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Absolute SEO

Comprehensive search engine optimization covering technical foundations, content quality, structured data, performance, local search, link building, international targeting, e-commerce, programmatic scale, and AI search surfaces. This skill is a senior SEO consultant - it provides frameworks for decisions, current data for benchmarks, and actionable checklists for execution.

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When to use this skill

Trigger when the user:

• Asks about improving search rankings, indexing, or crawlability
• Needs to implement or audit schema markup / structured data
• Wants to optimize Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS)
• Works on local SEO, Google Business Profile, or maps rankings
• Needs link building strategy or backlink audit
• Implements hreflang or multi-language/region targeting
• Optimizes e-commerce pages (products, categories, faceted navigation)
• Plans programmatic SEO at scale (location pages, comparison pages)
• Wants to optimize for AI search (Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity)
• Needs a comprehensive SEO audit or health check
• Asks about featured snippets, People Also Ask, or voice search
• Needs to configure robots.txt, sitemaps, or canonical tags

Do NOT trigger for:

• Keyword research workflows, difficulty scoring, gap analysis - use keyword-research skill
• Paid advertising (Google Ads, PPC campaigns)
• Social media marketing strategy
• General content writing without SEO focus

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Key Principles

1. Crawlable before rankable - If search engines cannot crawl and index your pages, nothing else matters. Fix technical foundations first.
2. E-E-A-T is demonstrated, not declared - Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness come from first-hand evidence, credentials, citations, and transparency - not claims.
3. Match user intent - Every page must satisfy the search intent behind target queries. Mismatched intent means zero chance of ranking regardless of optimization.
4. One canonical URL per content - Every piece of content should have exactly one authoritative URL. Duplicate and near-duplicate content wastes crawl budget and splits signals.
5. Measure, iterate, re-audit - SEO is not set-and-forget. Track rankings, traffic, and indexation. Re-audit quarterly. Expect 90-day windows before results stabilize.
6. GEO supplements SEO, does not replace it - AI search optimization builds on traditional SEO foundations. 92% of AI Overview citations come from pages already ranking in the top 10.

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Industry Detection

Detect site type to tailor recommendations: SaaS (/features, /pricing, /docs), E-commerce (/products, /cart, product schema), Local (phone, address, Maps embed, LocalBusiness schema), Publisher (/blog, article schema, author pages), Agency (/case-studies, /portfolio).

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Technical SEO

The crawl-index-rank pipeline: Googlebot discovers URLs (sitemaps, links) -> crawls HTML -> renders JavaScript -> indexes content -> ranks against queries.

Crawlability Essentials

• robots.txt: Allow CSS/JS (required for rendering). Include Sitemap: directive. Never Disallow: / on production.
• XML sitemaps: Max 50,000 URLs or 50MB per file. Use sitemap index for larger sites. <lastmod> must reflect actual content change dates.
• Canonical tags: Self-referencing canonicals on every page. Point URL variants (www/non-www, http/https, trailing slash) to the chosen canonical.
• Redirects: Use 301 for permanent moves. Single-hop only - chains waste crawl budget and leak PageRank. Audit redirect chains quarterly.
• Meta robots: noindex prevents indexing. nofollow prevents link equity flow. Can combine: noindex, nofollow. HTTP header X-Robots-Tag works for non-HTML.
• IndexNow: Instant indexing protocol for Bing, Yandex, Naver (not Google). Push URL changes immediately instead of waiting for crawl.

Rendering Strategy

SSG (lowest risk) > SSR > ISR > CSR (highest risk - content invisible until JS executes). Serve canonical, meta robots, title, description, and structured data in initial server-rendered HTML. Never rely on JavaScript injection for SEO-critical elements.

AI Crawler Management

Key crawlers: GPTBot (OpenAI training), ChatGPT-User (real-time browsing), ClaudeBot (Anthropic), PerplexityBot (search + training), Google-Extended (Gemini training only), Bytespider (ByteDance). Blocking Google-Extended does NOT affect Google Search or AI Overviews (those use Googlebot).

Load references/technical-seo-deep.md for crawl budget optimization, rendering implementations, redirect audit patterns, and JavaScript SEO details.

