Semrush now puts Double Atari at an Authority Score of 5, up from the 2 it sat at all summer, and the site ranks for 23 organic keywords, up from 13 a month ago. In Google Search Console, impressions grew 46% (3,287 versus 2,257) from October 14 to November 12 compared with the 30 days before, and non-branded impressions roughly doubled (2,742 versus 1,353). Clicks are still tiny: 7 in the period. Of the four posts chosen last period, the Webflow vs WordPress comparison is the one that stuck, climbing from an average position of about 33 to about 16 in three weeks. The other three were tested by Google during a volatile week and then pulled back. I also launched a side project, By Robots For Robots.
What changed since the last report?
The September progress report ended with a blunt sentence: stop optimizing a site nobody links to and start earning the links. Since then I wrote the content plan built from search data, published the four posts it recommended, shipped a second version of the site with a real contact form and lead tracking, and started a small laboratory site on the side. Here is the scoreboard, using the same sources as last time.
| Metric | Source | Previous | Now | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Authority Score | Semrush | 2 | 5 | First movement since the rebuild |
| Organic keywords (US) | Semrush | 13 (mid October) | 23 (November 13) | Up about 77% in a month |
| Keywords in the top 3 | Semrush Position Tracking | n/a | 7 | Mostly branded plus two Minneapolis audit terms |
| Impressions, 30 days | Search Console | 2,257 | 3,287 | Up 46% |
| Non-branded impressions, 30 days | Search Console | 1,353 | 2,742 | Up 103% |
| Clicks, 30 days | Search Console | 10 | 7 | Still too small to read as a trend |
| Average position, 30 days | Search Console | 18.0 | 38.4 | Worse, because new pages entered deep |
| Organic Search engagement rate | GA4 | 44% (21 of 48) | 58% (23 of 40) | Fewer visits, better ones |
| AI Assistant sessions | GA4 | 3 | 7 | Small, but more than doubled |
| Site Health | Semrush Site Audit | n/a | 92% | Five errors, all structured data |
Search Console windows are October 14 to November 12, 2026 compared with September 14 to October 13. GA4 uses the same dates. Semrush numbers come from the dashboard and exports on November 13 and 14.
Why did the Authority Score move from 2 to 5?
For the first time since I started documenting this site, the Authority Score moved: from 2 to 5. Semrush still labels that "low authority," and I am not going to pretend a 5 is a big number. But a score that sat flat all summer finally moving is worth marking, and most of the reason is the work.
Semrush builds Authority Score from three things: link power, organic traffic, and spam factors. For months the organic side was close to empty, which held the score at the floor no matter how many links pointed at the site. That is what changed.
- The site now ranks for 23 organic keywords, up from 13 a month ago. That is roughly 77% growth in four weeks, and the trend line climbed steadily instead of spiking.
- It holds real top positions. Seven tracked keywords are in the top 3, including number 1 for "seo audit minneapolis" and "website audit minneapolis," both also showing in Google's AI Overviews.
- Semrush now estimates organic traffic for the site for the first time this year, from "website audit service minneapolis." One estimated visit is tiny, but zero was the problem.
- Google is showing the site far more for non-branded searches. Search Console non-branded impressions doubled, from 1,353 to 2,742 in 30 days, driven by the new posts, the Minneapolis SEO page, and the audits page.
- The site is technically clean. A 92% Site Health score and 95% AI Search Health mean the content that exists can actually be crawled and understood.
In the interest of transparency, links played a part too. Semrush now counts a lot more referring domains, and most of them are the same automated, low quality links I wrote about in September, links I did not ask for and would not defend. They probably nudged the link power side of the score. But that spam has been arriving all year while the score sat at 2. What was different this month was the organic footprint.
What would push it meaningfully higher is still the same thing: a handful of real links from relevant sites. That is the main item in the plan below.
What does the organic keyword trend show?
The organic keyword line in Semrush's Organic Rankings report went from roughly 13 keywords in mid October to 23 on November 13, a 15% gain in the last stretch alone. The shape matters more than the total: the bars grew steadily through late October and early November instead of jumping once and falling back.
Semrush Sensor flagged October 27 as a very high volatility day, scoring it 9.5 out of 10, which usually signals a Google update. That lines up with what Search Console showed for the new posts the same week, which I come back to below.
