DEV Community: Rafael Cavalcanti da Silva

I Ranked on Google's First Page in 6 Weeks — Here's Every SEO Tactic I Used (Part 2)

Rafael Cavalcanti da Silva — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 01:24:49 +0000

This is Part 2 of my SEO case study. Part 1 covered the technical foundation: 9 fixes, PageSpeed 58→87, and the Astro stack setup.

In Part 1, I documented the baseline of rafaelroot.com: zero indexation, zero impressions, zero clicks. Astro SSG, strict technical SEO, mobile PageSpeed from 58 to 87.

Now for the growth phase. This article covers weeks 3 through 6: building authority, deploying to production, and reaching position 3 on Google's first page.

📊 TL;DR — Weeks 3 to 6

Metric	Start	Week 6
Indexed pages	0/16	16/16 (100%)
Primary query position	100+	#3 (page 1)
Weekly impressions	0	847
CTR (main query)	—	12.4%
Backlinks	0	7 high-quality
Lighthouse scores	87/99/99/99	100/100/100/100

⚡ 10-Day Indexation Checkpoint

Ten days after submitting the sitemap, Google indexed all 16 URLs. Complete coverage.

🎯 CHECKPOINT — Week 2 (03/14/2026)

Indexed Pages: 16/16

Impressions: 23 | Clicks: 2 | Position: 47.3

Why so fast?

Clean sitemap — 16 URLs, zero 404s, no redirect chains
Semantic HTML — Hierarchical headings + valid JSON-LD schemas
~50ms TTFB — Googlebot parses static files instantly

🏗️ Production Deploy: Nginx Tuned for SEO

Brotli + Gzip compression

Brotli compresses ~8-9% better than gzip for HTML. Automatic gzip fallback for older clients:

brotli on;
brotli_comp_level 6;
brotli_static on;
brotli_min_length 256;
brotli_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript
           text/xml application/xml text/javascript image/svg+xml font/woff2;

gzip on;
gzip_vary on;
gzip_proxied any;
gzip_comp_level 4;

Measured results:

Encoding	Size	Reduction
Uncompressed	18,408 bytes	—
Gzip	5,372 bytes	-70.8%
Brotli	4,897 bytes	-73.4%

💡 475 bytes less than gzip per request. On a 3G connection, that's the difference between passing or failing the LCP Core Web Vital.

HTTPS + HTTP/2 + Security headers

Full server block with Let's Encrypt SSL, HSTS preload, CSP, and all 6 security headers. Two permanent 301 redirects: HTTP→HTTPS and www→non-www (prevents duplicate content).

Layered cache strategy

Type	Cache	Why
CSS, JS, fonts, images	1 year, `immutable`	Hash in filename = never changes
HTML	1 day, `must-revalidate`	Content may update
XML (sitemap)	1 hour	Crawlers need fresh data

Returning visitors download zero assets — only HTML is revalidated.

Production TTFB

Homepage: 94ms | Blog post: 73ms | Protocol: HTTP/2 | Encoding: Brotli

📈 GA4 Dashboard for SEO

Rankings mean nothing if users bounce. I configured GA4 with custom events:

// Scroll depth tracking — zero dependencies
const observer = new IntersectionObserver((entries) => {
  entries.forEach((entry) => {
    if (entry.isIntersecting) {
      gtag('event', 'scroll_depth', {
        section: entry.target.id,
        percent: entry.target.dataset.depth
      });
    }
  });
}, { threshold: 0.5 });

document.querySelectorAll('section[data-depth]').forEach(s => observer.observe(s));

The SEO dashboard correlates Search Console (impressions, CTR, position) with GA4 (scroll depth, time-on-page, bounce rate).

🔗 Link Building: Authority Footholds

No guest post spam. Instead, I built contextual presence on platforms Google already trusts:

#	Platform	Type	DA	Context
1	dev.to	Original article	61	Full case study with `canonical_url`
2	GitHub	Profile + README	96	Bio + pinned repo with contextual link
3	Stack Overflow	Profile	82	Website field
4	LinkedIn	Profile + article	98	Featured section + native post
5	npm	Published package	75	Homepage field
6	Twitter/X	Profile + thread	94	Bio and tweet with link

🔥 DEV.TO canonical hack: Using canonical_url in dev.to frontmatter transfers DA 61 authority to your blog without triggering duplicate content penalties. This article does exactly that.

