A brass balance scale with Studio on the lower pan and Agent X on the higher pan

I run two site builders. Studio is the new one. It is still in beta with about 130 users, and it builds static sites. Agent X is the one most Xagio customers have access to today; it builds WordPress sites through the Xagio plugin. Both push their keywords into the Xagio Rank Tracker when a site goes live, so for the first time I can put them side by side on the same data.

This is what one month of rankings looks like for every site built with either tool between September 7 and October 8, 2026. Studio: 276 sites, 4,119 keywords. Agent X: 222 sites, 2,810 keywords. Rankings are a single-day snapshot taken October 8.

How to read this

Sites are grouped by age: week 1 (1 to 7 days), week 2, week 3, and week 4 (22 to 30 days). A site built on day one and a site built on day twenty are not at the same point in their life, so comparing totals would be meaningless. Comparing week-3 sites to week-3 sites is fair.

One rule for the whole post: every keyword is scored to position 10 and no deeper. Studio users mostly track to position 100 and Agent X users mostly track to position 10, so if I used each tool's own data the two would be on different rulers. Capping both at 10 puts them on the same one. The cost is that Studio's deeper movement (positions 11 to 100) is hidden from the comparison; I show it separately at the end as Studio-only.

Each chart has Studio in blue and Agent X in red, with the percent and the raw count on every bar, and the site and keyword count for each tool under each age band. Every section ends with a winner and the reason.

Keywords on page one

Percent of tracked keywords in positions 1 to 10.

0%1.4%2.8%4.2%5.6%7%1.3%5 of 3860.7%9 of 1,203Week 11-7 daysStudio: 31 sites, 386 kwAgent X: 73 sites, 1,203 kw3%14 of 4731.9%8 of 413Week 28-14 daysStudio: 33 sites, 473 kwAgent X: 41 sites, 413 kw3.9%50 of 1,2882.4%15 of 626Week 315-21 daysStudio: 67 sites, 1,288 kwAgent X: 57 sites, 626 kw5.2%70 of 1,3462%11 of 550Week 422-30 daysStudio: 112 sites, 1,346 kwAgent X: 48 sites, 550 kw

Week 1 is mostly noise: almost nothing is indexed yet, Studio at 1.3% against 0.7%, which is 5 keywords against 9. Week 2 is where they look closest, 3.0% against 1.9%. From week 3 the gap opens: 3.9% against 2.4%, then 5.2% against 2.0% in week 4. Agent X flattens at around two percent from week 2 on; Studio keeps climbing.

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Winner

Studio

5.2% of keywords on page one by week 4 against 2.0% (70 of 1,346 against 11 of 550). Studio leads from week 2 and the lead grows every week.

Keywords in the top 3

Percent of tracked keywords in positions 1 to 3.

0%0.8%1.6%2.4%3.2%4%0.5%2 of 3860.4%5 of 1,203Week 11-7 daysStudio: 31 sites, 386 kwAgent X: 73 sites, 1,203 kw1.7%8 of 4730.7%3 of 413Week 28-14 daysStudio: 33 sites, 473 kwAgent X: 41 sites, 413 kw2.5%32 of 1,2881.8%11 of 626Week 315-21 daysStudio: 67 sites, 1,288 kwAgent X: 57 sites, 626 kw3%41 of 1,3460.7%4 of 550Week 422-30 daysStudio: 112 sites, 1,346 kwAgent X: 48 sites, 550 kw

The top 3 is where the money is on a local search. Studio puts 3% of its keywords there by week 4 (41 of 1,346); Agent X puts 0.7% (4 of 550). In week 3 it is 2.5% against 1.8%.

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Winner

Studio

3% of keywords in the top 3 by week 4 against 0.7%, about four times the rate. Studio leads from week 2.

Median position among page-one keywords

Of the keywords that made page one, where do they sit? Lower is better. The count under each bar is how many keywords the median rests on.

0246810#45 keywords#39 keywordsWeek 11-7 daysStudio: 31 sites, 386 kwAgent X: 73 sites, 1,203 kw#314 keywords#78 keywordsWeek 28-14 daysStudio: 33 sites, 473 kwAgent X: 41 sites, 413 kw#250 keywords#315 keywordsWeek 315-21 daysStudio: 67 sites, 1,288 kwAgent X: 57 sites, 626 kw#270 keywords#411 keywordsWeek 422-30 daysStudio: 112 sites, 1,346 kwAgent X: 48 sites, 550 kw

Once both tools are measured to the same depth, Studio's page-one keywords sit at #2 in weeks 3 and 4; Agent X's sit at #3 and #4. Week 1 and 2 numbers rest on a handful of keywords and should be read loosely. When Studio gets a keyword onto page one, it tends to land near the top of it.

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Winner

Studio

Median #2 against #4 in week 4, on 70 and 11 page-one keywords. Studio is at #2 from week 3 on.

Sites with at least one page-one keyword

Share of sites in each age band with at least one keyword in the top 10.

