunched campaign can still be paused

A relaunched campaign can read enabled and still serve nothing, because its ad groups and ads carry their own paused statuses. Here is our checklist and the report that shows what is running.

Oct 13, 2026 4 min
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Toolbox

Check whether AI answers mention your business once a quarter

A short quarterly routine to see whether AI assistants name your business: fixed questions, a plain record sheet, and one site change per gap.

Oct 12, 2026 7 min
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Toolbox

Is Bing Webmaster Tools worth setting up?

Bing's webmaster tools are free, and a site already verified in Search Console can be imported directly. Here is what to check afterward and what to ignore.

Oct 11, 2026 5 min
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Behind the Build

What belongs in a video on a service website

The rule we use before any video goes on a page: it moves in a way CSS cannot, and every word and number stays in the page itself.

Oct 10, 2026 3 min
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AI Native Ops

How to edit the machine out of your writing

Copy drafted with AI help often feels off before you can say why. Here is the two-pass edit we use, with before and after lines you can borrow.

Oct 9, 2026 6 min
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Local SEO Field Notes

Why a longer service page does not rank better

A word count target is a poor way to judge a service page. Here is a simpler test: does it answer the question completely and quickly?

Oct 8, 2026 5 min
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Founder's Notebook

Run a pre-mortem before you commit to a plan

A pre-mortem is one question asked before you commit: assume the plan already failed, then write down every reason why. It takes one honest reviewer.

Oct 6, 2026 3 min

Want to talk through your marketing?

Tell us where things stand and we'll tell you plainly what we'd do next.

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