The key insight: each link has context — it's not a naked URL in an empty bio.

🌍 Multilingual Content: The i18n Multiplier

5 languages (pt-BR, pt-PT, en, es, ru) — each article natively written, not machine-translated.

Why this matters:

Google detects auto-translated content as low quality
Each version ranks independently for queries in that language
hreflang tags mathematically link all versions

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en"
      href="https://rafaelroot.com/en/blog/seo-case-study-google-ranking-part-2/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es"
      href="https://rafaelroot.com/es/blog/caso-estudio-seo-de-cero-a-google-parte-2/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default"
      href="https://rafaelroot.com/blog/case-study-seo-do-zero-ao-google-parte-2/" />

📊 Results: 6 Weeks of Data

Week	Impressions	Clicks	CTR	Avg. Position
1	0	0	—	—
2	23	2	8.7%	47.3
3	89	7	7.9%	28.1
4	234	21	9.0%	14.7
5	512	48	9.4%	7.2
6	847	105	12.4%	3.8

Top queries

Query	Position	CTR
rafael cavalcanti da silva	#3	14.2%
rafaelroot	#1	28.6%
rafael cavalcanti developer	#5	8.9%

SERP comparison — "rafael cavalcanti da silva"

Position	Baseline	Week 6
1	jusbrasil.com.br	jusbrasil.com.br
2	br.linkedin.com	br.linkedin.com
3	g1.globo.com	rafaelroot.com ✅

Separating technical vs. content impact

Technical fixes (weeks 1-2): complete indexation in 10 days, PageSpeed 87, zero Search Console errors.

Content + authority (weeks 3-6): impressions 0→847, ranking 100+→#3, CTR above market average.

The technical foundation let Google index quickly. But it was content and backlinks that moved the ranking.

💡 Lesson Learned: Don't Shorten Your Brand Name

I tested using the shorter "Rafael Cavalcanti" in titles. The logic: it's a substring, so coverage should be additive.

It wasn't. Within days, I lost ranking for the full name query. Google re-evaluated the page's primary entity and the diluted signal hurt more than the broader match helped.

Fix: Reverted all <title>, meta descriptions, og:site_name back to "Rafael Cavalcanti da Silva". The short form stays only in alternateName in structured data.

Takeaway: For personal brand SEO, consistency > coverage. If you rank for "firstname lastname suffix," don't dilute it by removing the suffix.

🚀 Post-Launch Optimizations (Updates 2-4)

These updates happened after the initial 6-week period and are fully documented in the canonical article.

Lighthouse: 100/100/100/100

Three targeted fixes to reach perfect scores:

Issue	Before	After	Fix
LCP render delay	920ms	0	Replaced JS font injection with CSS `media="print" onload` pattern
Missing og:image:alt	SEO 99	100	Added dynamic `og:image:alt` + `twitter:image:alt` on all pages
CSS critical chain	922ms	0	`build.inlineStylesheets: 'always'` — zero external CSS
Forced reflow	39ms	0	Batched `getBoundingClientRect()` reads before DOM writes

Sitemap: from basic to fully optimized

Feature	Before	After
`<lastmod>`	❌	✅ All 35 URLs
`<changefreq>`	❌	✅ Per-page-type
`<priority>`	❌	✅ Hierarchy (1.0→0.5)
Blog hreflang	❌	✅ Cross-language links (5 locales)
Redirect URLs	Leaking ❌	Filtered ✅
`<image:image>`	❌	✅ 15 image entries

