EXPANSION · source-linked operating design
From public delivery to useful answers and observed AI citations
Lead: R12 for a named AI surface, with R08 owning general crawl/index contracts. Consulted roles: R02, R08, R09, R10, R11, R12, R13, R14, R16, R20, R23. Mode: read-only diagnosis until actual authorization.
Entry condition
The business wants relevant search/AI visibility, or a particular named surface does not show its content. No position or citation can be guaranteed by completing the checklist.
Sequence and ownership
1. Name the observation
Record the engine/surface, exact query, locale, timestamp and exposed model state. Different products may not share crawler policies, indexes or reporting.
2. Verify delivery and eligibility
R02 establishes public reachability; R08 checks response/directive/canonical/link contracts and available engine reports. R12 checks search/training/user-fetch controls with current provider documentation.
3. Evaluate answer value
R10 judges query-to-page relevance; R13 adds distinct useful explanations and genuine proof. R14 approves factual claims. R09 prevents orphan/duplicate pages and R11 keeps identity markup truthful.
4. Observe selection separately
R12 records citations and counterexamples with the original source URL and method. Do not infer model training or memory from a citation or a crawl log.
5. Reconcile business outcomes
R16 reports available search exposure, referrals and qualified inquiries with compatible scopes. R23 checks whether the questions correspond to real buyer problems.
Evidence package
Preserve task/run IDs, exact environment/build, timestamped observations, safe synthetic inputs, expected versus observed state, tool/browser versions, raw private artifacts and separately hashed public-safe redactions. Record unavailable tools and tests not executed. Attach the handoffs rather than compressing distinct observations into one success flag.
Acceptance
- Each asserted outcome has the correct source and observation context
- Crawler access, indexing, citations, referrals and leads are not conflated
- No special-file or formatting guarantee replaces useful content
Stop or block
Unavailable dashboards or model identifiers remain unavailable. Do not create synthetic testimonials, low-value query-variant pages or guaranteed inclusion promises to fill a measurement gap.
Role and source references
Primary-source IDs: D13, D20, D21, D22, D23, D24, D29, D31. See the source register for URLs, scope and currentness boundaries. The sequence is custom operating design; it is not a promise that every case has the same cause.