The 2026 Surgeon SEO Evidence Checklist

Use this section to determine whether the site can be accessed, rendered, maintained, and tested safely enough for SEO work to proceed. An SEO review can surface privacy or security concerns, but it is not a legal determination.

Verify HTTPS coverage and secure delivery. Evidence required: browser security state, certificate records, redirect behavior, a crawl of final URLs, and mixed-content findings. Pass condition: public pages consistently resolve to secure final URLs without certificate or mixed-content errors.

Severity: high. Owner: web engineering or infrastructure. Corrective action: repair certificate deployment, insecure asset references, redirect rules, or host configuration. Validation step: repeat browser checks and recrawl representative templates after deployment.

The previously published 50-70% trust-drop figure has no supporting source URL in this JSON; retain it only as an internal historical claim that still requires source reconciliation, not as a verified effect size. Review aids may include Let's Encrypt and Cloudflare.

Review every lead and consultation form that can collect health-related or other sensitive information. Evidence required: all visible fields, hidden fields, destinations, storage systems, vendor agreements, transport controls, user access, retention behavior, and the practice's approved data-handling rule.

Pass condition: the responsible privacy or legal reviewer has approved the actual workflow for the information collected, and the deployed implementation matches that approved design. Severity: critical.

Owner: privacy, legal, security, and web operations jointly. Corrective action: remove unnecessary sensitive fields, change routing or storage, adjust permissions, or replace unsupported vendors and configurations as required by responsible reviewers.

Validation step: submit controlled test data and verify transport, receipt, storage, access, retention, and deletion behavior against the approved workflow. Vendor branding or product configuration alone is not evidence of compliance. Review aids may include JotForm HIPAA and hushmail.

Review mobile performance and Core Web Vitals reports on representative templates. Evidence required: field data where available, repeatable lab tests, template inventory, asset weight, third-party script inventory, and documented bottlenecks.

Pass condition: material performance defects within the practice's control are identified, assigned, and either corrected or explicitly accepted with a documented reason. Severity: medium. Owner: web performance or engineering.

Corrective action: reduce avoidable render-blocking work, optimize media, remove unnecessary scripts, stabilize layouts, and address template-level regressions. Validation step: rerun the same tests on the same templates and compare the evidence before closing the item. Review aids may include Google PageSpeed Insights and WP Rocket.

Validate structured data used to describe the surgical practice and its visible entities. Evidence required: rendered page content, generated structured data, source records for material properties, and validator output.

Pass condition: markup accurately reflects information visible on the page and does not add unsupported services, credentials, clinicians, locations, ratings, or claims. Severity: medium. Owner: technical SEO with content governance.

Corrective action: remove unsupported properties, repair entity relationships, and align markup with the published page. Validation step: retest the live output and manually reconcile material properties with visible content and source records.

Structured data can improve machine readability but should not be presented as a guaranteed ranking factor or a special requirement for Google AI Overviews. Review aids may include Schema Pro and Merkle Schema Generator.

Resolve broken and moved URLs, including 404 responses and 301 redirects for retired procedure content. Evidence required: crawl findings, server responses, internal links, external destinations where relevant, and the intended current destination for moved content.

Pass condition: accidental dead links are fixed, intentionally removed pages return an appropriate response, moved pages use a relevant direct redirect, and redirect chains or loops are absent. Severity: high.

Owner: technical SEO and web development. Corrective action: repair internal links, restore mistakenly removed content, or map moved content to the most relevant current page rather than a generic destination.

Validation step: recrawl affected URLs and manually confirm final status, destination relevance, and navigation behavior. Review aids may include Screaming Frog and Ahrefs.

Use these checks to verify local information for genuine patient-facing offices and eligible practice profiles. Treat profile completeness, reviews, citations, photos, and updates as information-quality and operating checks, not as guaranteed ranking inputs.

Validate each Google Business Profile used by the practice. Evidence required: ownership status, eligibility basis, public address or service configuration, primary category, hours, phone, website destination, practitioner or organization naming, and practice authorization.

Pass condition: every claimed profile represents a genuine eligible entity or location and the public fields match current practice records. Severity: high. Owner: practice operations with local SEO support.

Corrective action: correct inaccurate fields, resolve duplicates, and remove or consolidate ineligible or misleading listings when appropriate. Validation step: compare the live profile with current practice records and the corresponding location or practitioner page. Review aid: Google Business Profile.

