--- title: "Programmatic SEO" description: "Programmatic SEO from ShoutRank: template pages generated from real inventory, with rules for what must never be generated." canonical: https://shoutrank.com/programmatic-seo markdown: https://shoutrank.com/programmatic-seo.md --- # Programmatic SEO Programmatic SEO from ShoutRank: template pages generated from real inventory, with rules for what must never be generated. Programmatic SEO builds many URLs from one template and a dataset. It is useful when each row is a real thing a person might search. It becomes a doorway factory when the dataset is a list of cities, modifiers, or keywords, and the page only swaps the noun. We will not build that. The legitimate version is closer to a catalog: integrations, locations you serve, products, comparisons you can defend. Each URL has fields that change the meaning, not only the title. ShoutRank does not guarantee a ranking or a citation. ## The problem ### The dataset is a keyword export. Every row is a phrase. None of them is a thing you sell or a fact you hold. ### The template cannot say no. Empty fields still publish. Thin pages enter the index because the generator has no threshold. ### Internal links are a dump. Every page links to every sibling. Crawl and the reader both get a wall of near-duplicates. ## How ShoutRank approaches it We define the entity the page is about, the fields required before publish, and the queries that entity can own. Rows that fail the fields do not get a URL. Indexation is part of the generator. A page that is only a title swap is noindex or it is not created. This is the opposite of a keyword page machine, which this site does not run. ## What the work includes ### Entity and field spec What a row must contain before a URL exists. ### Template outline The sections that change with the data, and the ones that should stay stable. ### Index rules Publish, noindex, or do not generate. ### Linking model How a page finds its siblings without a link block of five hundred URLs. ## Process ### Discovery Name the entity. If you cannot, the project stops. ### Audit Sample the data. Count empty fields and duplicate rows. ### Strategy Write the threshold and the template with the examples that pass. ### Implementation Generate a limited set. Read them as a person would. ### Monitoring Watch indexation and the queries those URLs collect. ### Optimization Raise the threshold if the index fills with lookalikes. ### Reporting How many URLs exist, how many were refused, and which queries the set owns. ## Why ShoutRank ### We refuse keyword grids A matrix of ‘service + city’ or ‘modifier + head term’ is not programmatic SEO. It is a doorway set. ### The threshold is the product The valuable part is the rule that blocks a thin row, not the number of URLs. ### Same honesty as the rest of the site We do not publish client URL counts as trophies. ## How success is measured URLs published against URLs refused. Indexed pages that earn impressions, versus indexed pages that do not. Queries landing on the template, and whether the landing URL matches the entity. A named client result is published when that client clears the figure. Until then the report is the measurement. ## Questions ### How many pages should we launch? As many as pass the field threshold. A launch target of ten thousand is a reason to stop and look at the data. ### Is this the same as ecommerce SEO? A catalog is a kind of programmatic set. Ecommerce adds filters, variants, and a checkout. Both need a rule for what stays out of the index. ### Can you generate the pages for us? We specify the template and the threshold, and we can build it when the stack is ours to touch. We will not generate pages from a keyword list. ## Related - [Ecommerce SEO](https://shoutrank.com/ecommerce-seo): When the dataset is a product catalog. - [Technical SEO](https://shoutrank.com/technical-seo): Indexation once the generator is live. - [SEO strategy](https://shoutrank.com/seo-strategy): Whether this template should exist at all.