Changelog
See the history of new features, improvements, and fixes for Direbase.
Improved AIO Readiness Check accuracy
Improved the accuracy of the check.
New SEO Guide article: "How to Check noindex: Meta Tag, X-Robots-Tag, and Search Console"
How to check noindex in both the meta tag and the HTTP header, confirm Google read it with URL Inspection, why robots.txt blocking hides it, and which control fits which goal. Linked from the SEO check's noindex warning.
New SEO Guide article: "How to Check Meta Tags: Why View Source, DevTools, and Search Console Can Disagree"
The difference between the three places to check meta tags, which to trust, what passes for each tag, and pitfalls such as tags landing in <body> or a checker picking up an SVG icon's title.
Meta tag and SEO checks no longer mistake an SVG icon's title for the page title
If an SVG icon on the page had a <title>, the check could report it as the page title and get the length wrong. It now reads the first <title> outside any SVG, the same as browsers.
SEO Check now warns about noindex
If the page has noindex (meta tag or X-Robots-Tag header), a warning now appears separately from the score. Because this setting keeps a page out of search, the warning is shown on every plan.
New SEO Guide article: "Discovered – Currently Not Indexed: What to Check When New Pages Aren't Crawled"
How to tell three similar Search Console states apart, and the order to check your sitemap, link paths, and indexing requests when new pages stay in "Discovered - currently not indexed".
Security maintenance
We updated the software that powers the service to the latest secure versions. Nothing changes in how you use it.
New SEO Guide article: "What Is a Good SEO Score? Why Tools Disagree and What to Fix First"
Why there is no universal passing SEO score — explained through Lighthouse's scoring, a breakdown of 100 points, and per-plan maximums — plus what to fix first, using real audit results.
Improved the score trend chart
The score trend on your dashboard is now easier to read.
New: Scheduled checks (paid plans)
Registered URLs are checked automatically once a week or once a month, and the results arrive in a single email showing score changes since the last run and any new issues. Entry covers 3 URLs, Basic 10 and Pro 30, and scheduled checks do not count toward your monthly usage. Add URLs from "Scheduled checks" on your dashboard.
New SEO Guide article: "How to Use Suggest Keywords: Grouping the List and Choosing What to Write"
How to group bulk-pulled suggest keywords by answer shape, cover each shape with one page, and decide what to write with four checks, using 19 suggestions we actually pulled.
New SEO Guide article: "How to Build an SEO Article Outline From the Top Pages' Headings"
A step-by-step method to extract the top pages' headings and decide what to match and where to differ by how many of them cover each topic, with a real comparison example.
New SEO Guide article: "Why AI-Generated Videos Don't Show Up in Search"
Explains that Google only indexes videos on a watch page, how to write VideoObject as updated in September 2026, and how to verify with Search Console's Video indexing report.
Copy your results as a fix request for your AI
The code suggestions page and AIO Readiness Check results now have a "Copy request for your AI" button. Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or whichever AI you use to have it make the fixes. The request tells the AI to show you a diff and get your confirmation first, and not to follow instructions found in text taken from your site.
New SEO Guide article: "How to Check Whether AI Crawlers Are Blocked"
Sorts AI crawlers into training, search, and user-initiated roles and explains which are fine to block and which are not. Includes four steps to confirm they actually get through, covering cases where a WAF or CDN stops them even though robots.txt allows them.
New SEO Guide article: "What Is google.com/goto?"
A guide to the passthrough URL Google now inserts into search result links. Nothing to change on your site and no impact on rankings or indexing — but real effects on rank tracking and GA4, plus three steps to verify the impact in your own data.
New SEO Guide article: "What Are AIO, AEO, GEO, and LLMO?"
A breakdown of the four AI-search abbreviations by the audience each one addresses. The article splits site states into three stages and explains which work to start with, plus how to measure where your site stands.
New SEO Lab article: "Should an SEO Tool Fix Your Code Automatically?"
Our full answer to a question we get regularly: can the API apply the fixes too? The article covers why we stop at returning generated code, the risk that follows from always analyzing somebody else's site, and five things to check before adopting a tool that promises automatic fixes.
Hardened how generated code handles values taken from the analyzed site
Generated fix code reflects the analyzed page's title, description and headings. We reworked how those values are embedded: output no longer breaks on sites whose values contain quotation marks or symbols, and if a value contains AI-directed instructions it is replaced with a note instead of being emitted. Code containing values from the analyzed site now carries a label, so you can spot it before passing the snippet to an AI assistant.
PDF export for AIO Readiness results
You can now export a PDF report from the AIO Readiness results screen and from the AIO Readiness tab of your dashboard history. It collects the score and category breakdown, every check item, prioritized recommendations, and structured data code samples into one document. Available on Entry plans and above. History exports cover checks run on or after 2026-08-19, when we started storing AIO results.