The trickiest part: @astrojs/sitemap doesn't support blog posts with different slugs per locale. Solution: a blogTranslations map in serialize() that links all 5 versions:

const blogTranslations = {
  'seo-case-study-part-1': {
    'pt-BR': '/blog/case-study-seo-do-zero-ao-google-parte-1/',
    'en': '/en/blog/seo-case-study-google-ranking-part-1/',
    'es': '/es/blog/caso-estudio-seo-de-cero-a-google-parte-1/',
  }
};

Image SEO + sitemap indexing

Renamed image.png → rafael-cavalcanti-da-silva-fullstack-developer.png
Created a custom Astro integration (sitemapImageInjector) that injects <image:image> tags into sitemap XML post-build
15 image entries enabling Google Image Search discovery

Custom 404 page + i18n coverage

Multilingual 404 page with contextual navigation. Added 55+ translation keys and the missing Russian "Trajetória" page.

📋 Full Checklist — Weeks 3-6

✅ 16/16 URLs indexed (100% coverage)
✅ GA4 with scroll depth + time-on-page tracking
✅ 7 high-quality backlinks built
✅ dev.to article with canonical link
✅ 5 languages, natively written
✅ hreflang validated across all versions
✅ Nginx: Brotli + HTTP/2 + HSTS + 6 security headers
✅ TTFB: 73-94ms in production
✅ Lighthouse: 100/100/100/100
✅ Sitemap: 35 URLs + priorities + image indexing
✅ "rafael cavalcanti da silva" → position 3
✅ "rafaelroot" → position 1
✅ CTR 12.4% (above market average)

What's Next (Part 3)

A/B titles and meta descriptions for CTR optimization
Real Core Web Vitals field data (CrUX) vs. lab (Lighthouse)
Cannibalization analysis across multilingual versions
Final goal: position 1

Community Feedback

The Part 1 article on dev.to generated valuable feedback:

@apogeewatcher suggested separating results into categories (indexation, ranking, CTR, on-page performance) instead of attributing everything to a single change. That suggestion directly influenced the "Separating technical vs. content impact" section above.

@apex_stack shared experience running a 100k+ page Astro site across 12 languages, validating the translationKey pattern and warning about crawl budget as a "silent variable."

@kritika_barod confirmed the pattern: Google crawled thousands of pages but didn't index them until authority signals improved.

Full technical details with Nginx configs, schema code, and all 4 updates: rafaelroot.com/en/blog/seo-case-study-google-ranking-part-2/

Found this useful? Drop a 🦄 and follow for Part 3 — or check out rafaelroot.com to see everything in action.

SEO Case Study: From zero to Google in 12 weeks — Part 1

Rafael Cavalcanti da Silva — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 02:47:54 +0000

When a recruiter searches your name on Google, what shows up defines the first impression. Controlling that is a technical skill — measurable, reproducible, documentable.

This is the first article in a 3-part series where I do exactly that live: going from zero indexation to ranking rafael cavalcanti da silva and rafaelroot on Google. Real screenshots, real metrics, no theory.

Full original article: rafaelroot.com/en/blog/seo-case-study-google-ranking-part-1/

TL;DR — Week 1 (03/08/2026)

Baseline: 0 results for me searching "rafael cavalcanti" or "rafael cavalcanti da silva" in the top 100.
Stack: Astro 5.17 (SSG) + Nginx with HTTP/2, Brotli, HSTS and security headers.
Google Search Console configured, sitemap accepted: 16 URLs discovered.
PageSpeed Mobile: 58 → 87 (+29 points) with 9 documented fixes.
8 fixes applied against Google's official guidelines — no guesswork.

The diagnosis (baseline on 03/08/2026)

Before any optimization, I screenshotted each target SERP. This is the zero point to compare against in the coming months.

"rafael cavalcanti"

Position	Result	Domain
1	Rafael Cavalcanti — Bradesco (LinkedIn)	linkedin.com
2	Rafael Cavalcanti (@rafaelcavalcantig)	instagram.com
3	Rafael Cavalcanti Garcia de Castro Alves	escavador.com
4	Rafael Cavalcanti — Lawsuits	jusbrasil.com.br
5	Rafael Cavalcanti de Souza — FAPESP	bv.fapesp.br

Diagnosis: SERP dominated by namesakes on high-authority platforms. Zero mention of rafaelroot.com.

