Notes on growth
PBN Backlinks: Why Every Network Decays, and What to Do With One You Inherited
I built PBNs at Blue Window, then spent years unwinding them. Why every network decays quietly, how to spot one you inherited, and how to exit without dying.
Manual Action Penalty or Algorithmic Demotion: How to Tell Which One Hit You
One is a human decision named in Search Console. The other is a score nobody tells you about. The thirty-second check, and why the wrong fix costs weeks.
The Disavow File, Explained: When Disavowing Links Helps and When It Hurts
Google says most sites do not need the disavow links tool. The test I use to decide which referring domains earn a line, and what over-disavowing costs you.
Negative SEO: What a Real Attack Looks Like in the Data
Most suspected negative SEO is not negative SEO. The signature manufactured links leave in the data, from an audit that surfaced 200+ built domains.
Toxic Backlinks: How I Tell a Real Problem From an Ugly One
Google never published a toxicity score. Here is how a former PBN buyer separates links that can genuinely hurt you from ones that only look ugly.
Google Penalty Recovery: How I Diagnose and Reverse a Traffic Collapse
Most traffic collapses are not Google penalties at all. Here is the five-step diagnosis I run before touching a single link, and why disavow comes last.