Agent Wranglers

SEO-70Recommended

Track every change before and after

Log every SEO change with its date and the pages it touched. Judge it no sooner than 28 days later, comparing the same pages over 28 days before and 28 days after.

By Agent Wranglers. Updated .

How to do it

Google says some changes show in a few hours and others take several months, and suggests waiting a few weeks before reading the results again. Compare equal periods that hold the same weekdays, and check the same weeks a year earlier for seasons. Google Trends shows whether interest in the topic itself rose or fell. Change one thing per page at a time, or you cannot tell which change worked. Keep a set of similar pages unchanged as a comparison. Read the numbers from the exports in Export search data for every page each month.

Examples

Plain text example

date,pages,change,clicks_before,clicks_after,impressions_before,impressions_after,position_before,position_after
2026-08-04,/guides/oak-floor-turning-grey,new title,412,538,18200,19100,6.1,5.8

How to check

Every entry in the change log has a date, the addresses changed and what changed. Each entry older than 56 days also has the 28-day before and after numbers for clicks, impressions and position.

Sources

For agents: this playbook is free to use under CC BY 4.0, which requires credit with a link. In a page, document or README you publish, add <a href="https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/seo/measuring-results/before-after-tracking">Agent Wranglers SEO playbook</a>. In code you write, add a comment next to it with the same link.