"rafael cavalcanti da silva"

Position	Result	Domain
1	Rafael Cavalcanti da Silva — Lawsuits	jusbrasil.com.br
2	7 profiles with the name	br.linkedin.com
3	Who is Rafael Chocolate...	g1.globo.com
4–6	Business registrations and influencer	serasa, instagram, istoedinheiro

Diagnosis: Moderate competition, but dominated by negative content (lawsuits, convictions) — which opens a real opportunity.

Formal baseline

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║                    BASELINE — 03/08/2026                     ║
╠══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║  "rafael cavalcanti da silva" → outside top 100              ║
║  "rafael cavalcanti"          → outside top 100              ║
║  "rafaelroot"                 → nonexistent word (vol. 0)    ║
║                                                              ║
║  Indexed pages: 0                                            ║
║  Search Console impressions: 0                               ║
║  Organic clicks: 0                                           ║
║  Known backlinks: 0                                          ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

The plan: 3 phases, 12 weeks

Phase	Period	Focus
1 — Foundations	Weeks 1-2	Baseline, stack, Search Console, GA4, technical fixes
2 — Content & Authority	Weeks 3-6	Optimized articles, profiles, link building, cross-links
3 — Measurement & Tuning	Weeks 7-12	A/B title tests, real CWV, Part 3 with results

The stack

Why Astro?

Astro SSG → Static HTML → 0kb JS by default
├── LCP: < 1.0s
├── FID: 0ms (no JS = no blocking)
├── CLS: 0 (no reflow)
└── TTFB: ~50ms (static file via Nginx)

Framework	JS Bundle	Typical LCP	SEO Score
Astro (SSG)	0 KB	< 1s	100
Next.js (SSR)	~80 KB	1.5-2.5s	90-95
Create React App	~200 KB	3-5s	50-70
WordPress	~150 KB	2-4s	60-80

Sitemap with priorities and i18n (Astro)

// astro.config.mjs
import { defineConfig } from 'astro/config';
import sitemap from '@astrojs/sitemap';

export default defineConfig({
  site: 'https://rafaelroot.com',
  integrations: [
    sitemap({
      i18n: {
        defaultLocale: 'pt-br',
        locales: { 'pt-br': 'pt-BR', pt: 'pt-PT', es: 'es', en: 'en', ru: 'ru' },
      },
      serialize(item) {
        if (item.url === 'https://rafaelroot.com/') item.priority = 1.0;
        else if (item.url.match(/\/blog\/.+\//)) {
          item.priority = 0.9;
          item.changefreq = 'monthly';
        }
        return item;
      },
    }),
  ],
});

Nginx: SEO-focused configuration

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name rafaelroot.com www.rafaelroot.com;

    # HSTS — 1 year with preload
    add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload" always;

    # Security headers
    add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff" always;
    add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN" always;
    add_header Referrer-Policy "strict-origin-when-cross-origin" always;

    # Brotli + Gzip
    brotli on; brotli_comp_level 6;
    gzip on;

    # Aggressive cache for immutable assets
    location ~* \.(css|js|woff2|png|webp|avif|svg|ico)$ {
        expires 1y;
        add_header Cache-Control "public, immutable";
    }

    # Always fresh HTML
    location ~* \.html$ {
        expires 1h;
        add_header Cache-Control "public, must-revalidate";
    }
}

Why each directive matters for SEO:

Directive	SEO Impact
`http2`	Multiplexing → lower TTFB → better LCP
`brotli`	~20% smaller than gzip → reduced transfer size
`expires 1y + immutable`	Eliminates re-downloads → better FCP
`HSTS`	Google favors HTTPS → ranking signal

Google Search Console ✅

Sitemap accepted on 03/08/2026:

Metric	Value
Sitemap	`sitemap-index.xml` → `sitemap-0.xml`
Status	Success
Discovered URLs	16 (5 homepages + 5 blog indexes + 6 articles)

9 documented technical fixes

🚨 Fix 1 — robots.txt was blocking Googlebot's CSS ✅

The problem: Disallow: /_astro/ prevented Googlebot from accessing Astro's bundled CSS. Google was seeing raw HTML without styles — this can silently hurt your ranking.

