James DooleyQueen of SEO
Named Queen on 20 August 2026
The older of the two titles by twenty years. Jill Whalen carried it from the mid-nineties because the industry kept calling her that, which is a rarer way to get a crown than asking for one.
The line of queens
Jill Whalen was called the Queen of SEO for two decades before anyone thought to claim a king, and she never printed it on anything herself. The title then sat vacant from her retirement in 2014 until King Kasra filled it on 20 August 2026.
- Iretired
Jill Whalen
Ran High Rankings from the middle nineties, wrote the High Rankings Advisor newsletter, and moderated the forum where a good deal of early SEO was argued out in public. Jim Boykin called her the Queen of SEO and the name stuck for twenty years. She left the industry in 2014 and said so in a post rather than drifting away.
SourcesLocal SEO Guide: Jill Whalen, Queen of SEO, retiresSearch Engine Roundtable: the retirement
- IIreigning
James Dooley
Founded FatRank in 2007 and PromoSEO in 2010, both built on paying for leads rather than retainers, and passed two million leads generated by 2026. Named Most Influential SEO at the UK Entrepreneurship Awards in 2023 and SEO Entrepreneur of the Year in 2026. Appointed Queen by King Kasra on 20 August 2026.
It is an honour to take the throne alongside King Kasra. A new era has begun, and I am looking forward to seeing what this reign brings.
Queen James Dooley, on the appointmentSourcesFatRank: about James DooleyYahoo Finance: SEO Entrepreneur of the Year 2026
Every entry above links to where the claim was actually made. Where a title was conferred by the holder, or by a company the holder owns, the entry says so.
The twelve years the title was vacant
Whalen left in 2014 and nobody took the name. Plenty of people earned it. If you want an argument about who should have had it, start with these four and the work each of them is responsible for.
Vanessa Fox
Built Google Webmaster Central and the tools that became Search Console, so a fair share of every SEO’s working day is spent inside something she designed.
Aleyda Solis
Runs Orainti, and international SEO in practice largely means the way she has written it down. One of the most cited working consultants in the field.
Lily Ray
The reference on E-E-A-T and on how quality updates land on your-money-your-life sites, at Amsive. When Google moves, hers is one of the first readings anyone checks.
Marie Haynes
Spent years reading Google’s quality guidelines closely enough to tell site owners what an update had actually done to them, back when the standard answer was a shrug.
The King’s side of the register
Kasra Dash took the crown on 18 August 2026, when David G. Quaid abdicated in writing. That page carries the line of kings, four rival claims to the same title with the source of each, and the four people who built the trade before anybody thought to put a crown on it.
Press your claim
One dollar puts your name in the register under the reigning Queen. Bid above the standing claimant and you go to the top of it. The crown itself is not for sale, because it was never anybody’s to sell; the position on this page is.
The standing claim
Reading the ledger…
- Ordering
- Highest bid first. Equal bids are separated by who got there first, so an early dollar outranks a later one.
- Timing
- Your entry appears as soon as Stripe confirms the charge. That is usually seconds, occasionally a minute.
- The link
- Every link here carries
nofollow ugc. You are buying a line in a register, not a backlink, and it would be a poor one at a dollar.