Programmatic SEO has a reputation problem: earned by sites that turned keyword lists into thousands of empty pages. We do the opposite: fewer, better pages, each one built for a person with a question.
Our one test: Would we build this page if Google didn’t exist? If the answer is no, it doesn’t ship.
What Google has done about site quality
Fifteen years of updates point the same way: reward pages made for people, demote pages made for rankings, and judge the whole site, not just the page.
- Feb 2011Panda
Demotes thin, low-quality and copied content, and judges quality across the whole site, so weak pages drag down strong ones.
- Mar 2015Doorway pages
Targets many similar pages built to rank for variations (cities, keywords) that funnel users to the same place.
- Jan 2016Panda goes core
Quality assessment becomes part of the core ranking system: always on, not an occasional update.
- Aug 2022Helpful content
A site-wide signal against content made primarily for search engines rather than people.
- Dec 2022E-E-A-T
Rater guidelines add Experience to Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust.
- Feb 2023AI guidance
Google rewards helpful content however it’s produced, but using automation to manipulate rankings is spam.
- Mar 2024Scaled content abuse
Helpful content folds into core ranking. New spam policies: scaled content abuse, site reputation abuse, expired domain abuse.
- Jan 2025Rater guidelines
Raters told to rate lowest the pages whose main content is auto- or AI-generated with little effort, originality or added value.
The problems we design out
Every common programmatic SEO failure, the risk it carries, and the guardrail we build in from day one.
RiskPages with too little unique substance to deserve a ranking.
Our guardrailA minimum-data rule per template. Combinations below it are never generated.
RiskQuality is judged across the site. A mass of weak pages pulls down your best ones.
Our guardrailLaunch in waves, measure each, prune or improve what doesn’t earn its place.
RiskNear-identical pages for every city or keyword, all funnelling to one destination.
Our guardrailA page exists only if it has a distinct answer and a real offer for that query.
RiskThe same text with a swapped keyword. Google indexes one and ignores the rest.
Our guardrailOne URL per search intent, similarity checks across pages, canonicals where needed.
RiskKeyword-first pages nobody would bookmark, share or return to.
Our guardrailEvery template is built around a user task: compare, calculate, choose, find.
RiskMass-produced pages made mainly to rank: what Google calls scaled content abuse.
Our guardrailFacts come from data. AI assists; people own strategy, copy and final review.
RiskThousands of URLs crawled, few indexed: wasting crawl budget and trust.
Our guardrailSitemaps by page type, indexing tracked weekly, low performers merged or noindexed.
RiskParasite pages on someone else’s domain or expired domains bought to rank.
Our guardrailWe don’t do it. Pages live on your site, about your business, under your control.
Good vs bad programmatic SEO
The template and the tools are the same. The difference is where you start and what you’re willing to not publish.
Same keyword pattern, two very different pages
The doorway page
The useful page
Most pages never get built, on purpose
Before anything goes live, the keyword universe goes through demand, data and quality gates. What’s left is worth indexing.
Illustrative example of how a keyword universe narrows before anything is published.
A strategy built around your business
We don’t sell a page count. Every engagement starts from five things only you can tell us, and ends with a plan that fits them.
What they’re deciding, what they search, what they need to see to act.
Catalog, pricing, locations, usage or expertise only you have.
What you can really deliver, where, to whom, at what price.
CMS, engineering capacity, brand and compliance constraints.
Value of a lead, sale or sign-up, so we build what pays.
Your strategy
- Shortlist of page patterns worth building
- Template spec, module by module
- Data plan: sources, gaps, refresh schedule
- Launch waves, internal links and KPIs
How we use AI
AI makes careful work faster. It never decides what gets published.
AI helps with
- Cluster keywords and intents
- Clean, match and enrich data
- Draft variations for human editing
- QA checks across thousands of pages
People own
- Strategy and which pages exist
- Facts, sources and accuracy
- Template copy and expert insight
- Final review, sampling and pruning
What we will never do
- Spin or keyword-swap text across pages
- Publish unreviewed AI text at scale
- Create city pages where you don’t operate
- Ship pages with empty or placeholder data
- Buy expired domains or rent other sites’ authority
- Invent reviews, statistics or experts
- Launch everything at once and hope
- Make pages for crawlers that users never see
After launch: measured, pruned, improved
Publishing is the start. Every page type earns its place with numbers, or gets improved, merged or removed.
Share of each page type Google chooses to index
By template, not just site-wide
Calculator use, comparisons, clicks to act
Leads, sales and sign-ups per page type
Indexing, errors, early signals
Performance by template; improve / merge / prune list
Data refresh, template upgrades, new patterns
Score your own templates with the free quality checklist, read programmatic SEO and Google’s spam policies, or request a proposal.