Summary: Week 12 of the HivePulse SEO Contest is settled. Three writers entered and all three tied on a perfect score, so the podium came down to the reading-ease tiebreak and then to who published first. 350 HIVE is going out. Week 13 is open.
HivePulse SEO Contest week 12 results
Three writers entered, and for the second round running the top of the board was a tie on a perfect 200/200 - this time all the way across. The reading-ease tiebreak separated third place by a single point. The two left standing both read 60 exactly, so the published cascade fell through to earliest publication, and 55 minutes decided the round. Three valid entrants put this in the under-10 tier, so the podium pool is 300 HIVE, plus the 50 HIVE X prize. 350 HIVE is going out.
| Place | Author | Post | SEO | GEO | Ease | Published | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  @ahmedabbaci | Dunki & Illegal Immigration: My 5 Essential View [Eng/Esp] | 100 | 100 | 60 | 13 Oct 13:48 | 150 HIVE |
| 2 |  @nabbas0786 | How Was Our Crazy 1 Day Canal Adventure? [Eng/Urdu] | 100 | 100 | 60 | 13 Oct 14:43 | 100 + 50 HIVE |
| 3 |  @wardah | Best Crochet Journey Part 2: Lets Go Shopping (Some) Yarns | 100 | 100 | 61 | 14 Oct 21:03 | 50 HIVE |
The scores are re-derived from each post's on-chain content with the same HivePulse scoring engine the extension uses. Every entry this round was checked and cleared on all three counts that usually catch people out: all are root posts, all were published inside the window, and all three carry #hivepulse in the real tag list rather than only in the body.
A perfect board, and 55 minutes between first and second
Every entry scored 100 SEO and 100 GEO. Nobody lost a point anywhere. That has never happened before in this contest, and it is worth saying plainly before anything else: all three of you wrote posts that the analyzer could not fault.
Which meant the tiebreak had to do all the work.
Two GEO checks were measuring the wrong thing. Fixed from week 13.
We said last week that the GEO score was getting harder, and it did - these three posts were scored on the new rubric. They took 100 anyway, and on the rubric as published they earned it. But a perfect board made us go and check the rubric itself, and we found two checks that were not doing what their names say. Both are fixed in HivePulse 1.16.0, and both apply from week 13 - this round, announced here before it opens.
1. "Concrete detail" was counting ordinary words as names. That check looks for capitalised words to find the people, places and dates in your story. But the first word of every sentence is capitalised too - so The, But, Thus and First were being scored as names. Across every entry this contest has ever scored, about half of what the check counted was capitalised only because a sentence started there. One post banked But fifteen times and The fifteen times as "concrete detail". It now ignores those.
It works by position, not by a list of words, and that matters for this contest specifically. We tried a word list first and threw it out: it would have left Spanish and Urdu entrants scoring full marks on prose that names nothing, while an English entrant writing about a friend called Will or Les would have had a real name thrown away. Position treats every language the same and never penalises you for who you wrote about.
2. A language tag in your title could hide your question mark. HivePulse decides what kind of post you wrote from the title, and a question post is one that ends in ?. A title like "How Was Our Crazy 1 Day Canal Adventure? [Eng/Urdu]" ends in ], so the question mark was invisible and the post was scored as a personal story instead. Question posts and personal posts are scored on different checks, so the wrong set was being applied. Four posts in this contest's history went down that path. The tag is now ignored when we look for the question mark.
What this means for your score. If you write personal stories, your GEO may dip a few points - the check is now measuring what it always claimed to. If you put a language tag after a question in your title, you will now be scored as an informational post: stricter checks, but the right ones for that kind of writing. Across all 77 entries we have ever scored, perfect GEO scores go from 13% to 8%, and the median moves 86 to 83. The two halves of the rubric also even out: personal posts were handing out perfect scores at 16% against 9% for informational ones, and both now sit at 8%.
Weeks 1 to 12 stay judged exactly as published. Nothing is reopened and nobody's placing changes. As always, anything that changes is announced before the round it applies to, never during.
The X engagement prize
Two valid quote-retweets this round. 
Week 13 is open - up to 500 HIVE
The prize ladder is unchanged, and still tied to the number of valid entrants:
| Valid entrants | Prize pool | Places paid |
|---|---|---|
| Under 10 | 300 HIVE | 150 · 100 · 50 |
| 10-19 | 400 HIVE | 200 · 100 · 60 · 40 |
| 20+ | 500 HIVE | 250 · 120 · 80 · 50 |
Three valid entries this round. Seven more people and the pool moves to 400 - and on a board where everyone scored 100, the only thing standing between this contest and a 400 HIVE round is more of you showing up.
Week 13 runs from 20 October to 27 October 2026, 12:00 UTC.
- Install HivePulse for Chrome or Firefox.
- Write and publish a new post on any supported Hive frontend with the analyzer open.
- Publish it inside the round window - between the two dates above. A post written before the round opened cannot be entered.
- Comment below with the post link and a screenshot of the SEO and GEO panel.
- Tag the post
#hivepulse- one word, no space, in the tags and not only in the body. Check the tag list before you hit publish. - You may enter more than one post. Your highest-scoring tagged post counts.
- If someone referred you, say so in your entry comment and name them. When the entry qualifies, both people receive 25 HIVE. The referred person must be new to the contest.
The minimum qualifying score is SEO 70. Any language is welcome. Every entry is re-scored on-chain after the round closes.
If two or more entries tie, the podium goes to the post whose Reading Ease is closest to 60, then to the earlier publication time. Unchanged, and this round shows exactly why it is worth reading twice.
The 50 HIVE X prize
Quote-retweet the Week 13 announcement tweet with your own words about your HivePulse experience. The quote-retweet with the most likes, reposts, and replies combined at the close wins 50 HIVE. Your quote-retweet must target the announcement itself, not a reply or your own post. No engagement farming.
Paste the link to your quote-retweet in your entry comment - the link to the tweet, not to your Hive post.
👉 This is the tweet to quote: https://x.com/HdevCore/status/2112604910059753495
Subscribe to Hdev Contests for each round. Questions and discussion are welcome in Discord, and HivePulse is also on X.
- The HivePulse Team (