programmatic-seolisted

# Programmatic SEO Programmatic SEO works when you have a dataset that's genuinely useful and a query pattern that genuinely repeats. It fails when you have a template and a list of words. The distinction isn't stylistic. Google's scaled content abuse policy targets pages produced at scale that don't add value, regardless of how they were produced. The dataset is what makes the difference. ## The qualifying test Before designing anything, answer these four. If any answer is no, don't build it. 1. **Is there a repeating query pattern with real demand?** Not "there could be". Check that people search `[thing] in [place]` or `[tool] vs [tool]` or `[job] salary in [city]` at meaningful volume across many of the combinations, not just the top three. 2. **Do you have unique data for each page?** Real, differing values. Not the same paragraph with a variable substituted. 3. **Would a human find each page useful on its own?** Open the worst combination in your set. If that page is embarrassing, the system generates embarrassing pages. 4. **Can you maintain it?** Stale programmatic pages rot faster than editorial ones because there are more of them and nobody reads them. The honest version of this conversation is often: you have 12 combinations with real demand and a long tail of 4,000 with none. Build 12 good pages. ## What "unique data per page" means | Works | Doesn't work | |---|---| | Real numbers that differ per page: prices, salaries, counts, distances, availability | T