KatvTech.com

We run Google ranking experiments and publish the results.

KatvTech is an independent SEO research lab. We test ranking factors, AEO citation tactics, and algorithm impacts on real websites. We publish the data. No sponsored opinions. No affiliate-driven recommendations. Just results.

Who we are

KatvTech exists because most SEO advice is based on opinion, not evidence. Our team runs structured experiments across multiple websites, controlling for variables and measuring outcomes over 30, 60, and 90-day periods.

We cover three areas: ranking experiments (does tactic X actually move rankings?), algorithm analysis (what did the latest Google update actually change?), and AEO research (what makes content get cited in AI Overviews and ChatGPT?).

Whether you’re building your first niche website or managing a content portfolio, our experiments give you data to make decisions — not guesswork to act on.

Ranking Experiments

Algorithm Analysis

AEO Research

An Ecommerce SEO Case Study: What We Tested and Found

Most ecommerce SEO advice comes as a general principle: improve your product descriptions, fix your category structure, add reviews. None of that tells you whether the specific change is worth the engineering time on your specific site. This ecommerce seo case study…

CRO and SEO: When Optimizing for One Hurts the Other

A conversion rate optimization team strips a page down to a single clean call to action. An SEO team wants the same page loaded with supporting content, internal links, and enough depth to rank for a cluster of related queries. Both goals are legitimate. They…

Content Pruning: When to Cut and How to Test It Right

Delete the weak pages and watch the whole site’s rankings improve. It is one of the most repeated pieces of SEO advice out there, and it is also one of the most frequently applied without any actual measurement of whether it worked. Content pruning can be genuinely…

Edge SEO: What It Is and When It Actually Helps

Getting a simple title tag fix through a busy engineering backlog can take longer than the SEO test itself. Edge SEO exists specifically to route around that bottleneck: instead of waiting for a code deployment, changes get applied at the CDN or edge server level,…

SEO Test Ideas and Cases Worth Running on Your Site

The hardest part of experimentation is rarely the methodology, it is deciding what to test first. A good running list of seo test ideas and cases saves you from staring at a blank page every time you have bandwidth to run something new, and it means your next test is…

How to Run SEO Experiments Without Wasting Months

Deciding to test something is the easy part. Most SEO experiments fail not because the idea was bad, but because the setup was sloppy: too few pages, no real control group, or a measurement window closed the moment the first promising number appeared. If you want a…

CTR Manipulation: What It Is and What the Evidence Shows

Every few months, a new tool shows up promising to boost your rankings by paying real people or bots to click your listing in search results. CTR manipulation is the general name for this category of tactic, and it persists specifically because it has a plausible…

SEO Split Testing: How to Design a Test That Holds Up

SEO split testing means dividing comparable pages into an untouched control group and a variant group that receives one isolated change, then measuring the gap between the two once it clears a statistical significance threshold. It borrows its logic directly from the…

SEO Experiments: How We Test What Actually Works

SEO experiments only produce reliable evidence when they isolate a single variable against a genuine control group. Comparing a page before and after a change, without a comparison set, cannot separate the effect of that change from algorithm updates, seasonality, or…

Does Requesting Indexing in Google Search Console Speed Up Rankings?

Most SEO advice on indexing is cargo cult behaviour. Someone observed that requesting indexing seemed to speed things up, published it as a tip, and it became received wisdom. The problem is nobody isolated the variable. Nobody compared requested vs non-requested…

Does llms.txt Actually Work? What the Data Says in 2026

If you have spent any time in SEO communities over the past year, you have seen the llms.txt pitch: add one small file to your website and AI systems like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews will finally understand your content. Some influencer posts go further and…

Internal Linking Strategy for SEO: How to Build Topical Authority From Within Your Site

Internal linking is one of the few SEO levers that is entirely within your control. You do not need to earn it from other websites, negotiate for it, or wait for algorithmic changes to reward it. Every internal link on your site is a deliberate choice — a signal you…

Schema Markup for SEO and AEO: The Complete Implementation Guide for 2026

Schema markup is one of the most underused tools in both SEO and AEO strategies. Despite being around since 2011 and supported by every major search engine, the majority of websites still do not implement it correctly — or at all. In 2026, that gap has become a…

XML Sitemaps and Robots.txt: The Crawlability Basics Every New Site Gets Wrong

Two files sit quietly at the root of almost every website and have an outsized influence on how quickly Google discovers, crawls, and indexes a site’s content. The XML sitemap tells Google what pages exist and where to find them. The robots.txt file tells Google which…

People Also Ask: What It Is and How to Appear in PAA Results

People Also Ask boxes have been part of Google’s search results since 2015, which makes them old by search feature standards. What has changed is their relevance. A feature that was once treated as a minor SEO bonus is now directly connected to the AEO research being…

Google’s E-E-A-T Framework: How to Build Trust Signals on a New Website in 2026

For most of its existence, Google’s E-E-A-T framework was treated as a concern for health and finance sites. If you were writing about medical symptoms or investment advice, you needed credentials, named authors, and verifiable expertise. If you were writing about…

