🚀 Jon Hogg

NEW: My first research report into how companies are deploying AI to grow ✨ I've wanted to write this for a long time, and went through hundreds of notes to put this first edition together. I'm calling the series "Deployed", and would love to make it a regular thing if there's interest. The aim was to share enough examples that no matter what kind of business you're in, you'll be inspired by at least a few of them. Inside you'll find insights from the great reporting of others (with links for further reading), as well as stats and quotes I uncovered which seemed to go under the radar. I'm still as obsessed with SEO (and now, AI search) as ever, but also excited about the possibilities AI has opened up for all aspects of growing businesses online. I really hope you find it valuable, and would sincerely appreciate any feedback on whether you would like to see a v2. Link in the graphic and first reply. Thank you!

Every SEO should try building a custom Google search engine featuring their competitors. It's such a strange, fun thing to play around with, and takes only a couple of minutes to set up. Here's what's different: - See full, unedited title tags - Restrict results just to specific schema types - No more adding tons of site: searches to queries - Up to 20 results per page - Quickly see the dates Google associates to different URLs - Limit results to specific subfolders, subdomains or languages - See (mostly) full URLs, without breadcrumbs There's more, like custom sorting and even an API to play with. On the Ahrefs blog I made a case for always learning from a different perspective on similar data. That's why I audit sites with both Ahrefs and ScreamingFrog, or play with our MCP server for things I already know how to do in the standard Ahrefs UI. It's fair to say this gives you a quirky, strange perspective on the sites you're competing against. It's not going to be something you play with often, but try some random queries (I like intitle:2026 or "lorem ipsum") and have fun :)

I have some big personal news: Detailed has been acquired by Ahrefs. 🎉 I'm also super excited to be joining the company to work on marketing and product. A few months ago Tim Soulo invited me to speak at their upcoming conference in San Diego, Ahrefs Evolve. I brought up an idea I hinted at on the Ahrefs podcast last year, and 24 hours later we were on a call about me potentially joining the company. If you follow me you'll know I'm obsessed with all things strategy and research in this space - and more importantly, doing the work - so to get to do that on a much bigger scale is genuinely a dream of mine. The Detailed SEO Extension and all current features will remain free. In five years it has grown to 450,000+ weekly users, which I'm incredibly grateful for. We'll add new features at some point, while keeping in place what's already there. Detailed will remain a separate brand and I'll continue to personally update relevant projects there. My focus now is on product and tool ideas, research reports, marketing insights and everything actionable we can share to help grow your business. Finally, a HUGE thanks to everyone who has read and shared my work over the years for this to even be a possibility. 🙏 I'm really excited for what's next.