How Spike Search decides what to fix.
What happens on your computer, and how the list of fixes is put in order.
Why it exists
I run several side-project sites at once. A few are proper projects, like japantravelfaq.com and liveinbne.com. The rest are weekend ideas I launched to see if anyone would care.
Checking them all became a chore. I clicked into each site in Search Console, then did it all again in Google Analytics, and by the end I had forgotten which site I was worried about. Both tools are accurate, but they don’t talk to each other, so I kept switching tabs to match traffic with search for the same site.
So I built one screen. It pulls both from Google’s own data, shows every site side by side, and flags what looks off. That flagging is still in beta, and I’m improving it as I go.
It runs on your computer because it began as a tool for me, and your data has nowhere else to go. It’s pay once because launching a site is so much quicker now that there are more to watch, and I didn’t want another monthly subscription just to keep an eye on them. I figured other builders feel the same.
I’m Kenneth, a Shopify developer and AI enthusiast in Brisbane. I build side projects because I enjoy it, and the best part is watching real people use something I made. You can see my other projects and reach me at kennethau.com.
Where it runs
Spike Search is a small app that runs on your own computer. You open it in your browser like a website, but nothing is hosted by us.
It asks Google for your Analytics and Search Console data with read-only access, and keeps what it gets in a folder on your computer.
What it does with your data
It keeps a daily snapshot of each site, so it can compare this week with last week and spot what changed.
Then it runs the same set of checks on every site: pages close to page one, pages people see but skip, pages competing with each other, searches rising or fading, pages Google can’t see, and pages that feel slow by Google’s own speed scores (Core Web Vitals).
How it decides what comes first
Every fix is rated on four things: how much it could help, how serious the problem is, how sure the app is, and how much work it takes. You see all four next to each fix, along with a plain reason.
Anything that stops Google from seeing a page goes to the top, because no other fix on that page can help until Google can see it.
When Google doesn’t answer
If Google is slow or fails for one site, the rest still load. You get a note saying which site is missing, rather than an empty screen.
What it can’t know yet
Google’s search data arrives two to three days late. Those days are marked as not final, rather than hidden or guessed.
Some numbers, like how many clicks a page should get at its position, are estimates. They are labelled as estimates wherever they appear.
What it can’t do yet
- It only reads Google data. Google Analytics and Search Console are the only sources.
- It tells you what to fix. It never changes your sites, and it can’t: its access is read-only.
- Setup is technical. You install it with terminal commands and create a Google Cloud login for it. A step-by-step guide is coming.
- Search data from Google arrives two to three days late, so the newest days are marked as not final.
- Some numbers, like the clicks a page should get at its position, are estimates and are labelled as such.
- There is no hosted version. It runs on your computer, so it only updates when you open it.
What’s new
Nothing released yet. Coming before launch