Changelog

We rebuilt Growth OS from the ground up. The first version proved the idea; this one turns it into a real operator that knows what day you are on, what to do today, and what to do next. Instead of a static six-step canvas, Growth OS is now a guided program that adapts to the kind of site you have and walks you through months of growth, one clear day at a time. Everything below is new in this rebuild.

Two tracks: brand-new sites and established sites New

Growth OS now recognizes where you are. Brand-new sites with no rankings or links yet get an MVP track: a focused, foundation-first program that skips the tools that need data you do not have. Established sites with real ranking and link data get the full track with every phase unlocked. Your plan picks the right track automatically, so you never stare at an empty tool wondering why there is no data.

A day-by-day growth program New

This is the heart of the rebuild. New sites follow a multi-month program shown in clean 30-day periods. Growth OS knows exactly which day you are on and surfaces the tasks that are due today, from the first technical fixes to tracking setup, performance, structured data, content, directories and social. Come back after a few days away and it tells you where you left off, so momentum never quietly dies.

Tasks that actually fit the work New

Not every task is a one-time checkbox. Growth OS understands three kinds of work: one-time setup and fixes, recurring habits like submitting to a new directory every couple of days or running an engagement round, and progress goals you push toward a target. Recurring tasks come back on schedule so the important habits do not get forgotten.

A real technical SEO audit New

The first task on day one is a deep technical audit that crawls your whole site, not just the homepage. It grades your on-page health and groups every issue by severity: critical, warning and notice. You see clear, plain-language problems like missing H1s, no content compression, duplicate titles, images without alt text and slow-loading pages, ranked by how many pages each one affects.

See exactly which pages have each issue New

A count is not enough. Click any issue in the report and it expands to list the exact page URLs affected, so “38 pages without alt text” becomes an actionable list you can open and fix one by one.

Honest URL analysis Improved

We check your URL structure with our own logic rather than a black-box score, so clean URLs are never wrongly flagged. Growth OS only calls out URLs that genuinely have query parameters, invalid characters or excessive length, and confirms when everything is clean.

Directory Tracker New

A brand-new page to run your directory outreach like a pro. Add directories from a curated list of high-authority options or your own, track each one from planned to submitted to live, and keep the domain rating, pricing, submission date and your listing URL in one place. Every entry has a private space for the login email, password and notes you need to manage the submission, and links straight into the full growth database to find more.

Reusable submission copy New

Filling directory forms is tedious. Write your product name, tagline and short, medium and long descriptions once, then copy any of them to your clipboard with a single click while you work through submissions. No more digging through old docs for the right blurb.

Auto-verified setup Improved

Some setup tasks verify themselves. Once Search Console is connected, Growth OS confirms the connection and checks whether your sitemap is registered, then completes those tasks for you so your progress reflects reality without extra clicks.

Available now New

The rebuilt Growth OS is live. New sites see their day-by-day program the moment they open it, complete with today’s tasks, a deep audit and the Directory Tracker. Pick a project and start day one.

This is the big one. Growth OS turns ShubHQ from a collection of tools into a single self-running workflow. Connect a project once and Growth OS analyzes your site, hands you a prioritized monthly plan, tracks what you complete, proves the real growth, then replans the next month with AI. It gets smarter every cycle. Everything below is new in this release.

A visual growth workflow New

Growth OS opens on a dark, n8n-style canvas. Your project is the starting node, connected to six phase nodes: Project Analysis, Content, Authority, Rank and Demand, AI Visibility, and Social Growth. Run a phase and it lights up; completed phases turn green and unlock the next, with live connectors showing the flow. It is the first time your whole growth motion lives in one place you can actually see.

The closed loop: analyze, plan, track, prove, replan New

Most tools stop at a report. Growth OS runs a full loop. It reads your existing analysis, turns it into a prioritized monthly task list with real KPI targets, tracks completion, measures the actual deltas at month end, and feeds all of it into next month’s plan.