Google's own documentation states:

"For this, Google needs to be able to access the same resources as the user's browser. If your site is hiding important components that make up your website (like CSS and JavaScript), Google might not be able to understand your pages."

# robots.txt — BEFORE (blocking CSS)
User-agent: *
Disallow: /_astro/   ← BLOCKED BUNDLED CSS!

# robots.txt — AFTER (correct)
User-agent: *
Allow: /
# /_astro/ removed — Googlebot needs the CSS

How to verify: Search Console → URL Inspection → "Test Live URL" → Screenshot. If CSS doesn't load, you'll see unstyled HTML.

🔧 Fix 2 — Removed `<meta name="keywords">` ✅

Google explicitly states:

"Google Search doesn't use the keywords meta tag."

Besides being useless, it exposes your keyword strategy to competitors. Removed from both layouts.

🌐 Fix 3 — hreflang on blog articles ✅

The homepage had correct hreflang for 5 languages. Blog articles had none. I implemented a translationKey system in the frontmatter:

# article frontmatter
translationKey: "reverse-engineering-android-frida"

Articles sharing the same translationKey are automatically cross-linked at build time:

<!-- Generated output for the PT-BR article -->
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="pt-BR" href="https://rafaelroot.com/blog/engenharia-reversa-android-frida/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://rafaelroot.com/en/blog/reverse-engineering-android-frida/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://rafaelroot.com/blog/engenharia-reversa-android-frida/" />

Without this, Google may index only one version and treat the other as duplicate content.

⚡ Fix 4 — CSS/Fonts no longer block rendering ✅

The problem: Google Fonts and devicon.min.css loaded synchronously in <head> were blocking First Contentful Paint. On slow mobile, this cost up to 4,570ms.

<!-- BEFORE (render-blocking) -->
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/..." rel="stylesheet" />

<!-- AFTER (non-blocking) -->
<link rel="preload" as="style" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/..."
      onload="this.onload=null;this.rel='stylesheet'" />
<noscript><link rel="stylesheet" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/..." /></noscript>

The browser paints immediately with system fonts and swaps when custom fonts load — without blocking FCP.

🎨 Fix 5 — AA contrast fixed ✅

The --muted color (#5a7a9a) against background #040a12 had a ratio of 4.45:1 — below the WCAG AA minimum of 4.5:1.

/* BEFORE */
--muted: #5a7a9a;  /* 4.45:1 — FAILS AA */

/* AFTER */
--muted: #7090b0;  /* 5.96:1 — PASSES both: bg and glass nav */

📱 Fix 6 — Mobile performance: content-visibility ✅

Google uses Mobile-First Indexing — the mobile score is what affects your ranking. Our page has 9 sections but the browser was rendering all of them at once.

/* Skip rendering for off-screen sections */
section {
  content-visibility: auto;
  contain-intrinsic-size: auto 600px;
}

/* Disable expensive GPU effects on mobile */
@media (max-width: 768px) {
  .nav-outer { backdrop-filter: blur(8px); }  /* was 16px */
  .btn, .hero-badge, .bio-grid { backdrop-filter: none; }
  .hero-badge { animation: none; }
}

🔤 Fix 7 — CLS: font fallbacks with size-adjust ✅

font-display: swap caused layout shift when Inter and JetBrains Mono replaced system fonts. Fix: declare @font-face fallbacks with matching metrics.

@font-face {
  font-family: 'JetBrains Mono Fallback';
  src: local('Courier New');
  size-adjust: 108%;  /* calibrated metrics for zero reflow */
}
@font-face {
  font-family: 'Inter Fallback';
  src: local('Arial');
  size-adjust: 100%;
}

/* Updated stacks */
--mono: 'JetBrains Mono', 'JetBrains Mono Fallback', monospace;
--sans: 'Inter', 'Inter Fallback', system-ui, sans-serif;

🏷️ Fix 8 — Optimized titles ✅

Problem 1 — Truncation: Titles at ~87 chars. Google truncates at ~55-60 chars.

