The Tech SEO Lie: What 50 Real Sites Really Say

When I finished my PageSpeed study, I thought I’d find an answer. Turns out, I’d only found more questions.

The data didn’t line up with the story we’ve been sold. Speed barely correlated with rankings. Some of the slowest, clunkiest sites I tested still sat comfortably at the top of Google.

That result didn’t feel right. It challenged almost everything I believed about performance and Tech SEO.

So I went back to the same 50 sites, real businesses in real markets: florists, electricians, furniture stores, and kitchen fitters. This time, not to see how fast they loaded, but to see how well they were built.

I checked the fundamentals: titles, meta descriptions, schema, alt text, heading structure, and indexing signals. The kind of things most small businesses ignore until something breaks.

Because if speed wasn’t the answer, maybe structure was. What I found is what breaks the SEO playbook completely.

Why I Couldn’t Leave It Alone

The PageSpeed results bothered me more than I expected.

I’d spent years treating performance as a sign of quality, proof that a build was solid, efficient, and engineered properly.

Sites that should’ve been buried were sitting comfortably at the top of Google. Some loaded like slug and still outranked faster, cleaner builds.

That didn’t shouldn’t sense.

I’ve always believed the truth of SEO lives in the details. So if speed wasn’t deciding the winners, maybe the way a site communicated was.

I wanted to know what was really driving results so I could talk to clients with confidence, not just repeat Google’s talking points about “speed,” “best practices,” or “Core Web Vitals.”

I wanted proof. Something real.

That’s what pushed me to go back and audit the same fifty pages again, not to measure how fast they loaded, but how well they were built.

Because if performance wasn’t the lever, maybe structure was the signal.

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How I Collected the Data

I didn’t start from scratch. I used the same 50 sites from my PageSpeed study, florists, furniture stores, kitchen fitters, electricians, and a few national retailers.

All of them were already ranking in the top five for real, commercial search terms.
No sandbox tests. No theoretical models. Just the pages that Google had already decided were “good enough” to sit at the top.

This time, instead of timing how fast they loaded, I ran a full technical SEO audit to see how well they were built.

I recorded the essentials:

• Title and meta descriptions: to check if they were unique, human-readable, and relevant
• Schema usage: whether structured data was implemented and valid
• H1 and heading hierarchy: how content was organised and signposted
• Image alt text coverage: a basic but overlooked accessibility factor
• Canonical and index signals: to spot crawl and indexing clarity

Then I compared those elements against ranking positions and Lighthouse data (Performance, SEO, and Accessibility scores).

Here’s what that looked like across all 50 usable URLs:

Element	Pages with Element	Coverage %
Title tag	34 / 50	76%
Meta description	31 / 50	69%
H1 tag	30 / 50	67%
Canonical tag	32 / 50	71%
Structured data	0 / 50	0%

None of these are small numbers, but they’re not complete either.
Roughly a third of all top-ranking pages were missing what SEO checklists call “fundamentals.”

That was the first sign that maybe we’ve been measuring the wrong things.late what changed from speed, to structure.

I wasn’t looking for perfection. I was looking for patterns.

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What I Found Inside the Data

Digging through these sites felt like reading fifty dialects of the same language.
Some were deliberate and clean. Others looked like five years of redesigns and plugin patches held together by luck.

But underneath all that noise, patterns started to form, patterns that didn’t fit the SEO rulebook.

1. Missing Fundamentals, Top Rankings

Some of the best-performing pages had no titles, no meta descriptions, and no H1s.
According to every audit checklist, they should be invisible. Yet they weren’t.

DFS – Corner Sofas

Metric	Value
Rank	#3 for “corner sofa”
Performance	55/100
Title Tag	❌ Missing
Meta Description	❌ Missing
H1	❌ Missing
Schema	❌ None
URL	dfs.co.uk/corner-sofas

One of the UK’s biggest furniture retailers ranks #3 with zero on-page SEO fundamentals. Pure brand authority carries it.

Checkatrade – Bathroom Fitters

Metric	Value
Rank	#1 for “bathroom fitter”
Performance	80/100
Title Tag	❌ Missing
Meta Description	❌ Missing
H1	❌ Missing
Schema	❌ None
URL	checkatrade.com/blog/bathroom-fitters-near-me/

Ranks #1 despite missing every fundamental. Fastest performance score in the dataset, but everything else absent.