Monthly task plan with real KPIs New

Each phase generates specific, prioritized tasks tied to targets pulled from your own data, for example “reach 70 points in Content” or “secure 7 quality links.” Every task links straight to the tool that gets it done. No generic advice, no staring at 50 metrics wondering what to do next.

AI monthly report and replan New

At month end, Growth OS measures your plan completion and the real movement in authority, organic and visibility, then writes an honest performance summary and proposes next month’s plan. Unfinished critical work carries over, and the plan adapts to what actually moved. You review it and apply it with one click; nothing changes without your approval.

Auto-tracked tasks New

Tasks that can be measured from local data update themselves. Re-run your Scorecard and the matching tasks refresh and complete automatically once they hit target, so your progress stays accurate without busywork.

Growth Copilot New

An AI copilot lives right in the canvas. It can see this project’s current tasks and your latest report, so it answers with real task titles and numbers. Ask what to focus on, how to finish a task, or what will move rankings fastest.

Phases reuse your analysis, no double charge Improved

Growth OS reads the analysis you already have instead of re-running paid tools. Onboarding the workflow is free. If a phase needs data you have not generated yet, it points you to the right tool with a single click rather than charging you twice.

Smart reminders New

A gentle weekly nudge keeps momentum: if you have open tasks for the month, Growth OS emails you the top priorities with a link straight back into the workflow. Respects your notification preferences and never spams.

Available now New

Growth OS is live in beta for all projects, with its own product page and full guide. Pick a project from the sidebar and run your first workflow.

A focused design pass on the Backlink Analyzer. The raw backlink numbers from v1.5 are now wrapped in a visual layer that reads at a glance; a Health Score gauge up top, distribution breakdowns across the Overview, and clear data-freshness signals on every tab.

Health Score Hero New

A composite 0 to 100 Health Score now sits at the top of every Overview, rendered as a circular gauge ring with its band (Good / Fair / Poor) and a one-line recommendation. The score factors in referring-domain diversity, dofollow ratio, spam signals, and link velocity.

”Why This Score?” Drawer New

Click Why this score? to expand an explainer: a penalty breakdown (exactly what cost you points) on one side, and a prioritized “What to do next” action list on the other. No more guessing what a number means.

Distribution Breakdowns New

The Overview gained five visual breakdown panels rendered as horizontal bars:

• Link Types: anchor, image, redirect
• Where on Page: footer, section, aside, nav, header, article
• Source Platforms: CMS, blogs, organization, ecommerce, message-boards
• Link Attributes: nofollow, noopener, noreferrer, external, UGC
• Top Countries: backlink origin by country, with flags

Over-optimization and link-quality patterns that were buried in tables are now obvious at a glance.

CACHE / LIVE Freshness Pills New

Every tab now shows whether its data came fresh from the API (LIVE) or from cache (CACHE), so you always know how current the numbers are; and which views are costing credits versus served free from cache.

Tracked Domains Trend Cards Improved

The Tracked Domains panel now renders inline sparkline trends for Domain Rating, Referring Domains, and Backlinks, each with its day-over-day delta, so movement is visible without opening the full History tab.

Polish Improved

KPI cards gained sparklines and delta badges, tabular-aligned numerals, and consistent accent styling. The whole module now reads as a single cohesive dashboard rather than a stack of tables.

We’ve rebuilt Backlink Analytics from scratch on top of the DataForSEO Backlinks API. The old “My Backlinks” page is retired; the new Backlink Analyzer is a full Ahrefs/SEMrush-equivalent backlink intelligence module. Type any domain, get the full profile in under 30 seconds.

Seven New Tabs New

Overview New DR (Ahrefs-equivalent, calibrated via 0.63 factor), referring domains, total backlinks, referring IPs, spam score, and first-seen date. Six KPI cards on a single screen.

Backlinks New Full filterable list with DR, anchor text, dofollow/nofollow badge, broken flag, and first/last-seen dates. Server-side filter, sort, paginate, and CSV export.

