FAQ
Questions, answered the way I’d answer them on a call.
General.
Who is Matthew Kellogg?
An operator with eleven years of ranking work across competitive commercial industries — court reporting, call center answering services, surgical and legal practices. The position I occupy for clients is consultative-strategic: counsel across SEO, reputation management, and AEO, coordinating the disciplines on behalf of the practice’s broader objectives. The case study on this site shows the methodology running on my own name.
What does this practice do?
Three disciplines, one methodology: SEO Architecture for acquisition, Reputation Architecture for conversion protection, AEO Architecture for AI-mediated search. Engaged standalone, in pairs, or fully integrated — that last scope is named The Court.
Who is the work for?
Established practices where search results carry real economic weight: the operator who has already built something, and whose name and keywords now do work whether managed or not. It is not for startup-stage rescues or single-tactic shopping — the About page draws those boundaries explicitly.
Service-specific.
How long until rankings move?
Initial movement typically registers during the project phase; competitive top-three positions are built over quarters, not weeks. Any promise faster is describing different work.
Can negative search results be removed?
Removal is legal work, and rarely available. The methodology outranks instead: properties you control occupy the positions, and the negative result loses visibility. The case study documents exactly this, live.
Which AI platforms does AEO cover?
ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews as the core set, with monitoring extended as new surfaces earn prospect traffic.
Methodology.
Is the methodology white-hat?
The work builds real properties, real content, and real authority. Nothing in it depends on loopholes that an algorithm change closes — which is why positions hold year over year.
Why does one operator run three disciplines?
Because they’re one skill pointed at three surfaces. Operators who can rank ten properties for one search can rank one property for ten searches. The methodology page makes the full argument.
Do you share the playbook?
The architecture, yes — it’s described on the methodology page and demonstrated in the case study. The specific platforms, configurations, and order of operations stay private. The work is methodical, not magical; the proof is the SERP itself.
Pricing and engagement.
What does an engagement cost?
Engagements are structured around the strategic situation specific to your practice — the surfaces in play, the competition on them, the stakes. Budget context is captured in the consultation form so the call can be about fit and scope rather than generic tiers.
Why are there no prices on the site?
Because a number without a situation is fiction in this work. The same discipline costs very different amounts depending on the SERP it’s pointed at, and publishing tiers would misprice most situations in one direction or the other.
Is there a minimum commitment?
No contracts. The engagement opens with a defined project phase, then runs month-to-month. You can stop any month.
Engagement and process.
How much contact should I expect?
Less than you would expect from an agency, by design. Quarterly live video calls are the steady state — monthly during the first three months, because new relationships need that frequency. Weekly automated ranking reports go out by email. A project management portal shows every active task in real time. Most clients prefer this rhythm — they want the work done, not the meetings about the work. If something is genuinely urgent, I get on the phone.
How do I know the work is happening?
Three artifacts. Weekly ranking reports — automated, but the rankings are real and verifiable in any third-party tool. Quarterly live video walkthroughs of what has been built and what has moved. A live project management portal where every task sits — visible, dated, with progress per task. The artifacts are independent of my talking; the work shows up whether or not the talking does.
Why month-to-month instead of contracts?
Two reasons. Locking a client into a contract creates the wrong incentive — the work might continue regardless of whether it’s still earning its keep. Month-to-month forces me to keep delivering. And after the work has been running, you should be free to evaluate it on its own merits. A multi-year relationship made of repeated monthly renewals is structurally different from one multi-year agreement signed up front — my longest engagement is approaching nine years on exactly those terms.
Risk and outcome.
What if it doesn’t work?
You can stop any month. That is the structure. If the math is not working — and we will both see whether it is, through the weekly reports and quarterly updates — the engagement should not continue. It’s designed so no one stays engaged on momentum or contractual lock-in. The freedom to leave is what creates the discipline to deliver.
Do you guarantee rankings?
No, and no honest operator does — the SERP has too many moving parts for guarantees. What I offer instead is structural: documented baselines, verifiable weekly reporting, and a month-to-month engagement you can end the moment the trajectory stops justifying the cost.
What happens when Google ships an algorithm update?
Architecture built on real authority absorbs updates; shallow work gets reset by them. Year-over-year held positions through algorithm changes are the practice’s track record, and the engagement is structured around that durability.
What happens if we part ways?
Positions built on real properties don’t evaporate at the month boundary. Without maintenance, defense degrades over time — but you keep what was built, and nothing is held hostage.