White-label PDF reports on the Pro plan
Pro plans can now export reports without our name on them. Register your company name and logo (PNG / JPEG, up to 200KB) under "Report branding" in account settings and they appear on the cover and in the footer. Leave it empty and the report carries no branding at all. Entry and Basic plans are unchanged.
Redesigned PDF report
The typography, colors, and rules now match the rest of the site. We also removed the service name from every page header so the report sits better inside your own deliverables. Downloads are now named like "seo-report-example.com-2026-08-19.pdf" so you can tell files apart after saving. A bug where the cover could show a date one day earlier than the actual check has been fixed as well.
Fixed PDF report downloads failing
Downloading a PDF report from the dashboard history or the results screen failed with "PDF generation failed" after the page had been reloaded. This is now fixed.
Two new checks in the AIO Readiness Check
We added "Content in Initial HTML" and "Entity Links (sameAs)". The first flags pages whose main content only appears after JavaScript runs — Googlebot renders JavaScript, but AI search crawlers have not stated that they do and third-party measurements indicate they do not, so they may see those pages as having no content. The second verifies that sameAs in your structured data actually resolves to external profiles. Both fit within the existing Access and Trust weightings, so the maximum score is still 100.
Fixed the advice shown for JavaScript-rendered pages
Pages whose content is rendered only by JavaScript used to be reported as "Content length is insufficient". Length was never the cause, so writing more text would not have fixed anything. These pages now report JavaScript dependency as the cause and point you to SSR (server-side rendering) or SSG (static generation).
Expanded hidden-text detection
The "Hidden Text / AI Injection" check now detects text positioned off-screen and text colored the same as its background, plus injected instructions placed where assistive technology cannot reach them. Legitimate uses — collapsible menus, accordions, and screen-reader helper text — are deliberately excluded.
Stronger structured data checks
We now catch capitalization errors in property names. schema.org is case-sensitive, so a misspelled name is silently skipped rather than reported as an error — easy to miss. We also flag duplicate entities, a headline that does not match your H1, and sameAs values that are not absolute URLs.
Broken links in llms.txt are now detected
llms.txt works as an index that tells AI how your site is organized, so broken URLs stop it from doing its job. We now request the listed URLs and report the ones that cannot be reached (up to the first five).
AIO badge added
Domains scoring 85 or above on the AIO Readiness Check can now embed an AIO badge on their site. It can be published or hidden independently of the SEO badge, and both can sit on the same page. Per-domain toggles and embed codes for SEO and AIO are available on the SEO Badge screen in your dashboard. Embed codes are now collapsed by default, and domains are sorted by most recently checked.
Check history now separates SEO Check and AIO Readiness
Your dashboard check history now has tabs for SEO Check and AIO Readiness, so you can review each separately. Score comparisons against the previous check are made within the same check type. AIO Readiness entries link straight to a re-check.
SEO Check now scans for hidden text and AI injection
SEO Check on all plans now scans for hidden text and AI-targeted injected instructions (prompt injection). It detects hidden directives to AI planted in HTML comments, JSON-LD, and meta tags, as well as abnormal use of zero-width characters. Hidden text violates Google's spam policies and is also an attack surface for manipulating AI-search citations — an unexpected detection can signal site compromise. To avoid false positives, only high-confidence patterns are flagged; legitimate accessibility uses like sr-only are exempt. To keep plan score totals unchanged, image alt scoring moved from 6 to 4 points.
AIO Readiness Check now diagnoses Access
We added checks for whether AI crawlers can actually reach your page — the prerequisite for being cited in AI search. Two new items: robots.txt permission analysis for citation crawlers (OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, etc.) and live access probes with AI crawler User-Agents to detect WAF/bot-protection blocks (403). The score has been redesigned to Access 20 + Extractability 35 + Trust 25 + Machine Readability 20 (100 total), so scores may differ from previous checks. The tool has also been renamed from AIO Citation Check to AIO Readiness Check.
New SEO Lab report: "AI Search Is a Selection Layer | The Four-Layer GEO Model and the Layer That Breaks First"
A practitioner's reading of the freely published chapters of The GEO Readiness Manual, which treats GEO as infrastructure. The report covers why GEO only works in one order — Access, Orientation, Understanding, Quotability — how to check status codes per AI crawler user-agent, and what separates a citable passage from an ignored one. The full manual is free from the author's site.
New SEO guide: "How to Use External Links | nofollow, sponsored & ugc"
We looked at whether the habit of avoiding outbound links — on the assumption that authority leaks — matches what Google actually documents. The guide separates external links from internal links and backlinks, walks through the rel attributes, and covers designing outbound links as citations, with good and bad implementations.
New SEO guide: "What Is Local SEO? The Work That Happens on Your Own Site"
This guide covers the half of local SEO that lives on your own website rather than in Google Business Profile: Google's three local ranking factors, reconciling NAP information, placing region keywords, and structuring location pages. Pairs with our Local SEO check.