Referring Domains New Every linking site grouped by domain, with top-countries and top-TLDs aggregations. Country filter and DR threshold slider.

Anchors New Automatic classification into six buckets (branded, exact, partial, naked URL, generic, empty) with a donut-chart distribution. Catches over-optimization at a glance.

History New Up to 3 years of monthly DR / RD / backlinks trend, plus a monthly new-vs-lost bar chart and a snapshot table. Ahrefs Lite ($129/mo) only gives 6 months.

Competitors New Sites that share the most referring domains with the analyzed target, plus a one-click Link Gap runner that surfaces every domain linking to a rival but not you.

Top Pages New Most-linked pages on the target, ranked by backlinks, referring domains, or page DR. Broken/live status per page.

Tracked Domains + Daily Cron New

“Track” any analyzed domain (plan limit: 1 / 3 / 6). A daily cron refreshes each tracked domain, diffs against yesterday’s snapshot, and sends in-app, email, and Telegram notifications when new backlinks or referring domains appear. You’re notified within a day of getting linked, not weeks later.

Settings Integration New

The new My Projects picker on the analyzer page pulls your brands and competitors from Settings > Profile > Competitor Tracking. Selecting a brand auto-fills the domain and pre-loads competitors into the Link Gap analysis; one click, full audit.

DR Calibration New

Domain Rating is now displayed on the Ahrefs scale (raw DataForSEO rank x 0.63) so numbers stay comparable across tools. No more “DR 62 here equals DR 39 there” confusion.

Export & Reporting New

CSV download on every tab (UTF-8 BOM, Excel-ready). Printable PDF report that pre-fetches all data sections and opens a single-page summary ready for client delivery.

Credit Costs

Tab	Cost	Cache
Overview	1 credit	24 hours
Backlinks	2 credits	24 hours
Referring Domains	2 credits	24 hours
Anchors	2 credits	7 days
History	4 credits	7 days
Competitors	3 credits	7 days
Link Gap	5 credits	7 days
Top Pages	2 credits	24 hours

A full one-shot domain audit with all tabs = ~20 credits. Cache hits are always free.

Retired

The old “My Backlinks” manual tracker has been moved to legacy. Sidebar entry renamed from “My Backlinks” to “Backlink Analyzer”.

A new module that turns your tracked keywords into a curated list of link-building opportunities; listicles, comparisons and “best of” pages where your product belongs, each scored by AI and paired with a tailored outreach angle.

New Features

Listicle Opportunity Discovery New Amplifies your Rank Tracker keywords into listicle-shaped SERP queries (“best X 2026”, “top X tools”, “X alternatives”), pulls live Google results via API, and surfaces real link-worthy pages; deduplicated, self-domain filtered, and ranked by AI fit.

Hybrid AI Scoring New Two-stage pipeline: a fast pre-filter scores dozens of URLs in seconds, then Claude Sonnet writes a specific outreach angle for each high-fit opportunity; citing what the list is missing and why your product fits.

AI-Written Outreach Emails New Click Copy email on any opportunity and an LLM drafts a full, personalized pitch (subject + body) in ~1.5 seconds. Each email is article-specific and references your website; no templates, no boilerplate.

Smart Contact Finder New Click Reach via on any card and we open a precisely-scoped Google site search; site:domain.com contact for email targets, "guest post" for editorial, claim for aggregator listings.

Pipeline Tabs New All, New, Saved, Contacted, Won. Live counts update with every status change and respect your active filters.

Permanent Blacklist New Hide an irrelevant opportunity once; it never reappears, even in future Generate Plan runs. URLs you’ve already secured a link from can also be dismissed cleanly.

Keyword Clustering New Similar keywords like “status page tool”, “public status page” and “status page free” are grouped automatically (Jaccard >= 0.6) so modifiers run once per cluster; cuts SERP cost by ~3x.

Monthly Modifier Rotation New Different modifier sets each month (best-of, alternatives, comparison, review). Repeat runs surface fresh opportunities instead of the same SERPs.

