Can AI grow a brand-new local travel site? The Crank experiment, five weeks in
AI plans, a local approves, budget near zero. 3,470 impressions and 53 clicks since August 26, which pages earned them, and what we can't tell yet.
Proof, published
Field Notes
We rebuild our own sites first and publish what happens: timings, costs, traffic, mistakes included. Every number a client ever hears from us gets earned here first. New notes as the work happens. Measured, not promised.
Every claim gets a primary source: building reference sites AI assistants can trust
Two reference sites, 997 quote-bound claims and 212 dark-sky places, one rule: no source, no sentence. Why we think sourcing is the search strategy.
Rebuilt from the archive in three and a half days
A coaching practice's site went offline with no source and no backups. We rebuilt it from the Wayback Machine, kept every URL, and had it live in 3.5 days.
What Google sent a brand-new directory in its first 90 days
45,600 impressions, 481 clicks, average position 21.7. Three months of Search Console data on a bilingual directory built on a domain with no history.
Which AI crawlers actually visit a website? We built an instrument to find out.
7,996 AI crawler requests in 20 days, each checked against the vendor's published addresses. Who showed up, what they read, and what it means for blocking bots.
We fact-checked an AI-researched site against primary sources. Roughly a third of the leads didn't hold up.
58 findings, 8 figures deleted, two conflicts left in plain view. What a primary-source check of an AI-researched site found, and where the approval gate went.
Build two: The AI Bubble Question, fifteen pages of research on the edge stack
A dense, citation-heavy research site comparing the AI boom to 200 years of bubbles. Built as a working demonstration of the methodology we sell.
Build one: The Lingerie Shoppe, a national directory that runs itself
110 boutiques, 65 cities, two languages, zero plugins. What we built, how the stack held up, and which numbers we're watching next.
Why we're rebuilding our own sites first: and showing you the numbers
Every agency says "trust us." We'd rather show receipts. Here's the plan: five of our own sites, rebuilt in public, numbers included.
Want your site in here someday?
Every case study starts with an assessment.
Free, no call required, and you get a written plan either way. The numbers come later, and they'll be real.