Open to work
Utkarsh Gour · SEO and AI search · 9 years · IT, SaaS, e-commerceThe job of SEO is not just to Rank on SERPs. It is to be Seen, Cited and Chosen.
I am Utkarsh Gour, an SEO expert with nine years across IT, SaaS and e-commerce. Every recommendation I make has to survive one question: what does this do to the rankings the page already has? If I cannot answer that from the data, the change does not go on the sheet. Simple fixes before clever ones, because simple fixes are the ones that ship: find the one cause behind the mess, fix that, and leave everything that is working alone.
Since 2024 there is a second scoreboard. Google ranks your page. ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews decide whether to cite you, mention you without a link, paraphrase you without credit, or skip you. I track all four, and I check whether each answer retrieved your page or worked from memory and named someone else, because the fix is different for each.
The rest of the job has not gone anywhere. Technical SEO, migrations, keyword mapping, content, internal links and reporting still decide whether there is anything worth citing. Nine years of that work, agency side and in-house, up to Head of SEO.
I like the problems where the obvious answer is wrong. A site that lost 40 percent of its traffic. An index 300 times bigger than the catalog. A site which has been penalized by Google. A page that will not convert even though it ranks first, which turns out to be a CRO problem wearing an SEO costume.
If you are a founder, a marketing lead or an in-house team with a question about a migration, on-page and content, internal links, or why ChatGPT keeps citing your competitor, get in touch and let’s talk it through. Speak to Utkarsh
The pattern
Flat traffic has a cause
When traffic sits flat for months, the content is rarely the problem. Something structural is holding it back: filter URLs eating the crawl, two pages fighting for one keyword, strong pages that no internal link points to. On one e-commerce store, 99.7 percent of the 70,637 URLs Google had indexed were filter pages nobody meant to publish.
The newer version shows up in Search Console as steady rankings and falling clicks. Usually an AI Overview is now answering above your result. Across 53 brands, Seer Interactive found organic click-through is 2.4 percent on queries with an Overview, against 3.8 percent without one, and pages cited inside it get more than twice the clicks of pages left out. So I find the queries where this is happening and rework the top of those pages so Google has a clear passage to quote.
Skills
Everything under SEO, and the parts either side of it
SEO does not stop at the crawler and it does not stop at the ranking. Here is what I actually work on, and where I go looking when the obvious answer is wrong.
Technical SEO
Crawl budget, indexation, migrations, rendering, site speed and the templates that quietly generate 300 duplicates per product.
AI search, AEO and GEO
Getting a brand named inside ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews and AI Mode, measuring it with a fixed prompt set and Search Console’s generative AI report, and fixing the pages the answers are built from.
Keyword strategy and on-page
Keyword maps that match how a site is actually built, cannibalisation cleaned up, and pages written to win the intent rather than the phrase.
Off-page and authority
Link acquisition that survives an audit, digital PR angles worth pitching, and a clear read on whether authority is really the blocker.
Data, metrics and reporting
Search Console and GA4 pulled apart properly, log files parsed, and dashboards that answer a question instead of listing every number available.
The parts either side of SEO
Traffic is only worth what it converts. I check what PPC is already buying, what a live A/B test is doing to rankings, and where email should be picking up the slack.
Tools I work in daily
- Google Search Console
- GA4
- Screaming Frog
- Sitebulb
- Semrush
- Ahrefs
- Looker Studio
- BigQuery
- Python and pandas
- Google Tag Manager
- Ahrefs Site Audit
- PageSpeed and CrUX
- Rank Math and Yoast
- ClickUp
How I work
Diagnose, then treat. In that order.
Four steps. No 200 point checklist, no deliverable that sits in a folder unread.
01
Take the vitals
Search Console, GA4, log files, a full crawl and CrUX field data. I want to see what Google and your users actually do, not what the theme claims.
02
Find the bleed
One ranked list of what is costing traffic or revenue right now, sized by impact and by how hard it is to ship.
03
Fix in priority order
Every change is risk checked against the rankings already held. If a suggestion carries doubt or no clear upside, it gets dropped rather than padded in.
04
Prove it
Before and after in Search Console on the exact URLs we touched. Clicks, positions and conversions, not impressions theatre.
What people say
Colleagues on working with me
Recommendations from LinkedIn, from people who managed me and people I managed.
Three recommendations, shown one at a time. Use the arrow keys to move between them.
I highly recommend Utkarsh for his exceptional SEO skills and expertise. What sets him apart is his ability to resolve SEO issues with simplicity, offering straightforward solutions that deliver impactful results. With his strategical skills and knack for simplification, Utkarsh is a valuable asset to any team or project.
He is the person who can go in-depth of a particular task and he makes sure that, the issue is resolved and a perfect strategy is brought in place for better results.
I have had the privilege of working under Utkarsh’s leadership for almost an year now, and I can confidently say that he is a remarkable professional who has had a significant impact on our team’s success. Not just work, he also encourages the team to up-skill by conducting SEO Updates session and suggesting the course to adapt the ever-changing market growth. Speaking of my experience, Utkarsh has guided me through every task on 1:1 calls with patience. He has made sure all his team members are satisfied with his behaviour and skills as a manager by conducting quarterly feedback sessions.
Questions
Before you send the first message
What kind of SEO work do you actually do?
All of it. Technical is where I am strongest and what people call me for, but a ranking is rarely a single-discipline problem. On a normal month I am in Search Console and GA4 pulling apart what changed, building or fixing keyword maps, rewriting on-page, planning link acquisition, and running a fixed prompt set across ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Mode to see whether the brand gets named. I also look outside SEO when the data points there: which terms PPC is already paying for, whether a running A/B test is costing rankings, whether the page converts at all once it gets the click.
Is AI search a separate service?
No, and anyone selling it as one is selling you the acronym. Google says there are no extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond being indexed and eligible for a snippet, and since May 2026 its spam policies cover attempts to manipulate AI answers. What is different is the measurement and the page structure: a prompt set instead of a rank tracker, and the first 150 words written to be the answer.
Are you a technical SEO or a strategist?
Both, and the split matters less than people think. I run strategy across multiple accounts as an SEO Head, and I still do the hands-on work: crawls, log files, redirect maps, schema, keyword clustering. I would rather build the plan and then be the one who has to ship it, because that keeps the plan honest.
What tools do you work in?
Search Console and GA4 daily. Screaming Frog and Sitebulb for crawls, Semrush and Ahrefs for keyword and link data, Looker Studio and BigQuery for reporting, and Python when the data is too big or too repetitive for a spreadsheet. I am comfortable in most CMSs and I write my own SQL.
Where are you based and which time zones do you cover?
I am based in Pune, India and work with teams across the US, UK, Europe and Asia Pacific. In practice I hold overlap hours for US Eastern mornings and UK afternoons, and work async outside those.
Want to talk through a site?
Twenty minutes, screen shared, your Search Console open, including the new generative AI report. You will leave with at least one thing worth fixing whether or not we end up working together.
Typical reply time: within one working day