Run This 25-Point Domain Intelligence Checklist With Evidence

Use the 25 checkpoints as an evidence-led workflow, not as a scorecard that rewards collecting more metrics. For every item, capture the source or export you inspected, record a pass or fail decision, assign severity, name the owner, state the corrective action, and define the validation step before moving on. The purpose is to leave a reviewer with enough evidence to reproduce the decision without relying on memory.

The 25 points are grouped into five review lanes:

1. Authority signals - establish the domain baseline and the history behind headline scores.
2. Backlink profile quality - inspect where links come from, how they are placed, what anchors they use, and what has been lost.
3. Technical health - reconcile crawlability, indexability, canonical handling, redirects, performance, mobile rendering, and internal support.
4. Content and topical coverage - determine whether important subject areas are supported by coherent, distinct, well-connected pages.
5. Competitive gaps - compare only after the internal baseline is documented, then rank external opportunities by relevance and evidence.

Keep the working notes short while you inspect evidence. A useful status set is Pass / Flag / Action Required, followed by a concise reason and a pointer to the supporting export, crawl row, screenshot, or page. Use the diagnostic audit guide when a flagged item needs deeper investigation rather than expanding the checklist note into a full narrative.

Do not treat the sequence as a promise that every failed item causes a ranking problem. The checklist is a triage method: it separates verified defects from observations, identifies dependencies between findings, and gives each corrective action a validation test.

For acquisition or ownership due diligence, give Phases 1 and 2 extra scrutiny because history and link provenance can change the risk assessment. For an owned site preparing a major content investment, give Phase 4 more review time so new publishing does not compound weak architecture, duplicate intent, or unsupported topic coverage.

Authority metrics are starting evidence, not proof of search performance. Record them alongside the source, collection date, historical pattern, and underlying link or index evidence. The domain intelligence statistics page can provide comparison context, but this checklist should preserve the evidence for the domain being reviewed.

• Checkpoint 1 - Authority score baseline: Evidence required: export the current authority metric from the primary tool and record the tool name and collection date. Pass/fail: pass when the value is captured with reproducible source evidence; flag when a score is quoted without its source or supporting link profile. Severity: informational unless the score is being used to justify a high-impact decision. Owner: SEO analyst. Corrective action: attach the export and the referring-domain context rather than treating the score as a standalone conclusion. Validation: a reviewer can reopen the same source and understand what the metric does and does not establish.
• Checkpoint 2 - Score trajectory (12-month trend): Evidence required: capture the same tool's historical series across the past 12 months and annotate known migrations, campaigns, major link losses, or tracking changes. Pass/fail: pass when movement has plausible supporting evidence; flag sustained or abrupt movement that cannot be reconciled with the domain history. Severity: medium when the unexplained change affects planning or acquisition decisions. Owner: SEO analyst. Corrective action: investigate referring-domain changes, index changes, migrations, and tool methodology before attributing the movement to search-engine trust. Validation: the final note explains the observed trajectory without claiming causation that the evidence cannot show.
• Checkpoint 3 - Referring-domain concentration: Evidence required: compare referring domains with linking pages and inspect the largest contributors. A profile showing 50,000 backlinks from 12 domains is concentrated even if the raw backlink total looks large. Pass/fail: pass when the profile is not materially dependent on a small set of sites for most links; flag when a small source pool dominates the count. Severity: medium, rising when critical visibility depends on those sources. Owner: off-page analyst. Corrective action: document concentration risk and prioritize relevant source diversification rather than pursuing volume alone. Validation: a fresh export confirms whether dependence on the dominant sources has reduced.
• Checkpoint 4 - Registration and ownership history: Evidence required: collect available registration history and archived site evidence, then note ownership or purpose changes that materially affect interpretation. Pass/fail: pass when the current site's history is reasonably consistent with the asset being evaluated; flag unexplained gaps or major historical changes for manual review. Severity: high for acquisition due diligence when provenance is unclear, otherwise contextual. Owner: SEO lead or due-diligence owner. Corrective action: reconcile the timeline with archived content and link history instead of assuming an ownership change itself implies a penalty. Validation: the review record distinguishes verified history from unresolved questions.
• Checkpoint 5 - Search Console index evidence: Evidence required: for an owned property, compare submitted and discovered URL sets with Google Search Console indexing evidence and the crawl inventory. Pass/fail: pass when important canonical URLs are represented as intended and exclusions are understood; fail when important URLs are unexpectedly excluded, blocked, duplicated, or canonicalized elsewhere without explanation. Severity: high for priority templates or sections. Owner: technical SEO. Corrective action: resolve the specific crawl, canonical, duplication, or quality issue supported by evidence. Validation: recrawl the affected URLs and recheck Search Console after Google has had an opportunity to process the changes.