Here is a selection of what the site ranks for now, from the Semrush Organic Rankings export and my Position Tracking project:
| Keyword | Position | Page | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| seo audit minneapolis | 1 | /services/website-audits/ | Also shown in an AI Overview |
| website audit minneapolis | 1 | /services/website-audits/ | AI Overview |
| minneapolis website audit | 5 | /services/website-audits/ | Up 4 this week |
| website audit service minneapolis | 11, plus an AI Overview mention | /services/website-audits/ | The one keyword sending estimated traffic |
| ai seo twin cities | 17 | /minneapolis-seo/ | Local AI search cluster |
| minneapolis minnesota seo consultant | 18 | /minneapolis-seo/ | |
| webflow vs wordpress seo | 21 | /blog/webflow-vs-wordpress-seo/ | One of last period's four posts |
| squarespace vs wordpress maintenance overhead | 21 | /blog/squarespace-vs-wordpress-seo/ | |
| nonprofit website seo | 27 | /blog/seo-for-nonprofits/ | One of last period's four posts |
| traffic vs engagement | 65 | /blog/website-engagement-metrics-vs-traffic-volume/ | Up 35 this week |
The pattern is clear. The website audits page is the strongest non-branded page on the site, and it wins on local intent. The Minneapolis SEO page collects a cluster of AI search and consultant terms in the teens and twenties. One soft spot: "minneapolis seo consultant" slipped 28 places to 48 in Position Tracking, so the local page is being tested, not settled.
What does Google Search Console say?
Search Console tells the same story with more detail, and with the usual catch. Impressions are up, average position is down, and clicks are still in single digits.
| Page | Impressions | Clicks | Avg position |
|---|---|---|---|
| /blog/seo-migration-checklist/ | 764 | 0 | 82.5 |
| /blog/seo-report-template/ | 685 | 0 | 40.4 |
| /minneapolis-seo/ | 610 | 0 | 16.3 |
| /blog/wpvibe-ai-vibe-coding-wordpress-websites/ | 263 | 3 | 8.9 |
| /blog/webflow-vs-wordpress-seo/ | 260 | 0 | 24.8 |
| Homepage | 127 | 0 | 4.5 |
| /blog/seo-for-nonprofits/ | 125 | 0 | 42.0 |
| /services/website-audits/ | 118 | 1 | 8.1 |
| /about | 100 | 2 | 4.0 |
Three things stand out.
- The average position drop is the new pages, not a decline. The migration checklist alone added 764 impressions at an average position of 82. Pages ranking that deep add impressions and pull the site average down without costing anything. Same lesson as September.
- The About page finally earns clicks. In September it had 309 impressions at position 3.7 and zero clicks, which made it the one clear CTR problem on the site. This period it earned 2 clicks from 100 impressions at position 4.0. Small numbers, but it moved from zero to something. I have not changed its title yet, so the planned title test is still open.
- Local AI search is showing up as a query theme. Queries like "ai search specialist minneapolis" (51 impressions, position 10.7), "ai seo consultant minneapolis" (33, position 13.2), and "seo audit minneapolis" (40 impressions, 1 click, position 5.0) are the closest thing to buying queries the site sees. They map to the Minneapolis SEO and audit pages, which is exactly where they should land.
How did last period's four recommended posts do?
Last period I used Semrush keyword data to choose four posts the site could realistically win and wrote them up in How I choose blog topics with search data. Here is how each did in Search Console from October 10 through November 12.
| Post | Target term | Impressions | Avg position | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Webflow vs WordPress for SEO | webflow vs wordpress seo | 260 | 24.8 (now about 16) | Climbing every week: 32.5, then 25.0, then 16.5. Semrush has it at 21. |
| SEO migration checklist | seo migration checklist | 764 | 82.5 | Big test the week of October 26, then fewer impressions, then none in the latest days. |
| SEO for nonprofits | seo for nonprofits | 125 | 42.0 | Seen only the week of October 26. Semrush still ranks it 27 for "nonprofit website seo". |
| SEO for therapists | seo for therapists | 38 | 85.2 | Seen only the week of October 26, very deep. |
The Webflow comparison is the winner. It is the only one of the four that kept gaining ground after the October 27 volatility, and it is now close to page two for a question-shaped query, "how does webflow handle seo compared to wordpress?" (10 impressions, position 10.5). Comparison content that answers a specific decision tends to suit a small site, because it does not need the authority a broad guide needs.
The migration checklist got a real audition and did not pass it yet. It surfaced for more than 40 variations of migration queries ("website migration seo checklist" 118 impressions, "seo migration" 109, "seo migration checklist" 83), so Google clearly understands what the page is about. It ranked around 80 for all of them. That is an authority gap more than a content gap. A checklist like this is the kind of page that earns links, so it is the first one I will promote rather than rewrite.
Nonprofits and therapists were tested once and dropped out of the Search Console data. Semrush still sees the nonprofit post at 27 and 48 for two queries, so it has not disappeared from the index. My plan is to give both posts better internal links from the service pages and check them in URL Inspection before changing any copy. Four weeks is too soon to rewrite a post Google has only looked at once.
What does GA4 say about the visits?
