Hestia's Atlas in September 2026
The month the site went looking for strangers: 6,700 county, state, budget and comparison pages entered search, impressions rose from 36 to 2,640, and assistants that quote figures became the largest referrer.
The numbers
Read on September 14 and September 30, from Vercel Analytics, Google Search Console and the account store.
| Measure | Sep 14September 14 | Sep 30September 30 | What moved it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visitors, 7 daysCounty pages reached search | 19 | 50 | County pages reached search |
| Search impressions, 28 daysPages for every county, state, budget and comparison, indexed from September 7 | 36 | 2,640 | Pages for every county, state, budget and comparison, indexed from September 7 |
| Search clicks, 28 daysThe earlier clicks were people typing the site's name; the later ones are strangers finding a place | 16 | 6 | The earlier clicks were people typing the site's name; the later ones are strangers finding a place |
| Average search positionBranded searches only at the start; real queries at the end, improved from 32 in the final week | 7.7 | 25.1 | Branded searches only at the start; real queries at the end, improved from 32 in the final week |
| Queries the site appears forThe first non-brand query appeared September 18 | 0 | 452 | The first non-brand query appeared September 18 |
| Pages indexed by Google3,836 more discovered and waiting to be crawled | 9 | 3,620 | 3,836 more discovered and waiting to be crawled |
| AccountsThe path from a county page to an account is the next job | 3 | 3 | The path from a county page to an account is the next job |
| Real Experience ScoreEvery route above 90 | 100 | 100 | Every route above 90 |
Two firsts: the first visitors sent by ChatGPT, Gemini and Ecosia arrived in the week of September 24, and by month end ChatGPT was the site's largest referrer, ahead of Google.
What shipped
Twenty-six entries on the patch notes in thirty days, in three stories.
Pages for strangers
- A page for every county (September 7), a monthly budget page for every county (September 8), county-against-county comparison pages (September 8), and a real page for every state (September 18) with photographs, the state's own Census rows, health and natural hazards, a short guide and a sortable county table (September 21 to 24).
- The address tree moved to /states/texas/travis-county with every old address redirected (September 18). Short addresses missing the word county or parish now find their page (October 1).
- County pages open with a quick answer (median income, property tax rate, rent, home value), a property tax section that sets what owners pay beside what a buyer would pay in all fifty states and DC, and a block that says what to do with the numbers (September 21 to 28).
The tool
- The Fitting Quiz joined the Odyssey stage, the first-home odyssey went live with four journeys, and The Career odyssey landed the job (September 1 to 3).
- The quiz now answers with states first, after two real testers were stunned by county names (September 22).
- The map opens on states in five colour bands and zooms to a state's counties on a click (September 24).
Honesty and plumbing
- Numbers that could not vouch for themselves were withheld (September 10), property tax reads as a percent first (September 21), and every data page names its release and the month it was checked (September 26).
- Structured data on every county, state, budget and comparison page, Bing Webmaster Tools with IndexNow, a plain-text description of the site for language models, and a one-sentence definition of the site on the About page (September 26 to 28).
What the month taught
- Readers do not start at the front door. Nearly every stranger arrived on a county page holding one question, so every page must give its number, say what the site does with it and offer an honest next step.
- Position is the lever below page one. Property tax queries sit at position 68 with titles that match them word for word; only Ada County, Idaho, at position 9, could be helped by wording, and it was.
- Impressions can carry the wrong intent. A search for a county's budget analysis wanted the county government's budget; the page now says whose budget it is.
- Honesty found its own audience. Assistants that quote figures became the top referrer in the week the pages gained plain sentences, dates and sources.
What is next
- Publish the first piece worth citing by December 31: where a home buyer pays more property tax than the owner before them, every state sourced.
- Walk the site as a stranger, county page first and home page second, and fix every snag.
- Read the analytics most mornings; Bing's first search figures should appear in October.
Census ACS 2024 five-year estimates, checked October 2026.