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On-Page & Content Quality

On-Page Hierarchy

Element	Guidelines
Title tag	50-60 chars, primary keyword near start, unique per page
Meta description	120-160 chars, include CTA, unique per page
H1	One per page, contains primary keyword
Headings	Logical hierarchy (H2 > H3 > H4), no skipping levels
Images	Descriptive alt text (10-125 chars), width/height for CLS, fetchpriority="high" on LCP image, decoding="async", WebP/AVIF, lazy load below fold only
Internal links	Descriptive anchor text (not "click here"), link to related content, distribute authority

E-E-A-T Framework (Updated Dec 2025)

As of December 2025, E-E-A-T applies to ALL competitive queries, not just YMYL. Anonymous/generic authorship is penalized even for non-YMYL content.

Signal	Weight	How to demonstrate
Experience	20%	First-hand testing, original photos/videos, case studies, specific examples
Expertise	25%	Author credentials, certifications, technical depth, author schema (ProfilePage)
Authoritativeness	25%	External citations, industry recognition, backlinks from authorities
Trustworthiness	30%	Contact info, privacy policy, HTTPS, reviews, date stamps, transparent corrections

AI content: Acceptable if it demonstrates genuine E-E-A-T. Penalized if generic, no unique value, no experience signals, or contains factual errors.

Content Quality Gates

Page type	Min words	Unique content
Homepage	500	100%
Service/Feature	800	100%
Blog post	1,500	100%
Product page	400	80%+
Category page	400	100%
Location (primary)	600	60%+
Location (secondary)	500	40%+
FAQ page	800	100%

Word count is NOT a ranking factor (John Mueller confirmed) - these are topical coverage floors.

Image Size Targets

Thumbnails <50KB, content images <100KB, hero/banner <200KB. Format priority: AVIF (93.8% support) > WebP (95.3%) > JPEG > PNG.

Load references/eeat-content-quality.md for full E-E-A-T scoring framework, content freshness signals, and framework-specific implementations.

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Schema Markup

Always use JSON-LD format (Google's explicit recommendation). Schema earns rich results but does not directly boost rankings. However, pages with structured data have 2.5x higher chance of appearing in AI-generated answers (Google & Microsoft, March 2025).

Active Types (Most Used)

Type	Rich result	Key requirement
Article / BlogPosting	Article carousel	headline, datePublished, author
Product	Shopping, price	name, offers with price/availability
LocalBusiness	Local pack, maps	name, address, telephone
Organization	Knowledge panel	name, url, logo
BreadcrumbList	Breadcrumb trail	itemListElement array
VideoObject	Video carousel	name, uploadDate, thumbnailUrl
Event	Event listing	name, startDate, location
SoftwareApplication	App info	name, offers, operatingSystem
ProfilePage	Author info	mainEntity with Person
ProductGroup	Variant selector	hasVariant, variesBy

Deprecated / Restricted - NEVER Recommend

Type	Status	Date
HowTo	Removed	Sept 2023
FAQPage	Restricted to gov/healthcare only	Aug 2023
SpecialAnnouncement	Retired	July 2025
CourseInfo, EstimatedSalary, LearningVideo	Deprecated	June 2025
ClaimReview, VehicleListing, Dataset	Deprecated	Late 2025

FAQPage exception: While Google no longer shows rich results for most sites, FAQPage schema still improves AI/LLM citation visibility on non-Google platforms.

E-commerce update: returnPolicyCountry in MerchantReturnPolicy is required since March 2025. Product Certification markup available since April 2025.

Validation

Test with Google Rich Results Test before deploy. Ensure: all required properties present, @context uses https://, all URLs absolute, dates in ISO 8601, no deprecated types, prices include ISO 4217 currency, content marked up is visible on page.

Load references/schema-types-full.md for complete type catalog, JSON-LD examples, and industry-specific implementations.

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Core Web Vitals

Metric	Good	Needs improvement	Poor	What it measures
LCP	<=2.5s	2.5-4.0s	>4.0s	Largest visible element load time
INP	<=200ms	200-500ms	>500ms	Responsiveness to user interaction
CLS	<=0.1	0.1-0.25	>0.25	Visual stability / layout shifts

INP replaced FID on March 12, 2024. FID fully removed September 9, 2024. INP = Input Delay + Processing Time + Presentation Delay.

• Evaluation: 75th percentile of real user data (CrUX). Field data (CrUX) determines ranking, not lab data (Lighthouse). CWV is a tiebreaker signal.
• December 2025 update: Mobile CWV weighted more heavily than desktop.

