The State of SEO Websites 2026
How do purpose-built SEO websites actually index, rank and perform? We pulled the numbers from our own live network of 5 sites, 568 pages and 2,466 tracked keywords. The methodology below shows which figures were re-checked in September 2026 and which were not.
What the network tells us
Across 568 pages, the network earned 254.1k impressions and 5,168 clicks in the 28 days to 25 September 2026.
Of 2,466 tracked keywords, 738 sat on page one when last recorded. These bucket counts have not been re-checked since the September 2026 review.
Each case study recorded a Lighthouse performance score of 97 or higher at build. These scores have not been re-measured since.
How fast do new SEO sites gain traction?
The curves track monthly organic impressions across the first twelve months. The pattern is consistent: a slow first quarter while pages index, then a compounding climb as the long tail matures.
Source: Google Search Console impressions, first 12 months per site, as recorded at the time. Not re-checked against a dated export in the September 2026 review.
Where the tracked keywords ranked
These position buckets were recorded on each case study and have not been re-checked against a full keyword export since the September 2026 review. The full breakdowns sit in thecase studies.
All network keywords by position
Schema coverage
Every case-study site reports 100% of pages carrying structured data. This figure was not re-audited in the September 2026 review. Learn how we build theschema graph.
How we measured this
Clicks, impressions and average position figures reflect a trailing 28-day Google Search Console snapshot (29 August to 25 September 2026) for each of five live sites in the network, re-verified on 2026-09-26. Page counts, growth curves, Lighthouse scores, schema coverage and ranking-position buckets were not re-verified in this pass; see the notes below.
Measured from our data
- Clicks, impressions and average position are pulled directly from Google Search Console (via the SEO Gets MCP) for each site's sc-domain property, trailing 28 days as of 2026-09-25.
- Network totals (sites, pages, clicks, impressions) are aggregated directly from the live case-study data in this repository, which mirrors that Google Search Console pull.
Estimates to confirm
- Growth curves (monthly impression series, first 12 months per site) were not re-verified in the 2026-09-26 pass and are pending a per-site monthly export from each site's launch date.
- Ranking-position bucket counts (2,466 tracked keywords) were not re-verified in the 2026-09-26 pass and are pending a full keyword-position export.
- Lighthouse scores and schema-coverage percentages were not re-verified in the 2026-09-26 pass and are pending a PageSpeed Insights / crawl re-check.
Where a figure could not be re-verified against a dated primary-source pull in this audit pass, it is listed under estimates to confirm rather than presented as confirmed. No figure is rounded up beyond its measured precision.
Last reviewed: 2026-09-26. Dataset licensed CC BY 4.0; cite OptimisedWebsite with a link.
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