seo-programmatic

# Programmatic SEO Analysis & Planning
## Shared Data Cache

**Step 0 -- Check shared data cache:**

Before gathering, check `.seo-cache/` for reusable context from related SEO skills.
Reference: `../seo/references/shared-data-cache.md` for schemas and dependency map.

Check these cache files when present:
- `.seo-cache/site-meta.json` for domain, business type, industry, and crawl context
- `.seo-cache/audit-scores.json` for prior full-audit priorities
- `.seo-cache/pages/{url-slug}/page-analysis.json` for page-level context when a URL is provided

- If found: parse and use clearly valid fields (note "Using cached [X] from [date]")
- If missing, corrupt, or irrelevant: continue with fresh evidence
- If the user says "refresh" or "re-run": ignore cache reads and overwrite on write

Build and audit SEO pages generated at scale from structured data sources.
Enforces quality gates to prevent thin content penalties and index bloat.

## Data Source Assessment

Evaluate the data powering programmatic pages:
- **CSV/JSON files**: Row count, column uniqueness, missing values
- **API endpoints**: Response structure, data freshness, rate limits
- **Database queries**: Record count, field completeness, update frequency
- Data quality checks:
  - Each record must have enough unique attributes to generate distinct content
  - Flag duplicate or near-duplicate records (>80% field overlap)
  - Verify data freshness; stale data produces stale pages

## Template Engine Planning

Design templates that produce unique, valuable pages:
- **Variable injection points**: Title, H1, body sections, meta description, schema
- **Content blocks**: Static (shared across pages) vs dynamic (unique per page)
- **Conditional logic**: Show/hide sections based on data availability
- **Supplementary content**: Related items, contextual tips, user-generated content
- Template review checklist:
  - Each page must read as a standalone, valuable resource
  - No "mad-libs" patterns (just swapping city/product names in identical text)
  - Dynamic sections must add genuine information, not just keyword variations

## URL Pattern Strategy

### Common Patterns
- `/tools/[tool-name]`: Tool/product directory pages
- `/[city]/[service]`: Location + service pages
- `/integrations/[platform]`: Integration landing pages
- `/glossary/[term]`: Definition/reference pages
- `/templates/[template-name]`: Downloadable template pages

### URL Rules
- Lowercase, hyphenated slugs derived from data
- Logical hierarchy reflecting site architecture
- No duplicate slugs; enforce uniqueness at generation time
- Keep URLs under 100 characters
- No query parameters for primary content URLs
- Consistent trailing slash usage (match existing site pattern)

## Internal Linking Automation

- **Hub/spoke model**: Category hub pages linking to individual programmatic pages
- **Related items**: Auto-link to 3-5 related pages based on data attributes
- **Breadcrumbs**: Generate BreadcrumbList schema from URL hierarchy
- **Cross-linking**: Link between programmatic pages sharing attributes (same category, same city, same feature)
- **Anchor text**: Use descriptive, varied anchor text. Avoid exact-match keyword repetition
- Link density: 3-5 internal links per 1000 words (match seo-content guidelines)

## Thin Content Safeguards

### Quality Gates

| Metric | Threshold | Action |
|--------|-----------|--------|
| Pages without content review | 100+ | ⚠️ WARNING: require content audit before publishing |
| Pages without justification | 500+ | 🛑 HARD STOP: require explicit user approval and thin content audit |
| Unique content per page | <40% | ❌ Flag as thin content (likely penalty risk) |
| Word count per page | <300 | ⚠️ Flag for review (may lack sufficient value) |

### Scaled Content Abuse: Enforcement Context (2025-2026)

Google's Scaled Content Abuse policy (introduced March 2024) saw major enforcement escalation in 2025:

- **June 2025:** Wave of manual actions targeting websites with AI-generated content at scale
- **August 2025:** SpamBrain spam update enhanced pattern detection for AI-generated link schemes and content farms
- **Result:** Google reported 45% reduction in low-quality, unoriginal content in search results post-March 2024 enforcement

**Enhanced quality gates for programmatic pages:**
- **Content differentiation:** ≥30-40% of content must be genuinely unique between any two programmatic pages (not just city/keyword string replacement)
- **Human review:** Minimum 5-10% sample review of generated pages before publishing
- **Progressive rollout:** Publish in batches of 50-100 pages. Monitor indexing and rankings for 2-4 weeks before expanding. Never publish 500+ programmatic pages simultaneously without explicit quality review.
- **Standalone value test:** Each page should pass: "Would this page be worth publishing even if no other similar pages existed?"
- **Site reputation abuse:** If publishing programmatic content under a high-authority domain (not your own), this may trigger site reputation abuse penalties. Google began enforcing this aggressively in November 2024.

> **Recommendation:** The WARNING gate at `<40% unique content` remains appropriate. Consider a HARD STOP at `<30%` unique content to prevent scaled content abuse risk.

### Safe Programmatic Pages (OK at scale)
✅ Integration pages (with real setup docs, API details, screenshots)
✅ Template/tool pages (with downloadable content, usage instructions)
✅ Glossary pages (200+ word definitions with examples, related terms)
✅ Product pages (unique specs, reviews, comparison data)
✅ Data-driven pages (unique statistics, charts, analysis per record)

### Penalty Risk (avoid at scale)
❌ Location pages with only city name swapped in identical text
❌ "Best [tool] for [industry]" without industry-specific value
❌ "[Competitor] alternative" without real comparison data
❌ AI-generated pages without human review and unique value-add
❌ Pages where >60% of content is shared template boilerplate