Programmatic SEO in 2026: what Google hit and what still works
Short answer: Programmatic SEO is one page template filled with one row of data per page. Google's scaled content abuse policy (since March 2024) targets sets where only a name changes. Sets built on the site's own data and on real searches are the kind that hold up.
Hi, Minh here. Thanks for joining. Over the next 12 lessons you will plan a page set for your own site, step by step. One email every weekday or two. Each one has one idea and one small task.
First, the word. Programmatic SEO means one page template plus one row of data per page. Done well, it answers thousands of small searches that nobody would write a page for by hand.
Done badly, it is what Google goes after. Since March 2024, Google's scaled content abuse policy targets pages made at scale with little value for the reader. Thousands of pages from one template and a list of names is exactly that, and such pages often fall out of the index.
What Google targets
- City pages where only the city name changed.
- "Best X for Y" pages with the same 10 products on every page.
- AI text spun around a keyword, with no fact the reader could not find elsewhere.
- "What is" pages that repeat the top Google result.
What holds up
- Pages built on data the site owns: real prices, real stock, real jobs, real product specs.
- Pages that match searches people already make, the kind you can see in Search Console.
- Pages where page 37 tells you something page 36 does not.
- Sets that are linked together and published at a pace Google can check.
Example: two plumbing sites, same idea
Set A: "Plumber in {city}". 400 pages. Each one says the same thing with a new city name. This is the kind of set the policy targets.
Set B: "Emergency plumber in {city}". 40 pages, one per city the company really serves. Each shows the median callout time and price from that city's jobs last year, and the 3 most common repairs there. Set B is the kind that holds up.
This course teaches Set B. By lesson 12 you will have a page set picked from your own search data, a dataset only you have, a template, a quality gate and a publish plan.
Your 10-minute task: Audit the page types you already have
- Search Google for
site:yourdomain.comand scroll through the first 3 pages of results. - Write down every page type that repeats: product pages, location pages, integration pages, anything that shares one layout.
- For each type with more than 10 pages, write one line: what is different on each page, apart from the name?
- If the answer is "only the name", mark that type. Lesson 8 shows what to do with it.
Get the rest by email
The whole course in order, starting with lesson 1 now, then one lesson every 1 or 2 weekdays. Each has a 10-minute task on your own site.
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