Past Plans History New Every run is archived. Open any past plan to revisit its exact opportunities. Tier-based limits (Free 1, Starter 5, Pro 20, Business unlimited).

Pricing

Quota-based with credit overage:

• Free; 1 preview run / month (1 keyword)
• Starter; 1 / month
• Pro; 2 / month
• Business; 4 / month

New Features

Real Competitor Content Gap New

The “Competitor Content Gap” section now pulls true keyword data via the DataForSEO Labs domain_intersection endpoint instead of scraping Google search results. Each gap row shows the actual monthly search volume, keyword difficulty (KD 0–100) and CPC, plus the competitor’s real ranking position. Up to 5 competitors and 25 deduplicated gaps per analysis.

Volume, KD & CPC Across All Tables New

Quick Wins (Pos 8–20) and High Potential (Pos 20–40) tables are now enriched with live DataForSEO metrics: Search Volume, Keyword Difficulty (color-coded badge), CPC, and a new Opportunity Score (0–100). Two API calls cover up to 1,000 keywords — no per-row overhead.

Opportunity Score Sorting New

Every keyword now has a single 0–100 score combining traffic potential, volume, position, and difficulty. Tables are sorted by this score by default, so the most impactful keywords surface at the top.

Long-tail Keyword Discovery New

A new section between High Potential and Competitor Gap lets you expand 1–5 seed keywords into long-tail variants via DataForSEO Labs keyword_suggestions. Built-in filters for Min Volume, Min Words and Max KD. The discovery automatically excludes keywords you already rank for in Google Search Console.

Smart Per-Keyword Actions New

“Suggested Action” is no longer one of three canned strings. The backend now picks from six scenarios based on KD + Volume + Position + CTR (e.g. “High-volume opportunity — expand content”, “Skip for now — KD too high vs current authority”, “Add internal links + FAQ schema (low KD)”).

Richer AI Topic Clusters New

Cluster generation now feeds the LLM a richer keyword pool: your top GSC queries plus DataForSEO seed expansion of the top 3 performers. Each cluster card now exposes a Pillar article title and Target Keywords chips alongside the supporting ideas.

Topic Cluster Caching + Refresh New

Topic clusters are cached per user for 7 days, keyed by your GSC snapshot + country, eliminating repeat AI cost on every page load. A new Refresh button bypasses the cache when you want to regenerate. A small status line shows whether the result is freshly generated or served from cache.

Growth Plan & Content Calendar Persistence New

“Add to Growth Plan”, “Add to Content Calendar”, “Add Cluster to Calendar” and “Add All High-Impact” now persist to a new keyword_action_items table. Each entry stores the full keyword snapshot (volume, KD, CPC, opportunity, suggestion, source section). Duplicate adds are silently deduplicated. Inline toast notifications replace the previous browser alerts.

Improvements

Working Date / Country / Device Filters

The three filters at the top of the page are now wired to the backend. Changing any of them re-fetches the data with the correct lookback, DataForSEO location code and device dimension.

Honest Difficulty Labeling

The old “Difficulty (AI)” column — which was actually a CTR threshold — has been renamed to CTR Level, and a real KD column has been added alongside it driven by DataForSEO data.

Multi-Intent Detection

Search intent inference now distinguishes Transactional (signup, demo, free trial, pricing) from Commercial and Informational, reducing the “Mixed” fallback that previously dominated the table.

Bug Fixes

Removed Fabricated Competitor Data Fix

The previous version of the Competitor Gap section generated volume and position values with rand() after scraping page titles via a site: query — surfacing data that looked real but wasn’t. The legacy code path has been deprecated and now returns an empty array; all competitor data is sourced from DataForSEO Labs.

New Features

Analytics Charts New

Three new visualizations on the Rank Tracker page: Rising Keywords (biggest rank gains), Falling Keywords (biggest rank drops), and Keyword Volatility (standard deviation of rank movement). Each chart updates per project and supports 7-day, 30-day, 90-day, and 12-month windows. Live data from your historical rank checks — see at a glance which keywords are climbing, which need attention, and which are unstable.

