The Hot Seat [A Diagnostic Game for SEOs]

Slides from the interactive session at Search London Barcelona on May 5, 2026.
Ten SEO cases. Volunteers in the chair. Five questions, sixty seconds, a hand vote. The slides include the symptoms and the questions — but not the diagnoses, because the diagnoses belonged to the room that night.
If you were there, this is what we played. If you weren't, the cases are still here for you to walk through with your team.
By David Carrasco Pamies, founder of Magnify (magnify.ing).

Transcript

1. BARCELONA · MAY 5 The Hot Seat by David Carrasco Pamies
2. THE PREMISE Every one of you has lived this. A client calls on a Friday. Something is wrong — or suspiciously right. You have one weekend to figure it out. Tonight, the weekend is sixty seconds. THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
3. HOW IT WORKS THE FIVE PHASES OF EVERY CASE. 01 The symptom I read a two-line case. No extra info. 02 The volunteer Someone takes the chair. 03 Five questions You ask me five. I answer with the truth. 04 Sixty seconds You diagnose out loud. No notes. 05 The verdict The room votes. Hands up or down. THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
4. THE FINE PRINT A FEW RULES TO KEEP IT FAIR. Five questions. No more. Choose wisely. The room gets one bonus question if needed. Anyone can challenge — thirty seconds to argue back. Vote is hands up or hands down. No phones, no fuss. Losing means learning. Winning means buying a round. THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
5. PICK A CASE Pick a number. 01 🤖 Too much of a good thing 02 ⚱ The aspirational funeral 03 🔗 The wrong link panic 04 🤝 The ChatGPT audit 05 🎭 The brand with two lives 06 📉 Traffic up, brand down 07 🥊 The competitor who copies 08 👻 The orphan page 09 💼 The new CMO 10 🎓 The wrong audience post THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
6. PICK A CASE Pick a number. 01 🤖 Too much of a good thing 02 ⚱ The aspirational funeral 03 🔗 The wrong link panic 04 🤝 The ChatGPT audit 05 🎭 The brand with two lives 06 📉 Traffic up, brand down 07 🥊 The competitor who copies 08 👻 The orphan page 09 💼 The new CMO 10 🎓 The wrong audience post THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
7. CASE 01 / 10 Too much of a good thing. A client calls: he connected Claude to WordPress via Make. Three weeks publishing 200 articles a day. Zero human review. Organic traffic up 180%. Nothing flagged in Search Console. He wants to scale to 500/day. Should he? THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
8. VERDICT Would you back this call? ✋ HAND UP I'd do the same 👇 HAND DOWN I'd go another way THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
9. PICK A CASE Pick a number. 01 🤖 Too much of a good thing 02 ⚱ The aspirational funeral 03 🔗 The wrong link panic 04 🤝 The ChatGPT audit 05 🎭 The brand with two lives 06 📉 Traffic up, brand down 07 🥊 The competitor who copies 08 👻 The orphan page 09 💼 The new CMO 10 🎓 The wrong audience post THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
10. CASE 02 / 10 The funeral home that wants to be aspirational. Family-run funeral home, third generation. The founder's grandson — MBA, freshly returned — hires you to 'rebrand the SEO'. He wants to rank for "life celebrations" instead of "funeral services". Grandma sits silent in the meeting. Where do you start? THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
11. VERDICT Would you back this call? ✋ HAND UP I'd do the same 👇 HAND DOWN I'd go another way THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
12. PICK A CASE Pick a number. 01 🤖 Too much of a good thing 02 ⚱ The aspirational funeral 03 🔗 The wrong link panic 04 🤝 The ChatGPT audit 05 🎭 The brand with two lives 06 📉 Traffic up, brand down 07 🥊 The competitor who copies 08 👻 The orphan page 09 💼 The new CMO 10 🎓 The wrong audience post THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
13. CASE 03 / 10 The links that aren't the problem. Organic traffic down 35% this week. Search Console shows 800 new backlinks in 4 days — Telegram groups, affiliate forums, coupon blogs. The client is certain: negative SEO. He wants to disavow everything, today. Do you? THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
14. VERDICT Would you back this call? ✋ HAND UP I'd do the same 👇 HAND DOWN I'd go another way THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
15. PICK A CASE Pick a number. 01 🤖 Too much of a good thing 02 ⚱ The aspirational funeral 03 🔗 The wrong link panic 04 🤝 The ChatGPT audit 05 🎭 The brand with two lives 06 📉 Traffic up, brand down 07 🥊 The competitor who copies 08 👻 The orphan page 09 💼 The new CMO 10 🎓 The wrong audience post THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
16. CASE 04 / 10 The audit the client already ran with ChatGPT. First month with a new client. You deliver a 40-page audit. He shows up Tuesday with a 60-page one of his own — generated by ChatGPT. Three conflicts with yours. He wants an explanation for each before signing the quarterly plan. How do you walk in? THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
17. VERDICT Would you back this call? ✋ HAND UP I'd do the same 👇 HAND DOWN I'd go another way THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