“DFS and Checkatrade prove you can rank #1 and #3 without a single title tag, meta description, or H1. That’s not a recommendation, it’s a reality check.”

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2. Slow, Clunky — But Still Winning

Others were technically poor by every metric but still near the top.
Speed didn’t seem to hold them back at all.

Quiz Clothing – Summer Dresses

Metric	Value
Rank	#2
Performance	43/100
SEO Score	92/100
Title	✅ Present
Meta Description	✅ Present
H1	❌ Missing
Schema	❌ None

Ranks #2 for a high-volume eCommerce term with a terrible performance score. Lighthouse says “perfect,” but it’s missing basic structure.

MyBuilder – Electricians

Metric	Value
Rank	#3
Performance	64/100
SEO Score	100/100
Accessibility	99/100
Title Tag	❌ Missing
Meta Description	❌ Missing
H1	❌ Missing
Schema	❌ None

Perfect tool scores. Missing every metadata element. Proof that green scores don’t equal visibility.

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3. Fast Doesn’t Guarantee First

Speed helps user experience but it doesn’t guarantee rankings.

H.Samuel – Engagement Rings

Metric	Value
Rank	#1
Performance	94/100 (fastest in dataset)
SEO	100/100
Accessibility	92/100
Schema	❌ None

The best-performing site technically still missing schema. Even the most optimised brands skip structured data and rank fine.

Kitchen Makeovers – Kitchen Renovations

Metric	Value
Rank	#1
Performance	82/100
Title	✅ Present
Meta Description	✅ Present
H1	✅ Present
Schema	❌ None

High-performing, clean, well-built. The closest thing to “perfect” except still missing schema. The pattern holds.

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4. Authority Beats Everything Else

Then there were the giants: Wikipedia, Next, Wickes, the government portals. The sites where brand, trust, and authority drowned out technical weakness completely.

Wikipedia – Electrician

Metric	Value
Rank	#2
Performance	N/A (blocked)
Title	✅ “Electrician – Wikipedia”
Meta	❌ Missing
H1	✅ “Electrician”
Word Count	4,398

Ranks with minimal optimisation, just depth and authority. A 23-character title, no meta description, yet comfortably #2.

National Careers Service

Metric	Value
Rank	#1 and #5
Performance	77 / 63
Accessibility	100/100
Schema	❌ None

Perfect accessibility, messy metadata, still first. Google rewards consistency and trust, not neat audits.

Next – Summer Dresses

Metric	Value
Rank	#1
Performance	49/100
Schema	❌ None
Meta Keywords	✅ Present (yes, in 2025)

Major retailer. Poor PageSpeed. Deprecated tags. Still #1. Brand power beats technical optimisation every time.

Wickes – Kitchen Worktops

Metric	Value
Rank	#4
Performance	75/100
Schema	❌ None
Meta Keywords	✅ Present

Clean, modern build. Still running meta keywords. Still ranks well. Consistency and reputation > compliance.

The Pattern

No schema. Messy structure. Missing fundamentals. And yet every single one ranked in the top five.

If tech SEO were the deciding factor, this dataset would look completely different.

“Speed makes a site feel good. Authority makes it believable. Google can’t reward what it can’t trust.”

The Schema Myth

This was the one that stopped me.

Out of 50 ranking pages across nine competitive keywords, not one used structured data.
Zero LocalBusiness.
Zero Product.
Zero Organization.
Zero FAQ or BreadcrumbList.

Nothing. And yet, every single one ranked in the top five for its main keyword.

Schema Type	Implementation Across 50 Pages
LocalBusiness	0%
Product	0%
Organization	0%
BreadcrumbList	0%
FAQ / HowTo	0%

0%. Across the board.

We’ve spent years treating structured data as a ranking signal. But this dataset says otherwise.

Retailers like Next, H.Samuel, and Wickes all major eCommerce brands, had no schema at all.
Even government and directory sites that rely on trust signals, like National Careers Service and Checkatrade, didn’t bother.

And still, they dominated.

So what’s happening?

Schema doesn’t seem to boost rankings. It just makes pages clearer to Google a communication layer, not a ranking lever.

When a site already has brand authority, schema becomes redundant. Google already understands it.

Conclusion:
Structured data isn’t a visibility engine. It’s a clarity tool. Use it, but don’t depend on it.

