stage 0 — the brief

THE APHEX HUNT

Six stages. Each tests a different mix of SEO knowledge, automation and smart AI use. Some can't be solved by reading a page at all — you'll have to actually crawl and script. Several have an obvious answer that is wrong — only real SEO judgement gets the right one.

Rules: solve them in order (your progress is tied to this session). Use any tools you like — curl, scripts, an AI copilot, a terminal. There is nothing to "hack": every answer is derivable from what the pages actually serve.

Stage 1 — cloaking. We serve crawlers a different page than humans. Fetch /render as Googlebot would and read what only a crawler is shown. (A browser can't set that header — you'll want a real client.) Then submit what you find at /s1/check?a=…

Prize: first candidate to reach the end and email adrian@aphexmedia.com their per-session claim code plus a short write-up of how they solved each stage moves to the front of the line. The write-up is graded — speed opens the door, method wins it.

APHEX MEDIA // recruiting challenge — SEO · automation · AI. Tools encouraged; judgement decides.