Top Bottlenecks

• LCP: Unoptimized hero images (no fetchpriority="high", lazy-loaded above fold), render-blocking CSS/JS, slow TTFB (>200ms)
• INP: Long JavaScript tasks (>50ms). Break with scheduler.yield(). Excessive DOM size (>1,500 elements).
• CLS: Images/iframes without width/height attributes. Web font FOUT/FOIT. Dynamically injected content above viewport.

Load references/cwv-performance.md for CrUX API queries, LCP subparts breakdown, and framework-specific fixes (Next.js, Nuxt, Astro).

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Local SEO

Ranking Factors (Whitespark 2026)

Factor	Weight
GBP Signals	32% (primary category is #1 signal)
Proximity	55.2% of ranking variance (Search Atlas ML)
Review Signals	~20% (up from 16% in 2023)
On-Page Signals	15-19%
Link Signals	Declining

GBP Optimization Priority

1. Primary category - Most specific subtype (e.g., "Cosmetic Dentist" not "Dentist")
2. Additional categories - Optimal: 4 additional
3. Complete business info - Name, address, phone, hours, website (NAP must match everywhere)
4. Photos - 10+ photos (logo, cover, interior, exterior, team, products). Refresh within 30 days.
5. Reviews - The 18-day rule: rankings cliff if no new reviews for 3 weeks. The magic 10: significant boost at 10 reviews. Never incentivize reviews.
6. Google Posts - 1+ per week (update, offer, event)
7. Services/Products - List all with descriptions
8. Note: GBP Q&A deprecated Dec 3, 2025 (replaced by Ask Maps Gemini AI). GBP messaging removed July 2025.

GBP Platform Changes (2025-2026)

• Diversity Update (2025): Harder to rank in BOTH map pack AND organic. Do NOT link GBP to your strongest organic page.
• Bing Places overhauled (Oct 2025) - now powers ChatGPT, Copilot, Alexa. Critical for AI visibility.
• Dedicated service pages = #1 local organic factor AND #2 AI visibility factor (Whitespark 2026).

Multi-Location

• Subdirectory structure: domain.com/locations/city-name/ (50%+ traffic lift vs subdomain)
• Each location page needs >60-70% unique content (doorway page risk below this)
• Doorway page test: If you can swap the city name and content still makes sense, it is a doorway page
• Individual LocalBusiness schema per location with unique @id + branchOf Organization

AI Impact on Local (2026)

• 45% of users now use ChatGPT/AI for local recommendations
• ChatGPT conversion rate: 15.9% vs Google organic: 1.76%
• ChatGPT sources: Bing web index, Yelp, TripAdvisor, BBB, Reddit (NOT GBP directly)
• 3 of top 5 AI visibility factors are citation-related (Whitespark 2026)

Load references/local-seo-signals.md for full ranking factors, citation tiers, GBP audit checklist, and industry-specific weights.

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Link Building & Off-Page

Acquisition Priority

1. Digital PR - Original research, data studies, expert commentary -> editorial links from publications
2. Resource/link pages - Find curated lists in your niche, pitch inclusion
3. Broken link building - Find broken outbound links on relevant sites, offer your content as replacement
4. Guest posting - Contribute to relevant sites with editorial standards (vet: organic traffic, relevance, editorial links)
5. Unlinked mentions - Find brand mentions without links, request link addition

Link Quality Evaluation

A link is valuable when: Domain Rating is strong AND topically relevant AND editorially placed AND the linking page has real organic traffic. Missing any of these significantly reduces value.

Anchor Text Benchmarks

Type	SaaS	E-commerce	Local
Branded	40-55%	35-45%	45-60%
URL/naked	15-20%	15-25%	10-15%
Generic	10-15%	10-15%	15-20%
Exact-match keyword	3-8%	5-10%	5-10%
Partial-match	10-15%	10-20%	5-10%

Exact-match keyword anchor >15% = Penguin penalty risk.

Toxic Link Indicators (Auto-Flag)

• 10K+ outbound links per page
• Domain not indexed in Google
• Known link networks / PBNs
• Exact-match anchors from 5+ unrelated domains
• Hacked sites with pharma/casino injections

Load references/link-building-offpage.md for all 30 toxic patterns, velocity red flags, disavow file format, and detailed acquisition workflows.