WordPress Speed Optimisation for SEO: The Technical Setup That Affects Rankings in 2026

WordPress powers approximately 43 percent of all websites on the internet. It is also responsible for a disproportionate share of slow-loading, poorly performing content sites that fail Core Web Vitals assessments and lose ranking to faster competitors with comparable…

How Google AI Overviews Work: What Gets Selected and Why

Google AI Overviews did not arrive quietly. When Google began rolling them out broadly in May 2024, the SEO community’s immediate concern was traffic loss. If Google answers the question on the results page, why would anyone click through to the source? That concern…

Google March 2026 Core Update: What Actually Changed and Who It Hit

When Google confirmed the March 2026 core update on March 4th, the initial reaction across the SEO community was the usual mix of panic, speculation, and contradictory advice. Tracking tools registered volatility levels higher than any previously recorded update….

What is AEO and How Does It Differ From SEO in 2026?

We have spent years trying to understand how Google ranks websites and find ways to bring content to the top of the search results. Then the rules changed. The updates of 2025 and 2026 shifted the goalposts significantly enough that much of what we had learned needed…

How KatvTech Tests Google Ranking Factors: Our Methodology

KatvTech runs controlled experiments on Google ranking factors. Here’s the exact methodology we use. Check out how we set up tests, control for variables, measure outcomes, and publish results.

our mission

KatvTech covers the full ecosystem of Google ranking in 2026, with particular depth in three interconnected areas.

Ranking Experiments

We test specific tactics on live websites — schema markup, heading structures, internal linking patterns, content length, and update frequency — measuring impact on Google Search Console impressions, clicks, and position over defined time periods. Each experiment controls for as many variables as possible and states its limitations clearly.

Algorithm Analysis

When Google releases a core update, spam update, or any confirmed ranking change, we analyse the pattern of winners and losers across publicly available ranking data. We cross-reference Google’s official guidance with observed outcomes to identify what actually changed — not what the SEO community assumes changed.

 

AEO Research

Answer Engine Optimisation is the emerging discipline of structuring content to be cited by AI systems — Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and others. We test specific structural and technical factors that influence whether a page gets cited in AI-generated answers, publishing citation rates and the conditions that appear to trigger them.

Our work sits at the intersection of content quality, technical implementation, and AI-driven search where the three forces reshaping how content earns visibility in 2026 and beyond.

Posts from our AEO specialist – Sana Morikofte

about us

KatvTech grew out of a frustration shared by a small group of engineers and developers. We were building websites, reading the same SEO advice as everyone else, and getting the same inconclusive results. Nobody in the industry was testing anything properly. So we started doing it ourselves.

Today KatvTech publishes controlled ranking experiments, algorithm analysis, and AEO research across three content categories. Our team brings backgrounds in software engineering, data analysis, and technical SEO. We work across multiple domains and niches, which gives us a broader testing environment than most independent researchers have access to.

Sana Morikofte – AEO specialist

Sana joined the KatvTech research team in early 2025, bringing a background in computational linguistics and a particular interest in how AI systems parse and extract information from web content. Before focusing on AEO research, she spent three years analysing content performance patterns across e-commerce and publishing sites. At KatvTech she leads all experiments related to AI Overview citation rates, FAQPage schema impact, and question-based content structuring. She has personally tracked over 500 AI citation events across multiple niches and content types, making her one of the more data-grounded voices in a field that is still largely driven by speculation.

Marcus Veltrino – SEO Research Lead

Marcus heads KatvTech’s ranking experiments programme. With a background in software engineering and over a decade spent analysing search ranking behaviour, he designs the controlled testing frameworks that underpin every experiment on this site. His focus is on isolating single variables and measuring outcomes with the rigour that most SEO research lacks.

David Brauksworth – Technical SEO Analyst

David leads KatvTech’s technical SEO research, with a focus on Core Web Vitals, site architecture, and crawlability. His background in web performance engineering means he approaches ranking factors from the infrastructure level up. He runs all experiments measuring the relationship between technical site health and search visibility outcomes.

Algorithm Analysis

AEO Research

katvtech.com

We’d love to hear from you—reach out with your questions, ideas, collaborations, or feedback.

FAQs

How does KatvTech run its experiments?

We select a single variable to test, set up control and test conditions on live websites, measure outcomes through Google Search Console over a defined period, and publish the raw data alongside our interpretation.

Are your experiments reproducible?

We describe methodology in enough detail to allow replication. Every experiment states its limitations, including sample size, niche, domain age, and time period.

How often do you publish new experiments?

We publish 2–3 new pieces per month with a mix of new experiments, experiment updates, and algorithm analysis.

Do your experiments apply to all niches?

No, single experiment applies universally. We note the niche type and domain characteristics for each test. Results in competitive niches may differ from results in low-competition ones.

Can I suggest an experiment topic?

Of course, your input is helpful! Just use the contact page. We prioritise suggestions that have clear hypotheses and are practically relevant to content site builders.