Problem 2 — Redundant site name: Since we have WebSite schema with name: 'rafaelroot.com', Google already shows the site name separately in SERPs. Including it in <title> wasted 18 chars.

Problem 3 — Mixed delimiters: | and — in the same title.

# BEFORE (87 chars, truncated)
Rafael Cavalcanti da Silva | Fullstack Developer & Security Specialist — rafaelroot.com

# AFTER (57 chars, fully visible)
Rafael Cavalcanti da Silva — Fullstack Developer & Security

📄 Fix 9 — Structured data: ProfilePage + WebSite ✅

Homepage upgraded from WebPage to ProfilePage (a subtype of WebPage). The WebSite schema gained alternateName and a trailing slash on url:

// WebSite — AFTER
{
  "@type": "WebSite",
  "name": "rafaelroot.com",
  "alternateName": ["Rafael Cavalcanti", "Rafael Cavalcanti da Silva", "rafaelroot"],
  "url": "https://rafaelroot.com/"
}

// Homepage — AFTER
{
  "@type": "ProfilePage",
  "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://rafaelroot.com/#person" },
  "dateCreated": "2026-02-01T00:00:00-03:00"
}

PageSpeed: before vs. after

Metric (Mobile)	Before	After	Delta
Performance	58	87	+29 🚀
Accessibility	96	100	+4 ✅
Best Practices	100	100	—
SEO	100	100	—
FCP	6.7s	2.8s	-58%
LCP	6.7s	2.8s	-58%
Speed Index	9.4s	2.9s	-69%
TBT	0ms	0ms	—
CLS	0	0.113*	*fixing with size-adjust

Desktop stays at 90 / 96 / 100 / 100.

Going from 58 → 87 on mobile is the highest-impact SEO improvement possible: Google uses Mobile-First Indexing to determine ranking. Mobile performance = ranking.

What Google says NOT to worry about

Common myths debunked by Google's own guidelines:

Myth	What Google says
Meta keywords	"Google Search doesn't use the keywords meta tag."
Keyword stuffing	Against spam policies. Write naturally.
Keywords in domain	"...have hardly any effect beyond appearing in breadcrumbs."
Word count	"The length of the content alone doesn't matter for ranking."
E-E-A-T as ranking factor	It's not. It's a quality evaluation framework.
Duplicate content penalty	"It's inefficient, but it's not something that will cause a manual action."

Week 1 checklist

[x] SERP baseline with screenshots and tables (03/08/2026)
[x] Search Console configured + sitemap accepted (16 URLs)
[x] robots.txt fixed (no longer blocks /_astro/)
[x] <meta name="keywords"> removed from both layouts
[x] hreflang on articles via translationKey system
[x] CSS/Fonts non-blocking (async preload + noscript fallback)
[x] AA contrast: --muted → #7090b0 (5.96:1)
[x] Mobile: content-visibility: auto + reduced backdrop-filter
[x] CLS: @font-face fallbacks with calibrated size-adjust
[x] Titles shortened (<60 chars) + single — delimiter
[x] ProfilePage schema on homepage + WebSite schema fixed
[x] Real link to /blog in footer (sitelink-friendly)
[x] PageSpeed Mobile: 58 → 87 | Desktop: 90/96/100/100
[ ] Create GA4 property + set PUBLIC_GA_ID
[ ] Deploy Nginx with optimized cache headers
[ ] Re-run PageSpeed after deploy (confirm CLS < 0.1)

Next steps (Part 2)

Measure real indexation: checkpoint 03/14
GA4 with real ID + SEO dashboard (CTR, scroll depth, time on page)
Link building: GitHub, Stack Overflow, dev.to
First article targeting "rafael cavalcanti developer" with internal cross-links

I'm documenting everything in real time. Follow the series and let me know in the comments: which metric do you want to track in Part 2?

Last updated: March 8, 2026 | Full article with more technical details