GA4 (October 14 to November 12, compared with the 30 days before):
| Channel | Sessions | Prior | Engaged | Prior engaged | Avg session |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct | 152 | 117 | 18 | 35 | 18 seconds |
| Organic Search | 40 | 48 | 23 | 21 | 6 min 27 sec |
| AI Assistant | 7 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 59 seconds |
| Unassigned | 3 | 19 | 0 | 11 | |
| Referral | 2 | 21 | 0 | 10 |
Organic visitors are fewer and much better. Organic Search sessions dipped from 48 to 40, but engaged sessions rose from 21 to 23, so the engagement rate went from 44% to 58%, and the average organic session lasted more than six minutes. Direct traffic rose while engaged direct sessions halved, which is the bot pattern I keep seeing in that channel.
AI Assistant traffic more than doubled, from 3 to 7 sessions. Every one of them came from ChatGPT, landing on the homepage, About, Services, and Contact. Seven sessions is not a channel yet. But someone asked ChatGPT a question, it named Double Atari, and the person clicked through to the contact page. That is exactly the behavior AI visibility tracking is meant to catch.
Leads are measurable now. Version two of the site went live on November 3 with events for contact clicks and form submissions. Since then GA4 has recorded 3 form starts, 2 contact button clicks, and 2 generate_lead events. Some of those are my own tests, so I am not counting them as leads, but the plumbing works. Marking generate_lead as a key event is the next step so it shows up in reports.
What does the site audit say?
Semrush's Site Audit crawled 68 pages on November 12 and scored Site Health at 92%, with an AI Search Health score of 95%. Among the thematic reports, crawlability scored 100%, HTTPS 98%, internal linking 94%, and markup 98%.
- 5 errors, all "invalid structured data items." The homepage is one of the flagged pages. Ironically, structured data is the subject of part one of my machine view series, so it is first on the fix list.
- 138 unminified JavaScript and CSS files. Mostly the small per-page scripts and stylesheets. Low risk on a static site this light, but cheap to clean up.
- 5 broken external links on posts like AI visibility tracking, LLM SEO, and the September report. Sources move. I will replace them.
- 9 pages with only one internal link pointing to them. That includes newer posts, and it is the same problem that kept the four new posts from getting much help from the rest of the site.
A new side project: By Robots For Robots
The title of my September post, Created by Robots for Robots, stuck with me, so I built a website around it. By Robots For Robots is a small open laboratory about how crawlers, retrievers, and answer engines read web pages, built from what I have learned working on this site. Every page has a machine view you can switch on to see a page the way a parser does.
I wrote up the story behind it, including a friend's honest first reaction, and a two part series on what the machine view shows: part one on the outline and structured data, and part two on extraction and chunks.
What happens next
- Fix the five structured data errors, starting with the homepage, and validate every template.
- Promote the migration checklist instead of rewriting it. Google understands it. It needs links. It is the most linkable page from last period, so it is the first outreach target.
- Add internal links from the service pages to the four posts and to the nine pages with a single internal link.
- Keep feeding the Webflow comparison with links from the CMS strategy page and the Squarespace comparison, since it is the one gaining ground.
- Mark generate_lead as a key event in GA4 and filter my own test submissions.
- Earn real links. Directory listings that rank for "minneapolis seo", one or two guest resources, and the new SEO content audit guide, which I wrote to be referenced.
- Replace the five broken external links and minify the leftover assets.
The one sentence version: the keyword line is finally pointing up, the Authority Score moved for the first time, and the job now is turning visibility into a few links and a few more clicks.
November progress report FAQ
What is Double Atari's Semrush Authority Score now?
Semrush shows an Authority Score of 5 as of November 13, 2026, up from 2, where it sat for months. The main driver is organic growth: ranking keywords rose from 13 to 23, seven tracked keywords reached the top 3, and Semrush began estimating organic traffic for the site. A larger count of low quality referring domains likely contributed a little as well.
Why are impressions up while average position got worse?
New posts entered the results at deep positions. The SEO migration checklist alone added 764 impressions at an average position near 82. Deep impressions raise the total and pull the site-wide average position down without hurting the pages that already rank well.
Which of the four planned posts performed best?
The Webflow vs WordPress for SEO comparison. Its weekly average position improved from about 33 to about 16 over three weeks, and Semrush ranks it 21 for "webflow vs wordpress seo". The migration checklist got the most impressions but ranked around 80.
Is AI assistant traffic worth tracking for a small site?
Yes, as long as you read it as a signal rather than a channel. Double Atari had 7 AI Assistant sessions in 30 days, all from ChatGPT, up from 3. That is small, but it shows real people arriving after an AI answer named the business.
What is By Robots For Robots?
It is a small laboratory website by Double Atari about how crawlers, retrieval systems, and answer engines read web pages. Every page has a machine view that shows its heading outline, structured data, extraction payload, and retrieval chunks.
Explore related Double Atari resources: the September progress report, how I chose the four posts, analytics and reporting, website audits, and Andrew Charon's background.