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International SEO

• hreflang is bidirectional: If page A lists page B as alternate, page B MUST list page A. Missing return tags invalidate the signal.
• Always include x-default: Fallback for users whose language/region does not match any variant.
• URL structure: ccTLD (strongest geo signal, separate domain authority) vs subdomain (moderate signal, shared authority) vs subfolder (weakest signal, consolidated authority). Most sites should use subfolder.
• Localize, do not just translate: Currency, date formats, phone numbers, cultural references, legal requirements.
• Implementation: HTML <link rel="alternate" hreflang="xx">, HTTP headers (PDFs/non-HTML), or XML sitemap (best for large sites).

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E-commerce SEO

Faceted Navigation

The #1 crawl budget killer in e-commerce. Control spectrum (least to most aggressive):

1. Canonical to base category - Faceted URLs point canonical to unfaceted version
2. robots.txt Disallow - Block crawling of facet parameters
3. noindex, follow - Allow link discovery but prevent indexing
4. AJAX/dynamic filtering - No URL change, no crawl waste

Selectively index high-value facets (e.g., brand + category) that have search volume.

Product Lifecycle

Status	Action
In-stock	Full optimization, Product schema with InStock
Out-of-stock	Keep page live, show alternatives, update availability to OutOfStock
Discontinued	301 redirect to replacement or parent category
Seasonal	Keep URL, update content and availability seasonally

Key Patterns

• Category taxonomy: 3 levels max (Department > Category > Subcategory)
• Pagination: Each page self-canonicalizes (NOT to page 1). rel=next/prev is deprecated but harmless.
• Product variants: Use ProductGroup schema with hasVariant to consolidate
• Breadcrumbs: BreadcrumbList schema on every product and category page

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Programmatic SEO

Quality Gates

Metric	Threshold	Action
Pages without review	100+	WARNING - enforce 40%+ unique content
Pages without justification	500+	HARD STOP - require explicit justification
Unique content between pages	<40%	Flag as thin content
Word count per page	<300	Review required

Safe vs Penalty Risk Patterns

Safe: Integration/tool pages with real docs, glossary (200+ word definitions), product pages with unique specs/images/reviews, data-driven pages with unique statistics per record.

Penalty Risk Patterns

• Location pages with only city name swapped (doorway pages)
• "[Competitor] alternative" without real comparison data
• AI-generated content without human review (5-10% sample human review minimum)
• Site reputation abuse: pSEO content under high-authority domain triggers penalties (Nov 2024 escalation). Scaled content abuse enforcement intensified June-Aug 2025.

Launch Strategy

1. Seed: Publish 50-100 pages first
2. Observe: Monitor for 4-6 weeks (indexation rate, rankings, GSC coverage)
3. Scale: If quality signals positive, publish in batches of 100/day (not thousands at once)
4. Monitor: Search Console API for cluster-level metrics

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AI Search Optimization (GEO + AEO)

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)

• Brand mentions correlate 3x stronger with AI visibility than backlinks (Ahrefs, Dec 2025). YouTube mentions show 0.737 correlation (strongest single signal).
• AI Overviews reach 1.5B users/month across 200+ countries. Google AI Mode (May 2025) has zero organic blue links - AI citation is the only visibility mechanism.
• 92% of AI Overview citations come from top-10 ranking pages, but 47% from below position 5
• Only 11% domain overlap between ChatGPT citations and Google AI Overviews - platform-specific optimization needed
• Optimal citation passage length: 134-167 words
• Multi-modal content sees 156% higher selection rates in AI answers

Citability Scoring

Factor	Weight
Self-contained answer blocks with specific facts	25%
Structural readability (semantic headings, lists, tables)	20%
Authority signals (author byline, publication date, primary sources)	20%
Multi-modal content (text + images + data)	15%
Technical accessibility (SSR critical - AI does not execute JS)	20%

Princeton GEO research: Statistics +40% citation, cited sources +30%, expert quotes +25%.

llms.txt Standard

Emerging guidance file at /llms.txt (domain root). Structured content guidance for AI crawlers: key page highlights, content areas, authority info.

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)

Featured snippet formats:

• Paragraph: 40-60 words, question in heading, answer immediately after
• List: 5-8 items, self-contained, use <ol> or <ul>
• Table: 3-5 columns, semantic HTML with <thead>/<tbody>

People Also Ask: Dynamic, auto-populated. Research via AlsoAsked.com. Target question-based H2/H3 headings with concise 40-60 word answers.