Project Tabs New

Switch between your tracked domains with a single click. Each tab shows the domain, its live keyword count, and a “Primary” badge for your main project. Plan limit visible at all times (e.g. 2/10 projects used).

Competitor Tabs New

Compact horizontal strip showing all competitors tracked for the active project. Selecting a competitor lets you compare its keyword performance against yours. Limit per project varies by plan: Free (1), Starter (3), Pro (4), Business (5).

Plan Badge in Header New

Your current plan (Free / Starter / Pro / Business) is now displayed in the page header with a color-coded chip — instant visibility into your limits without leaving the tool.

Compact GP Cost Popover New

The “How API GP Work” section is no longer a giant card. Click the (i) How GP works button in the header for a clean popover showing exact GP cost per rank tier (1–10 = 10 GP, 41–50 = 50 GP, etc.). Less clutter, same information.

Improvements

Complete UI Redesign

The Rank Tracker page has been rebuilt from the ground up using a new design system: neutral background palette, refined typography (Inter, 13–14px base), 6–8px corner radii, and accent-only turquoise. Buttons are solid (no more gradients), shadows are subtle, and every element follows a consistent 4/8/12/16/24/32 spacing scale. Result: cleaner, more professional, and easier on the eyes.

Smarter Keyword Form

The “Add Keyword” composer is now constrained to a sensible width with a search icon inside the input. Country selector got 4 new options (Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, China) — all backed by local flag assets instead of a CDN dependency.

Keyword Table Polish

Each row now shows a numbered chip (#1, #2, …) for easier counting and reference. Sort the table by any column and numbers re-flow automatically. Flag icons have been replaced with sharper local PNGs.

Live Keyword Counts

Project tabs now show live keyword counts pulled directly from your active keywords — no more stale numbers from cached fields.

Bug Fixes

Orphaned Keywords Fix

Fixed orphaned keywords that were not linked to any domain (domain_id IS NULL), causing dashboard counts to be lower than actual keyword usage.

Country Flag CDN Fix

Country select previously showed flags via an external CDN that occasionally failed to load — all flags are now bundled locally for instant rendering.

Duplicate Domain Display Fix

Project tabs and “Your Domain” card no longer duplicate the same domain in two places.

New Features

Subreddit Matchmaker New

AI-powered subreddit recommendations tailored to your niche, content type, and brand. Get 6-8 curated subreddits with member counts, activity scores, moderation strictness, self-promotion tolerance, and best posting hours - all in one click.

Best Time to Post New

Analyze any subreddit’s last 90 days of activity to find the optimal posting windows for your timezone. Visual weekly heatmap shows engagement intensity across all 168 hours of the week.

Search History New

Your Subreddit Matchmaker and Best Time to Post searches are now saved automatically. Click the new Past Searches button next to either tool to re-run any of your last 20 queries in a single click. Searches persist across devices and browsers.

Sidebar Redesign New

We’ve restructured the sidebar to surface our most powerful tools and make ShubHQ easier to navigate on day one:

• Home - single-click access to your dashboard
• Backlinks, Rank Tracker, AI Visibility, Social Growth are now top-level flagship menus instead of being buried inside groups
• AI Visibility (formerly AEO) - renamed for clarity, now marked with a NEW badge
• Social Growth now contains two unified pages:
  • Growth Tools - Reddit, LinkedIn, and Twitter/X (coming soon) in one tabbed view
  • Keyword Monitor - Reddit, LinkedIn, and Twitter/X (coming soon) keyword tracking in one tabbed view
• Analyze (formerly Insights), Discover, and a consolidated Account menu sit below the flagship tools

Fixes

Best Time to Post heatmap Fix

Fixed cell stretching and column collapse on narrower viewports; the grid now scrolls horizontally on small screens.

Subreddit Matchmaker Fix

When AI generation is temporarily unavailable, curated baseline recommendations are now shown instead of an error.