“Zero pages. Not one. Not a single LocalBusiness, Product, or Organisation schema across 50 top-ranking pages. Google’s rich results guidelines are just that guidelines.”

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When the Rules Don’t Add Up

I’ve sat in so many marketing meetings over the years boardrooms, agency reviews, end-of-quarter “SEO performance” calls where the entire conversation revolved around green lights. Core Web Vitals, PageSpeed, Lighthouse scores.

If the dashboard looked healthy, the project was “performing.” If it didn’t, we were failing.

The numbers became the narrative. Not because they were wrong but because they were easy to measure.

And that’s the problem. The easiest things to measure are rarely the ones that matter.

The metrics that dominate SEO conversations speed, scores, audits barely move the needle. The things that actually decide visibility, trust, brand, reputation don’t fit neatly into a dashboard.

Everything I’ve been told and everything I’ve built my approach around might be wrong. Not useless, but misplaced.

For years, I’ve treated technical SEO as the foundation of visibility. Clean markup. Valid schema. Logical headings. Sub-three-second loads. That was the checklist. That was the definition of “doing it right.”

But this dataset doesn’t back that up. Sites breaking every rule are still winning, while cleaner, faster, technically perfect builds sit lower down.

That’s a hard truth to accept when you’ve spent years perfecting the craft. It doesn’t mean the work doesn’t matter. It just means the value sits somewhere else.

Because here’s what the numbers really show:

Factor	Correlation with Rankings	Takeaway
PageSpeed / Performance	-0.30	Weakly positive faster helps a bit, but not much
Accessibility	-0.26	Better-built sites perform slightly better
SEO Score (Lighthouse)	-0.07	Almost no relationship
Metadata Presence	+0.26	Slightly worse when over-optimised
Schema	N/A (0% present)	Completely absent, yet still ranking

That’s the uncomfortable reality: technical excellence doesn’t predict performance.

The sites at the top didn’t earn it by ticking every audit box. They earned it through something that’s harder to measure trust.

Authority. Brand familiarity. Real-world reputation.

That’s what consistently separates “technically sound” from “undeniably visible.”

So maybe the obsession with perfect PageSpeed scores, pixel-perfect schema, and green audits isn’t the measure of quality at all. Maybe it’s just the hygiene that makes room for authority to shine through.

“Tech SEO doesn’t make a site rank; it makes it eligible to rank. The real power comes from trust the signals that say, this brand is known, credible, and safe to show.”When the Rules Don’t Add Up

Everything I’ve been told, everything I’ve focused on as a developer it might be wrong.
Not useless, but misplaced.

For years I’ve treated tech SEO as the foundation of visibility: clean markup, valid schema, perfect structure, and sub-three-second loads. That was the checklist. That was the metric for quality.

But this dataset doesn’t back it up. Sites breaking every rule are still winning, while cleaner, faster, technically perfect builds get ignored.

That’s a hard thing to swallow when you’ve built a career around doing things properly. It doesn’t mean the work doesn’t matter it means the value sits somewhere else.

Tech SEO doesn’t make a site rank; it makes it eligible to rank. The real ranking power seems to come from trust authority, brand, and reputation the signals that say, this site is known, credible, and safe to show.

And if that’s true, then maybe the obsession with page speed, schema, and green scores isn’t the measure of quality.

Maybe it’s just the hygiene that lets authority shine through.

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What “Good Enough” Looks Like in Practice

Let’s be clear: I’m not promoting mediocrity. Every best practice clean markup, structured hierarchy, valid schema, fast load times still matter (to me). It’s just not the deciding factor.

Tech SEO is the entry ticket, not the trophy. It gets you in the race, but it doesn’t guarantee you win.

What this data shows is that perfect implementation doesn’t equal visibility. You can have a flawless build that goes nowhere, and a messy site that dominates if that messy site carries authority, trust, and relevance.

So “good enough” doesn’t mean cutting corners. It means understanding what’s worth perfecting and what’s worth leaving alone.

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1. Titles and Metadata

Titles and meta descriptions still matter just not in the way we’ve been taught.
Google no longer rewards repetition or formatting tricks. It rewards relevance and clarity.

• Keep them clean, natural, and user-focused.
• Make the title sound like a searcher’s thought, not a keyword dump.
• Write meta descriptions to convert curiosity into clicks, not to hit word counts.