Voice search: Conversational queries (7-10 words), local bias. Optimize with FAQ schema, concise answers, LocalBusiness schema.

Load references/geo-aeo-ai-search.md for platform-specific optimization, AI crawler directives, RSL 1.0, and detailed AEO strategies.

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SEO Audit Methodology

35-Check Scorecard (5 Categories)

Category	Checks	Focus
Technical SEO	10	Crawlability, indexability, sitemaps, canonicals, HTTPS, mobile, speed
On-Page SEO	8	Titles, meta, headings, images, internal links, URL structure
Content SEO	7	E-E-A-T, topical authority, freshness, cannibalization, thin content
Off-Page SEO	5	Backlink profile, anchor diversity, toxic links, domain authority
AEO & GEO Readiness	5	Schema, featured snippet eligibility, AI citation signals, llms.txt

Scoring: PASS (meets standard) / WARN (partially meets) / FAIL (does not meet)

Priority Matrix

Priority	Criteria	Examples
Critical	Prevents indexing or causes penalty	noindex on key pages, security issues, manual actions
High	Significant ranking impact	Missing titles, broken canonicals, CWV failures
Medium	Moderate impact, easy to fix	Missing alt text, thin meta descriptions
Low	Minor optimization opportunity	Schema enhancements, minor redirect chains

Cadence: Full audit quarterly. Quick health check (top 10 items) monthly.

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Web Analysis Patterns

Fetch and inspect any page's SEO elements:

curl -sL -A "Mozilla/5.0" -o /tmp/seo-page.html "URL"  # Fetch HTML
curl -sL "https://domain.com/robots.txt"                 # Check robots.txt
curl -sI -L "URL"                                        # Headers & redirects
curl -sL "https://domain.com/llms.txt"                   # Check llms.txt
curl -sL "https://domain.com/sitemap.xml" | head -50     # Check sitemap
grep -iE '<title|<meta name="(robots|description)|rel="canonical"' /tmp/seo-page.html
grep -oP '<script type="application/ld\+json">.*?</script>' /tmp/seo-page.html

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Anti-Patterns

Anti-pattern	Why it fails
Keyword stuffing in titles/content	Spam signal since Panda; degrades user experience
Buying links or joining link schemes	Penguin penalty; manual actions
noindex left on production after staging	Entire site deindexed
Publishing thousands of pSEO pages day one	Scaled content abuse; immediate manual action
Blocking CSS/JS in robots.txt	Prevents rendering; pages indexed as blank
Duplicate title tags across pages	Wastes ranking potential; confuses intent signals
Stuffing keywords in GBP business name	Violation of Google guidelines; suspension risk
Canonical pointing to a different page's content	Signals the wrong page should rank
Ignoring mobile experience	100% mobile-first indexing since July 2024
Treating CWV lab scores as truth	Field data (CrUX) determines ranking, not Lighthouse

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Gotchas

1. robots.txt blocks crawling, not indexing - URLs can appear in results (without snippet) via inbound links. Use noindex to prevent indexing.
2. Canonical is a hint, not a directive - Google may ignore it. Ensure canonical target is clearly the better version.
3. Redirect chains leak PageRank - Each hop loses ~15% equity in practice. Single-hop 301s only.
4. Staging site indexed - Password-protect staging, do not rely solely on meta robots.
5. hreflang without return tags - Missing bidirectional tags invalidate the entire hreflang cluster.

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References

Load these on demand when the task requires deep data:

• references/technical-seo-deep.md - Crawl budget, rendering implementations, redirect audit, robots.txt advanced, JS SEO
• references/eeat-content-quality.md - Full E-E-A-T scoring, content freshness, framework-specific SEO implementations
• references/schema-types-full.md - Complete type catalog, JSON-LD examples, industry-specific schemas, validation
• references/local-seo-signals.md - Whitespark 2026 factors, review benchmarks, citation tiers, GBP audit, multi-location
• references/link-building-offpage.md - 30 toxic indicators, anchor text analysis, disavow format, acquisition workflows
• references/geo-aeo-ai-search.md - AI crawler directives, llms.txt spec, Princeton research, featured snippets, voice search

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Companion Check

On first activation, check if the user has keyword-research installed. If not, suggest installing it for keyword discovery, difficulty scoring, and gap analysis.