About Rankyl

Rankyl is a free online course that teaches search engine optimization (SEO), answer engine optimization (AEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO), from absolute beginner to expert. It has 53 guides in 9 modules, a glossary, free tools and a final exam, with no signup, no paywall and no ads.

Why it exists

Most SEO education is either a sales funnel for a tool or a pile of blog posts written for a different decade. Search has changed more since 2024 than in the ten years before it: AI Overviews and AI Mode answer questions on the results page, ChatGPT and Perplexity cite sources directly, and the old checklist advice no longer adds up to a strategy.

Rankyl is one connected curriculum that treats classic SEO and AI search as the same discipline, written for the people who actually build and run websites: developers, marketers and founders.

Who builds it

Rankyl is designed, written and maintained by Haikal Akif. Every guide credits its author and shows the date it was last reviewed, because a course that teaches E-E-A-T should practise it.

How guides are made

• Claims are checked against primary sources first: Google Search Central, Bing Webmaster documentation, web.dev and the vendors' own docs. Each guide lists its sources at the end.
• Statistics are always dated and attributed. Opinion is labelled as opinion.
• Guides are re-reviewed when search changes, and every substantive change is recorded in the changelog.

The full standards, including how AI tools are and are not used, are in the editorial policy.

Why it is free

Because good SEO knowledge should not be gated behind a tool subscription. Rankyl has no ads, no affiliate links and no sponsored placements, so no guide recommends a tool because someone paid for it to.

Contact and corrections

Found an error, or something that has gone out of date? Every guide has a “Report it” link, or email haikalakif17@gmail.com. Corrections are fixed and logged. The curriculum was last updated 5 October 2026.