New SEO Lab report: "Clicks +41% During Google's July 2026 Volatility | Decomposed, the Update Contributed Almost Nothing"
Across Google's July core update and the unconfirmed volatility that followed, our own site gained 41% clicks and 49% impressions. But once decomposed, more surviving pages lost position than gained, and 55% of the growth came from pages published during the window. The report lays out four checks for testing whether an update really moved you, with the underlying data.
Keyword research tools are now available on the Basic plan and above
Keyword Suggest, Query Fan-out, Ranked Keywords, and Competitor Keywords are now offered on the Basic plan and above. Plan availability previously differed between the pricing table, the tool screen, and our help pages — these are now aligned. Heading extraction and co-occurrence analysis remain on Entry and above, and there are no changes to SEO checks (3 per month with a free account) or the AI citation check.
Sitewide Design Renewal
We renewed every page — from the top page to the diagnostic tools, guides, and SEO Lab — with a new design built on serif typography and a warm ivory palette. The top page has been rebuilt with subtle animations, and navigation has been reorganized so you can jump straight to the Keyword Research tools (Suggest, Fan-out, Ranked KW, Competitor KW, Heading Extraction, Co-occurrence, and AIO Readiness Check) from the menu and footer. The tools list page has been retired and merged into the top page. Features, pricing, and accounts are unchanged.
Published SEO Lab Article: 'SEO as the Base, AIO/GEO on Top — 30-Day Data on New Pages Hitting Page 1 Overnight'
Clicks +86% and impressions +122% in the 30 days after the search update. Breaking down the growth, only new pages built on an SEO base with an AIO/GEO overlay (direct answers, structured data, E-E-A-T, llms.txt) reached page 1 the day after publishing. First-party data on the conditions for launch velocity — causal caveats included.
We renamed this service to "Direbase"
"CodeQuest.work SEO" is now "Direbase" — "Dire" for Director, "Base" for Baseline. The new name reflects what this tool is: the Web Director's Baseline audit for website design, built from Google's recommended standards. URLs, features, pricing, and accounts are unchanged.
Diagnostic engine maintenance
We inspected and tuned the entire diagnostic engine behind SEO Check and AIO Readiness Check. Improvements include more accurate page-speed measurement, better detection of external links, region keywords, llms.txt, and sitemaps, consistent check conditions in competitor comparison, and security hardening. Due to the revised criteria, some pages may see slightly different results than before.
Published SEO Lab Article: 'Can Low Domain Power Still Rank? Beating a High-DA Site with One Page'
Even against a high-Domain-Power competitor, a single page can overturn rankings for a specific query through search-intent fit and depth. From an observed reversal against a far stronger legacy site, we dissect what worked and what it does not prove — the difference between a query-level win and site-wide superiority.
New tool: AIO Readiness Check
We launched a free tool that scores, out of 100, whether your page is structured to be cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overview — just enter a URL. It rates a direct answer at the top, extractable structure such as lists and comparison tables, question-style headings, and E-E-A-T signals like author info and structured data, and generates copy-paste improvement code for anything missing. Use it alongside SEO Check, which focuses on Google rankings.
Published SEO Lab Article: 'Google May 2026 Core Update — What Google Officially Stated, Backed by CodeQuest.work's Real Data'
We read Google's effectively three-line official statement on the May 2026 core update (rolled out May 21, 2026) closely. We cross-check 'there are no specific recovery actions' and 'a ranking drop does not necessarily mean anything is wrong with your pages' against CodeQuest.work's measured data on structured data and AIO citations. Includes three things not to do during the rollout, and a three-channel view to watch instead (GSC, GA4, SEO audit tool).
Published SEO Lab Article: 'SPA Sites Visible to Google But Invisible to AI'
SEO crawlers (Googlebot, Bingbot, Applebot) have adopted evergreen JavaScript rendering. AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) don't officially declare JS execution in their documentation. We reviewed each crawler's official documentation to examine whether SPA (CSR) content may be invisible to AI — covering SSR/SSG migration decisions and the minimum mitigations available.
Published SEO Lab Article: 'Do AI Referral Sources Differ in Article Genre?'
Tracking referral traffic from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and OpenAI Search via GA4 surfaced a clear separation of article genres by AI source. We share what we observed, why it should not be casually generalized, and several interpretive hypotheses.
Added Monthly Trend Graph to Keyword Research
Keyword suggestions now display a 12-month search trend sparkline alongside search volume. Click to expand for a detailed chart showing seasonal variations and trend changes. A CPC (Cost Per Click) column has also been added as a reference for keyword commercial value.
Added Filter & Sort for Keyword Suggestions
Added minimum search volume and minimum CPC filters plus sortable columns to the suggest tab. Efficiently narrow down actionable keywords from large candidate lists.
Added Research Tools Shortcut to Dashboard
Added a 'Research Tools' button to the dashboard quick actions. Access keyword research, search volume analysis, and competitor keyword research with one click.
Improved Dashboard Mobile Layout
Optimized the mobile layout of check history cards. URL, date, score, and action buttons now display properly on narrow screens. Also added a visible note showing the 1-year history retention period.