Reconcile name, address, and phone information across important medical and local directories. Evidence required: a directory inventory, current practice records, ownership notes, and the canonical details for each genuine office.

Pass condition: listings accurately identify the same practice entity and location without misleading variations, stale contact details, or invented market presence. Severity: medium. Owner: local SEO or practice operations.

Corrective action: update inaccurate records, document third-party listings that cannot be changed, and avoid creating directory entries for locations that do not exist. Validation step: recheck corrected listings after publication and record unresolved discrepancies. Review aids may include BrightLocal and Whitespark.

Audit the practice's review-request process. Evidence required: eligibility rule, request message, delivery trigger, staff instructions, platform-policy review, and samples showing how the process is applied.

Pass condition: eligible customers are asked consistently for honest feedback without incentives, review gating, discouraging negative feedback, or selecting only satisfied customers. Severity: high.

Owner: patient experience or marketing with legal review as appropriate. Corrective action: remove selective, coercive, or incentive-based practices and standardize the approved request workflow. Validation step: sample recent requests and confirm that staff, automation, and templates follow the same rule. Review aids may include Birdeye and Podium.

Verify facility, staff, and surgeon photography before it is used on the site or practice profile. Evidence required: source files, photographer or license records, consent records where applicable, identity and location confirmation, and publication placement.

Pass condition: each image is authorized, accurately represents the practice, and does not expose patient information without appropriate approval. Severity: medium. Owner: practice marketing with privacy review.

Corrective action: remove or replace unauthorized, misleading, outdated, or privacy-sensitive assets and repair captions or metadata when needed. Validation step: compare live assets with rights, consent, and source records. Review aid: Professional Photography.

Review Google Business Profile posts that describe technology, services, staffing, or practice milestones. Evidence required: source material for the statement, current service availability, clinical or promotional substantiation when relevant, and an approval record.

Pass condition: each published update is accurate, current, and supportable; the practice does not treat posting cadence itself as an official or guaranteed ranking factor. Severity: low. Owner: local marketing with clinical or legal review when needed.

Corrective action: remove unsupported claims, correct outdated details, and revise language that overstates capabilities or outcomes. Validation step: compare live posts with the approved source record and current practice operations. Review aids may include Canva and Google Business App.

Use these checks to decide whether patient-facing content is useful, supportable, attributable, and aligned with services the practice actually provides. YMYL quality guidance increases the need for trustworthy sourcing and review, but it does not create a guaranteed search formula.

Audit in-depth procedure pages against the source specification of 1,500+ words for every surgery offered. Evidence required: current service scope, clinical source set, author or editor record, responsible clinician reviewer where required, revision history, and the published page.

Pass condition: the page reflects a procedure the practice genuinely offers, answers material patient questions in understandable language, distinguishes general education from individualized medical advice, and stays within what the supporting evidence and reviewer approval can substantiate.

The word-count specification is an editorial requirement in this source, not a Google ranking threshold. Severity: high. Owner: clinical content lead and responsible surgeon reviewer. Corrective action: replace thin, duplicative, outdated, or unsupported copy with reviewed patient-centered information and remove claims the practice cannot substantiate.

Validation step: reconcile the published page with its source set, approval record, current service scope, and visible calls to action. Review aids may include SurferSEO and Clearscope.

Verify surgeon biography pages and displayed credentials. Evidence required: primary credential records, licensing or certification records as applicable, current specialty information, affiliations, role descriptions, and the live biography.

Pass condition: every material credential, certification, affiliation, title, and specialty statement shown can be substantiated and is current. Severity: high. Owner: practice administration with the surgeon or credentialing team.

Corrective action: remove outdated or unsupported statements, correct naming or status, and reference authoritative records when appropriate. Validation step: reconcile the live biography against primary records and the practice's approved credential file. Review aid: Internal Linking.

Audit the medical-review workflow for blog and educational content. Evidence required: reviewer identity, qualifications relevant to the topic, source set, review date, revision notes, approval record, and the on-page attribution.

Pass condition: content that requires clinical review has a documented responsible reviewer, the review actually occurred, and the public attribution accurately describes that process rather than using a label only to signal E-E-A-T.

Severity: critical. Owner: editorial lead and responsible clinician. Corrective action: define review triggers, update unsupported or stale claims, obtain the required review, and correct inaccurate attribution.

Validation step: sample published articles and trace every review statement back to an approval record and source set. Review aid: Editorial Calendar.