0%8%16%24%32%40%6.5%2 of 314.1%3 of 73Week 11-7 daysStudio: 31 sites, 386 kwAgent X: 73 sites, 1,203 kw27.3%9 of 3312.2%5 of 41Week 28-14 daysStudio: 33 sites, 473 kwAgent X: 41 sites, 413 kw37.3%25 of 6719.3%11 of 57Week 315-21 daysStudio: 67 sites, 1,288 kwAgent X: 57 sites, 626 kw33.9%38 of 11212.5%6 of 48Week 422-30 daysStudio: 112 sites, 1,346 kwAgent X: 48 sites, 550 kw

Same shape from the site's point of view. By week 4, 33.9% of Studio sites (38 of 112) have a keyword on page one. For Agent X it is 12.5% (6 of 48), about one site in eight. Agent X actually peaks in week 3 at 19.3% and drops in week 4; those are different sites, not the week 3 sites losing rankings.

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Winner

Studio

33.9% of week 4 sites have a page-one keyword against 12.5%. Nearly three times the share of sites.

How much of page one is the home page

Of the page-one keywords in each band, what share rank with the home page rather than an inner page?

0%20%40%60%80%100%0%0 of 533.3%3 of 9Week 11-7 daysStudio: 31 sites, 386 kwAgent X: 73 sites, 1,203 kw57.1%8 of 1412.5%1 of 8Week 28-14 daysStudio: 33 sites, 473 kwAgent X: 41 sites, 413 kw68%34 of 5066.7%10 of 15Week 315-21 daysStudio: 67 sites, 1,288 kwAgent X: 57 sites, 626 kw82.9%58 of 7081.8%9 of 11Week 422-30 daysStudio: 112 sites, 1,346 kwAgent X: 48 sites, 550 kw

This is the one place the two tools look alike. By week 4, the home page holds 82.9% of Studio's page-one keywords (58 of 70) and 81.8% of Agent X's (9 of 11). In month one, Google ranks the home page and the inner pages wait, whichever tool built the site. Agent X's early wins skew to inner pages (week 1 and 2), then the home page takes over from week 3, same as Studio.

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Winner

Tie

Both tools land about four out of five page-one keywords on the home page by week 4. This is Google treating a new site, not a difference between the builders.

Scoreboard

4
Studio
0
Agent X
1
Tie

Five measurements, every one on the same ruler for both tools. Studio takes the four that measure ranking strength; the fifth, which page Google ranks first, comes out even because it is about Google, not the builder.

What Studio's deeper tracking shows (Studio only)

Because most Studio users track to position 100, I can see the 11 to 100 range for Studio sites. I cannot see it for Agent X, so there is no comparison here, only context on what a new site's first month looks like below the fold. Studio also records which page each keyword was written for, so this chart splits by intended page: home page keywords, inner page keywords, each as a share of its own group.

0%10%20%30%40%50%8.6%7 of 813.1%8 of 262Week 11-7 days32 sites403 keywords81 home, 262 inner27.5%33 of 12020.3%60 of 296Week 28-14 days32 sites456 keywords120 home, 296 inner23.2%49 of 21120.3%164 of 809Week 315-21 days67 sites1,288 keywords211 home, 809 inner39.2%127 of 32425.8%220 of 854Week 422-30 days113 sites1,355 keywords324 home, 854 inner26.8%30 of 11214.3%57 of 399Group 231-60 days32 sites617 keywords112 home, 399 inner

By week 4, 39.2% of Studio's home page keywords rank somewhere in the top 100 (127 of 324), against 5.2% on page one. For inner pages it is 25.8% (220 of 854) anywhere, against 1.6% on page one. Most of a new site's first-month movement is happening at positions 11 to 100, which is exactly the range Agent X's default tracking does not see. If you run Agent X sites, set the tracker depth to 100; you are flying blind on the part of the month where the site is actually moving.

This gets updated after 60 days

One month is a first read, not a verdict. On the same ruler, Studio wins every measurement of ranking strength: more keywords on page one, more in the top 3, higher on the page when it gets there, and more sites with a page-one keyword. That is with 130 beta users on a product that is a month old.

Both tools behave the same way in one respect: the home page does the ranking in month one, and inner pages wait. That is Google treating a new site, not a difference between the builders.

I will run the same measurement again when both tools have 60 days of data: same sites, same ruler, same five sections. That lands in early November, and I will update this post with the results whichever way they go. If Agent X closes the gap once its sites have aged, you will read it here. If Studio pulls further ahead, same.

If you are one of the 130 in the Studio beta, this is why I keep asking you to push your keywords to the tracker. The data is the product.

Notes on the data

  • Studio sites come from the Studio database (publish state live). Agent X sites come from the plugin's run log in the Xagio panel. Both sets are matched to the Rank Tracker by domain.
  • Every ranking is capped at position 10 for both tools. A keyword at position 11 or deeper counts as not ranking, whatever depth the user chose to track.
  • Site age is measured from publish for Studio (earliest of publish, hosting provision, or first tracker push) and from the first Agent X run log entry for Agent X.
  • The two groups differ in age. Studio sites have a median age of 22 days; Agent X sites 13 days. Comparing age band to age band handles this. Sites past 30 days are left out (Studio 33, Agent X 3).
  • Single-day snapshot, October 8, 2026. Next measurement at the two-month mark, early November.