# Programmatic SEO analysis & planning Human Guide

## What This Is For
Programmatic SEO planning and analysis for pages generated at scale from data sources. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for search and SEO workflows: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return.

Use this as a human-readable version of the Programmatic SEO analysis & planning agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions.

## When To Use This
- Use this when you need a repeatable process for programmatic SEO analysis & planning.
- Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt.
- Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact.

## When Not To Use This
- Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer.
- Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant.
- Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review.

## What You Need Before Starting
- The goal or business outcome you want.
- The audience, customer segment, or market context.
- Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance.
- Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements.
- A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like.

## Step-By-Step Workflow
1. State the job clearly: "Use the Programmatic SEO analysis & planning guide to help me with..."
2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints.
3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output.
4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below.
5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed.

## Skill-Specific Guidance
- **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
- 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
- **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
- Each page must read as a standalone, valuable resource
- No "mad-libs" patterns (just swapping city/product names in identical text)

## Decision Points And Nuance
The original skill emphasizes: Data Source Assessment, Template Engine Planning, URL Pattern Strategy, Common Patterns, URL Rules, Internal Linking Automation, Thin Content Safeguards, Quality Gates, Scaled Content Abuse — Enforcement Context (2025-2026), Safe Programmatic Pages (OK at scale).

Use these questions to steer the work:
- What is the intended audience or buyer?
- What source material must be preserved?
- What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion?
- What examples represent the desired quality bar?
- What should the assistant avoid?

## Common Mistakes
- Each record must have enough unique attributes to generate distinct content
- Each page must read as a standalone, valuable resource
- Dynamic sections must add genuine information, not just keyword variations
- **Anchor text**: Use descriptive, varied anchor text — avoid exact-match keyword repetition
- | Pages without content review | 100+ | ⚠️ WARNING — require content audit before publishing |
- **Content differentiation:** ≥30-40% of content must be genuinely unique between any two programmatic pages (not just city/keyword string replacement)
- **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.
- > **Recommendation:** The WARNING gate at `<40% unique content` remains appropriate. Consider a HARD STOP at `<30%` unique content to prevent scaled content abuse risk.

## Copy-And-Paste Prompt
```text
Use the Programmatic SEO analysis & planning human guide.

My goal:
[Describe the business outcome]

Audience:
[Describe who this is for]

Context and source material:
[Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy]

Constraints:
[Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items]

Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result.
```

## Final Checklist
- [ ] The output matches the original goal.
- [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer.
- [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved.
- [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit.
- [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person.

## Source
This guide was generated from the norahe0304-art/30x-seo skill entry for `30x-seo-programmatic`.

## Source Skill Notes
These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic.

# Programmatic SEO Analysis & Planning

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.