Validate before-and-after galleries before publication. Evidence required: image provenance, usage authorization, patient consent where applicable, contextual labeling, metadata, outcome context, and publication approval.

Pass condition: each asset is authorized, accurately described, presented without misleading implications about typical or guaranteed outcomes, and published in accordance with the responsible privacy and legal review.

Severity: critical. Owner: clinical marketing with privacy and legal review as appropriate. Corrective action: remove unauthorized assets, correct labels or context, revise metadata, and withdraw imagery that cannot be substantiated.

Validation step: reconcile each live asset with its source, consent, approval, and displayed context. Review aid: Custom Gallery Plugin.

Review answers to natural patient questions within procedure pages. Evidence required: the actual question, supporting clinical source material, reviewer approval, and the final on-page answer. Pass condition: the answer is useful, accurate, appropriately scoped, non-diagnostic, and consistent with reviewed patient information; inclusion is an editorial choice and is not presented as a guarantee of Google AI Overviews, snippets, or other Google AI features.

Severity: medium. Owner: content lead and clinician reviewer. Corrective action: rewrite unsupported or overly broad answers, add necessary context, and remove language that could be mistaken for individualized advice.

Validation step: compare the live answer with its source set, review record, and surrounding page context. Review aids may include AlsoAsked.com and AnswerThePublic.

Validate the Google Business Profile primary category - High - 15 minutes. Evidence required: the live primary category, available category choices, and the practice's actual specialty and services. Pass condition: the selected primary category is accurate, eligible, and supportable from current practice operations.

Owner: local SEO or practice operations. Corrective action: replace an inaccurate category with the best supported available option. Validation step: confirm the live profile after the change and record the final selection.

Test the consultation action in the site header - High - 30 minutes. Evidence required: current desktop and mobile navigation, visible button label, approved destination, form or scheduling workflow, and accessibility behavior.

Pass condition: the action is clear, reachable, and routes to the intended consultation or contact workflow without implying guaranteed candidacy, treatment, timing, or outcome. Owner: web and practice operations.

Corrective action: add, relabel, reposition, or repair the action and destination as required. Validation step: test the full path on representative devices, including completion and confirmation behavior.

Review internal links from high-traffic educational content to relevant service pages - Medium - 1 hour. Evidence required: traffic report, source page, intended target, anchor context, and current destination status.

Pass condition: each link is editorially relevant and helps a reader reach a genuinely related surgeon, procedure, location, or consultation page without forced or misleading anchor text. Owner: content SEO.

Corrective action: add, remove, or revise links based on reader relevance and destination quality. Validation step: crawl the source pages and manually test the live destinations and surrounding context.

• Authentic imagery and rights: Evidence required: every live image, source file, rights record, and consent record where applicable. Pass condition: imagery is authorized, current, and accurately represents the practice without exposing protected or sensitive information. Severity: medium. Owner: marketing with privacy review. Corrective action: remove unsupported, outdated, misleading, or privacy-sensitive assets and replace them only with documented alternatives. Validation step: reconcile each published image with its source and approval record.
• Location-page usefulness: Evidence required: page titles, meta descriptions, local contact information, location-specific service details, search-query data, and proof that the office is genuine. Pass condition: a dedicated location page exists only where the practice has a real location and can provide useful location-specific information; copy describes that location naturally rather than mechanically inserting 'near me' language or inventing service areas. Severity: medium. Owner: content SEO with practice operations. Corrective action: consolidate thin or misleading location content, add useful verified local information, or remove pages that imply a location the practice does not operate. Validation step: compare the published page and metadata with the real practice footprint and current office records.
• Mobile and interface defects: Evidence required: the surgeon SEO mistakes guide, representative device testing, template-level performance evidence, and reproducible issue notes. Pass condition: material mobile loading, navigation, readability, form, or interface defects identified by the audit have an owner and are resolved or explicitly documented with an accepted limitation. Severity: high. Owner: web development. Corrective action: fix confirmed template or interaction defects rather than masking them with page-level copy changes. Validation step: retest the same templates, devices, and interactions that produced the original failure.
• Profile accuracy after operational changes: Evidence required: operating calendar, current contact details, approved service information, and the live Google Business Profile. Pass condition: hours, closures, services, contact information, and other public fields are accurate when published; update frequency itself is not treated as a guaranteed ranking factor. Severity: medium. Owner: practice operations. Corrective action: update stale fields, remove unsupported service claims, and document who approves future profile changes. Validation step: compare the live profile with current operating records after the correction.