ShubHQ 1.0 is officially live. We could not be happier to share it with you.

From the day this project started, 28 April 2025, to today, exactly 52 weeks and 2,130 hours of focused work have gone into making it real. One year, one solo developer, and a single idea worth building: that organic visibility should not depend on the size of your ad budget.

A personal note

I started ShubHQ as a solo developer, and I want to begin by thanking the two people who carried me through the hard parts. To my wife and my daughter, for the patience, the understanding, and the hours you gave up so I could keep building. Every late night and every weekend belonged to you, and you let me have them anyway. Thank you.

The journey

It all started on April 28, 2025, as a quiet side project on my laptop. A few months later, on July 12, 2025, I sent the very first tweet about the project — back when it was still called ScaleUpSaasHub.com. The idea was already crystal clear: help founders grow organically without burning money on ads.

In late 2025 the original ScaleUpSaasHub experiment was spun off as a free, open-source project that collects and shares marketing data for SaaS tools, while the platform side of the work kept growing into what you see today. Then on April 6, 2026, I shared the first peek at the ShubHQ login panel — and exactly three weeks later, on April 27, 2026, ShubHQ 1.0 went live. One year, one solo developer, two restless arrows, and a single idea worth building.

Why ShubHQ exists

I have spent years working alongside SaaS founders and e-commerce operators, helping them grow organically, without the infinite ad budget that the playbook usually assumes. That work taught me one thing very clearly: for a growth specialist managing digital projects, visibility is everything. And visibility that you earn through real engagement is worth far more than visibility you rent through paid links that add nothing of substance.

We are entering a new era. The first quarter of 2025 made that obvious, vibe coding hit a tipping point, building software became dramatically easier, and the number of new SaaS projects, micro-SaaS, and indie e-commerce stores is going to keep accelerating. But the other side of that coin is harder: user acquisition and sustainable revenue are getting more competitive, not less. Solo builders are entering the market every day. Micro-SaaS founders are trying to launch with very little capital. Independent e-commerce operators are fighting to sell genuinely great products in an increasingly crowded space.

Visibility has never been more expensive or more difficult.

ShubHQ is my answer to that. The core question I kept asking was simple: how do you become more visible without spending money you don’t have? Everything in the platform is built around that question.

What we built

ShubHQ is a single dashboard that brings together everything an indie founder, growth specialist, SEO professional, AEO/GEO operator, or backlink analyst needs to grow organically, at a price that does not punish you for being early.

22 growth modules in one place

Across the past year I built and tested 22 growth modules, including:

• LinkedIn Growth & Reddit Growth - track and engage where your audience already is
• Competitor Tracking & Analysis - monitor competitors and benchmark your position
• Project Analysis & Market Growth Strategies - data-driven insights to scale your project
• Trend Tracking & Analysis - spot emerging trends before they peak
• Growth Database - 3,000+ vetted backlink opportunities across SaaS, e-commerce, and niche communities
• AEO / LLM Visibility - see how AI assistants describe your brand and improve it
• Keyword & Backlink Monitoring, AI Project Analysis, and more

Every module was built by testing it against real SaaS and e-commerce projects I work with, not in a lab. The advantage of being a solo developer who is also a real growth practitioner is that I could be the first user, every day, for a year.

Who ShubHQ is for

• SaaS founders building from MVP to scale
• E-commerce operators competing on more than just ad spend
• Growth, SEO, AEO, and GEO specialists who need a unified workspace
• Backlink analysts and link builders tracking authority over time
• Indie founders who want everything in one panel at a price that respects their stage

What’s next

22 modules in 52 weeks is a beginning, not a finish line. The modules are not perfect, none of them ever are on day one, but we have a test team and our earliest users already shaping what comes next. Your feedback is going to do more for this product than any internal roadmap I could write alone.

What I can promise is the energy and the discipline to keep improving. I hope to be updating this changelog with excitement for many years, and to keep serving the founders and operators who choose to grow with us.

If you are reading this, thank you for being here on day one.

• Aydin, founder