Blog
Mert Özen's blog posts on software development, backend, frontend, and DevOps.
Measuring SEO: Which Question, Which Data? Why Search Console, GA4, Server Logs and CrUX Disagree
Search Console, GA4, server logs and CrUX count different parts of the same visit, so they give different numbers; the right number depends on the question you ask. We cover the question-metric-source mapping, why the numbers disagree, C# code that separates Google traffic in logs using Google's Referer rules, and the measurement options for mertozen.com.
The Search Console Performance Report in Depth: Position, CTR, Regex Filters, Branded Queries and Query Groups
In the Performance report, position is the average of the topmost result per query, and because the property and page views aggregate differently, CTR differs between the two tabs. We cover anonymized queries, the 1,000-row and 16-month limits, the Turkish character trap in RE2 regexes, the branded filter, query groups, annotations and C# code that finds low-CTR queries against the site's own CTR.
The Search Console API and BigQuery Export: Automating Your Own SEO Report in C#
To keep Search Console data beyond 16 months, you pull each day separately from the Search Analytics API into your own database or turn on the BigQuery bulk export from today on; neither fills in past history. We cover service account access, paging, quotas, testing with a fake handler, an idempotent SQL Server archive, a threshold-based weekly report and the export's cost notes, with C# code.
Measuring On-Site Behavior with GA4: The Event Model, page_view in an Angular SPA, Custom Events and Key Events
In an Angular SPA you send page_view either through enhanced measurement's history tracking or by hand, never both; if you send it by hand, do it inside a TitleStrategy, because the router writes the title after NavigationEnd. We cover GA4's event model, key events, gtag with a CSP nonce in Razor pages, events that matter for a blog and Measurement Protocol code that sends no personal data.
Privacy and Consent in Analytics: The KVKK Cookie Guide, Consent Mode and Cookieless Alternatives
You do not load the analytics tag before consent, and when the consent rate changes, GA4's number drops without any change in traffic; you tell them apart with a source consent does not affect. We cover what the KVKK cookie guide means for measurement, ITrackingConsentFeature in ASP.NET Core, consent-gated loading in Angular, basic vs advanced Consent Mode, the 2026 change and cookieless alternatives. Not legal advice.
The SEO Impact of Core Web Vitals: What Google Says, CrUX Field Data and Building Your Own RUM with web-vitals
According to Google, Core Web Vitals are used by the ranking systems but guarantee no ranking, and relevance comes first; the assessment uses field data from real users, not the Lighthouse score. We cover the thresholds and the 75th percentile, who CrUX includes, the URL groups of the Search Console report, the CrUX API in C# and an ASP.NET Core RUM endpoint that computes p75 the way Search Console does.
Measuring the Impact of an SEO Change: Before/After Analysis, Seasonality, Annotations and Honest Reporting
You measure the effect of an SEO change against a control group of similar unchanged pages, with whole-week windows and against the range of normal weekly variation; without a control group, season and holidays mix with the effect. We cover writing a hypothesis, annotations, outside factors, a C# analysis on synthetic data, the limits of split tests on a small site and an honest impact report.