Perfection here is simple: clear, readable, and aligned with intent.

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2. Schema

This study found 0% of top pages used structured data not one. That doesn’t mean schema is useless. It means it’s not a differentiator.

Add it to help Google understand you.
Validate it once. Then move on.
Schema is hygiene, not strategy.

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3. Headings and Structure

Structure isn’t optional it’s how both users and crawlers make sense of your content.
But the goal isn’t flawless hierarchy, it’s immediate comprehension.

• One H1 that answers search intent
• Logical, meaningful H2s and H3s
• Avoid keyword stuffing or redundant heading tags

The test is simple: if a reader can skim your page and “get it,” you’ve nailed it.

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4. Images and Accessibility

Accessibility overlaps directly with how Google perceives page quality.
Alt text, contrast, and load efficiency all influence user experience and indirectly, trust.

• Add descriptive alt text
• Compress aggressively
• Avoid lazy-loading above the fold

It’s not just about compliance it’s about clarity.
A site that’s built with care tends to perform better across the board.

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5. Crawl and Index Health

Canonical setup, robots.txt, and sitemap health are invisible until they fail then they’re catastrophic.
That’s why they still matter.

• Clean, unbroken canonicals
• Robots.txt that doesn’t block assets
• A current sitemap that mirrors live URLs

These are table stakes. Without them, nothing else matters.

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6. What the Data Actually Says

Out of the 50 ranking pages I audited:

• 76% had title tags
• 69% had meta descriptions
• 67% had H1s
• 0% had structured data

Every single one still ranked in the top five.

So no tech SEO isn’t dead. But it’s not the game-changer we’ve been told it is. It’s the baseline Google expects before it starts paying attention to the signals that really move the needle authority, trust, and recognition.

“Best practices aren’t optional. They’re just not the answer.”

Where the Next Clues Point

Looking at the data from both studies, a clear pattern’s started to form. Fast sites feel better. Well-built sites rank more consistently. But neither explains why some objectively worse sites still win.

I went into this expecting to prove that clean, structured builds outperformed messy ones. Instead, I found that both could rank and that the common thread between the winners wasn’t speed, structure, or technical polish. It was trust.

The difference wasn’t in code. It was in reputation.

The pages that dominated every query even the ones breaking every best practice — had something the others didn’t:

• Branded search demand
• Consistent backlinks from credible sources
• High engagement and return visits
• Mentions across the wider web

In short: authority.

Authority can’t be faked, and it can’t be generated by fixing audits. It’s earned slowly through recognition, relevance, and reliability the same way people earn trust in real life.

When I lined up the data, the pattern was obvious: Sites with the worst technical hygiene still ranked high because Google already trusted them. They weren’t proving quality they’d already earned it.

That’s the real story this dataset tells. Speed and structure make your site usable. Authority makes it believable.

And in 2025, belief seems to be what Google values most.

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The Next Step

This is not the end of this its quickly becoming an obsession

its time to dig deep to try and find the real truth of it all.

• Backlink profiles
• Referring domain authority
• Brand search volume
• Review visibility and sentiment

To see how those signals correlate with rankings the same way I’ve tested performance and technical clarity.

Because right now, one thing is clear: You can’t optimise your way to trust.

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Bottom Line

Every time I dig into real data like this, I realise how much of SEO is still built on assumption.
We follow what Google says, what audit tools score, and what agencies repeat because it’s easy.
It sounds objective. But when you strip it back to what actually ranks, the web tells a different story.

The cleanest code, the fastest site, and the most “technically correct” implementation don’t guarantee visibility. They just remove friction. They make you eligible to compete not able to win.

What wins is harder to measure: Trust. Recognition. Reputation. The signals that tell Google, “this brand is safe to show.”

Tech SEO still matters it’s the scaffolding that holds everything up but it’s not the building itself. You can have a perfect structure with no one inside. You can have a messy one that’s full of life and traffic.

The job now isn’t to abandon the fundamentals. It’s to put them in their place. Do the work, hit the standards, but stop pretending that fixing technical errors is the same as building authority.

Because the truth is simple: The web doesn’t reward perfection. It rewards understanding.

And the better we understand how all these layers speed, structure, and authority actually interact,
the closer we get to building sites that don’t just perform, but make sense.