Authority and Source Landscape

Markdown delivery contract

Read markdown-delivery-contract.md for every task. Write a substantive .md document for every material work step and register its direct destination in the work index.md. For public-site work, apply the owner-required Markdown discovery profile across the full eligible inventory; preserve native standards and immutable evidence formats.

Lane outputs: authority-review.md; source-landscape.md (combine small related steps with stable section links). Record source ownership, expertise, referring evidence and claims directly in Markdown handoffs; distinguish owned citations from independent endorsement. Keep paid/organic/affiliate relationships explicit and no fabricated authority metrics.

Audit off-site evidence that helps users and systems verify an entity: genuine links, mentions, citations, source coverage, and risk. This skill does not manufacture authority.

Read authority-evidence-protocol.md before a formal audit.

Procedure

1. Define entity, domains, markets/locales, comparison scope, authorized data sources, time window, and the decision to make.
2. Preserve each link/mention row with source URL/domain, target URL/entity, anchor or mention text, first/last seen date when supplied, link attributes, source type, collection method, and limitations.
3. Normalize URLs without discarding raw values. Separate backlinks, citations, unlinked mentions, syndication, scraper copies, social/profile links, and self-controlled properties.
4. Evaluate source relevance, editorial independence, claim support, topical/locale fit, target-page usefulness, and visible context. Keep proprietary authority/risk/traffic metrics labeled with vendor and date.
5. Identify broken earned links, incorrect entity facts, missing first-party evidence, unsupported claims, spam patterns, paid/sponsored disclosure, and link-scheme risk.
6. Recommend source-worthy first-party assets, corrections, reclamation, documentation, partnerships, or editorial outreach only when truthful and policy-safe. Do not prescribe volume quotas or paid/manipulative links.
7. Route entity/citation suitability to seo-geo, competitor-page copy to seo-competitor-pages, content assets to seo-content, and internal links to seo-architecture.
8. Package findings as SEO Findings 1.1.0 with backlink_profile, content_set, web_page, or site targets and authority, entity, content, or policy categories.

Formal evidence handoff

Package only supported observations as SEO Findings 1.1.0. Let <suite-root> mean ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} in Claude Code. In Codex, read .seo-suite-runtime.json beside this SKILL.md when present and use its suite_root value; otherwise use the absolute repository checkout, then run python "<suite-root>/scripts/validate_seo_findings.py" validate-findings <bundle>/seo-findings.json --bundle <bundle>. Keep the handoff provisional until this command passes.

Output

Return the source and scope, normalized link/mention inventory, source-quality and claim-support observations, risk patterns, evidence gaps, owners, verification, and limitations. Never collapse the result into a universal domain-authority score.