18. PICK A CASE Pick a number. 01 🤖 Too much of a good thing 02 ⚱ The aspirational funeral 03 🔗 The wrong link panic 04 🤝 The ChatGPT audit 05 🎭 The brand with two lives 06 📉 Traffic up, brand down 07 🥊 The competitor who copies 08 👻 The orphan page 09 💼 The new CMO 10 🎓 The wrong audience post THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
19. CASE 05 / 10 The brand with two lives. New client, audit in progress. You discover the brand ranks for its own name — and for "[brand] scam", "[brand] complaints", "[brand] class action". Those pages capture 30% of organic traffic. The client never mentioned them. What do you do with them? THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
20. VERDICT Would you back this call? ✋ HAND UP I'd do the same 👇 HAND DOWN I'd go another way THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
21. PICK A CASE Pick a number. 01 🤖 Too much of a good thing 02 ⚱ The aspirational funeral 03 🔗 The wrong link panic 04 🤝 The ChatGPT audit 05 🎭 The brand with two lives 06 📉 Traffic up, brand down 07 🥊 The competitor who copies 08 👻 The orphan page 09 💼 The new CMO 10 🎓 The wrong audience post THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
22. CASE 06 / 10 Traffic up, brand down. B2B SaaS, 14 months in. Organic traffic grew from 8,000 to 47,000 a month. Client is thrilled. On last month's call, the head of marketing drops a different number: branded searches are down 22% year over year, and qualified leads from organic dropped 18%. What broke? THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
23. VERDICT Would you back this call? ✋ HAND UP I'd do the same 👇 HAND DOWN I'd go another way THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
24. PICK A CASE Pick a number. 01 🤖 Too much of a good thing 02 ⚱ The aspirational funeral 03 🔗 The wrong link panic 04 🤝 The ChatGPT audit 05 🎭 The brand with two lives 06 📉 Traffic up, brand down 07 🥊 The competitor who copies 08 👻 The orphan page 09 💼 The new CMO 10 🎓 The wrong audience post THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
25. CASE 07 / 10 The competitor who copies (or doesn't). You built a strong technical blog for your client over six months. One morning he calls: the main competitor is publishing near-identical articles, same topics, same order. Some now outrank you. The client wants lawyers, takedowns, an aggressive SEO response. What's your move? THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
26. VERDICT Would you back this call? ✋ HAND UP I'd do the same 👇 HAND DOWN I'd go another way THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
27. PICK A CASE Pick a number. 01 🤖 Too much of a good thing 02 ⚱ The aspirational funeral 03 🔗 The wrong link panic 04 🤝 The ChatGPT audit 05 🎭 The brand with two lives 06 📉 Traffic up, brand down 07 🥊 The competitor who copies 08 👻 The orphan page 09 💼 The new CMO 10 🎓 The wrong audience post THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
28. CASE 08 / 10 The orphan page that ranks. Routine audit, new client. You find a URL nobody remembers: /resources/v3/temp-2024-final.html. Ranks #1 for a high-value commercial keyword. Generates 18% of the site's organic traffic. Not in the menu. No internal links. No one on the current team created it. What do you do with it? THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
29. VERDICT Would you back this call? ✋ HAND UP I'd do the same 👇 HAND DOWN I'd go another way THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
30. PICK A CASE Pick a number. 01 🤖 Too much of a good thing 02 ⚱ The aspirational funeral 03 🔗 The wrong link panic 04 🤝 The ChatGPT audit 05 🎭 The brand with two lives 06 📉 Traffic up, brand down 07 🥊 The competitor who copies 08 👻 The orphan page 09 💼 The new CMO 10 🎓 The wrong audience post THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
31. CASE 09 / 10 The new CMO with someone else's scars. Client for 18 months. Things are working. New CMO arrives from an enterprise player — 10x your client's size. First meeting: a list of 30 "urgent" changes pulled from her last playbook. The budget covers maybe 20% of it. She wants execution this quarter. Where do you even begin? THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
32. VERDICT Would you back this call? ✋ HAND UP I'd do the same 👇 HAND DOWN I'd go another way THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
33. PICK A CASE Pick a number. 01 🤖 Too much of a good thing 02 ⚱ The aspirational funeral 03 🔗 The wrong link panic 04 🤝 The ChatGPT audit 05 🎭 The brand with two lives 06 📉 Traffic up, brand down 07 🥊 The competitor who copies 08 👻 The orphan page 09 💼 The new CMO 10 🎓 The wrong audience post THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
34. CASE 10 / 10 The post that ranks for the wrong audience. B2B SaaS for financial managers. Three years ago, a marketing intern wrote a blog post on a technical accounting concept in an afternoon. Today: #1 for a 90,000/month keyword. 70% of total organic traffic. Conversion to product: 0.02%. The readers are students and professors. The CMO wants to "monetize it". Can you? THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
35. VERDICT Would you back this call? ✋ HAND UP I'd do the same 👇 HAND DOWN I'd go another way THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5
36. THE END Good SEO isn't better answers. It's better questions. Thanks for playing. /in/david-carrasco-pamies/ · @searchldn THE HOT SEAT · @SEARCHLDN · MAY 5