We Roasted Hygraph's SEO: Here Is What They're Missing
A headless CMS that lost its head over content strategy.
On the grill this week
Hygraph
hygraph.com
Roasted by
Yaron · Ben · Itay
S116:36
In this episode
We came to roast and nearly booked a demo instead. This might be the cleanest site we have reviewed on the show.
We uncovered a rebrand live on air: Hygraph used to be GraphCMS, and the domain migration was done properly, every old URL we tested redirecting with a 308.
The mystery of the vanishing pages solved itself: the old domain's peak of 1,267 pages was inflated by indexed media files, not lost content.
The one crack we found: the blog wins on GraphQL trivia while Sanity, Contentful, and Strapi outrank them on the money terms.
We settled on a B+, and one of us walked in ready to hand out an A.
The roast scorecard
Hygraph
hygraph.com
B+Final grade
show avg · C+
FDCBA
On the grill:Keyword strategy & mappingContent gaps & clustersRedirects & migrationsAuthor pages & attribution
Key findings
Around 760 indexed pages with constant updates, and the site actually gained traffic during the August 2024 core update.
The GraphCMS to Hygraph migration was executed cleanly with 308 redirects across everything we sampled, use cases, integrations, case studies, and the old marketplace.
The blog is the main traffic driver on topics like GraphQL and framework comparisons, while non-blog pages contribute far less.
They sit around position 18 for headless CMS and are missing from top results for use case terms like headless e-commerce, despite the homepage promising all e-commerce.
Author bios exist at the bottom of posts with LinkedIn links, but there are no linked author pages.
Top action items
1Build out the use case keyword cluster, starting with e-commerce since the homepage already leads with it.
2Create migration content for people moving from a traditional CMS to headless, high value pages for buyers discovering the category.
3Refocus the content strategy on bottom of the funnel, business value keywords where competitors currently win.
What we learned (steal these)
A domain migration done right, permanent redirects on every URL, can survive a rebrand without torching your rankings.
Flawless execution cannot rescue an unfocused strategy. There is no point in SEO if the traffic never touches the keywords that make money.
If your homepage promises a use case, your search presence should back it up. Rank for what you claim to be great at.
Signed and grilled by
Yaron · Ben · Itay
SEO Bros · S1
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