At the end of Phase 1, the output should be a documented baseline with known limitations, not a label such as strong or weak. Any unresolved history, concentration, or index issue should carry forward into the later phases so the same evidence can be tested from another angle.

Phase 2 tests what the backlink profile actually contains. Separate observations from conclusions: a high link count, unusual anchor, or tool-generated risk label is a prompt for review, not sufficient evidence by itself.

• Checkpoint 6 - Referring-domain topical relevance: Evidence required: inspect the top 50 referring domains by the primary authority metric and classify each by subject relevance, editorial context, and relationship to the linked page. Pass/fail: pass when the strongest sources make contextual sense for the domain and destination content; flag when the profile is dominated by unrelated sources that do not have a clear editorial reason to link. Severity: medium, or high when unrelated sources dominate the profile. Owner: off-page analyst. Corrective action: stop using raw score as the quality proxy and build a reviewed source list for future acquisition decisions. Validation: the classified sample and notes can be independently reviewed.
• Checkpoint 7 - Anchor text distribution: Evidence required: export anchor categories and inspect the linking pages behind concentrated commercial anchors. The prior checklist used roughly 20% as an investigation trigger; preserve that as a working heuristic requiring source reconciliation, not as a Google threshold. Pass/fail: pass when anchor patterns are explainable by brand, navigation, citations, or genuine editorial references; flag unexplained commercial concentration. Severity: medium until manual link review shows a manipulative pattern. Owner: off-page analyst. Corrective action: document the sources driving the concentration and avoid manufacturing anchor variation as a cosmetic fix. Validation: reviewed linking pages support the final classification.
• Checkpoint 8 - Link acquisition pattern: Evidence required: chart new referring domains and important new links against known PR, partnerships, migrations, redirects, and content events. Pass/fail: pass when material spikes have a documented explanation; flag spikes with no known cause for manual source review. Severity: context-dependent. Owner: SEO analyst. Corrective action: inspect the domains and pages behind unexplained changes before labeling the pattern healthy or harmful. Validation: the event log explains the observed movement or records the remaining uncertainty.
• Checkpoint 9 - Lost links in the past 90 days: Evidence required: export lost links and group them by source importance, destination, loss reason, and whether the source still exists. Pass/fail: pass when important losses are understood and expected; flag unexplained losses from relevant editorial sources or losses caused by broken destinations. Severity: high when valuable links are lost because of an internal URL or redirect error. Owner: off-page analyst with technical SEO support. Corrective action: restore broken internal destinations, repair redirects, or contact the source only when the original editorial reference still makes sense. Validation: the repaired destination resolves correctly and any recoverable link is rechecked at the source.
• Checkpoint 10 - Suspicious or manipulative link patterns: Evidence required: review the actual linking pages behind tool-generated spam or toxicity flags, including placement, context, site purpose, and apparent acquisition pattern. Pass/fail: pass when no reviewed evidence indicates an intentional manipulative pattern; flag only when the linking evidence justifies further action. Severity: high when there is credible evidence of a deliberate scheme or a search-engine action, otherwise monitor. Owner: senior SEO reviewer. Corrective action: follow current Google guidance and consider disavowal only when the evidence supports it; never upload a file solely because a third-party score is high. Validation: preserve the reviewed URL set, rationale, and any action taken so the decision can be audited later.
• Checkpoint 11 - Link placement and editorial context: Evidence required: inspect the pages sending the most meaningful links and classify body references, navigational links, templates, author boxes, footers, and sidebars by their real context. Pass/fail: pass when important links are contextually relevant and placed for a plausible user or editorial purpose; flag dependence on repetitive template placements with little contextual relevance. Severity: medium. Owner: off-page analyst. Corrective action: prioritize future earning and outreach toward relevant editorial references rather than simply replicating sitewide placements. Validation: the reviewed source set shows the intended mix and context.
• Checkpoint 12 - Competitor link gap (top 20 opportunities): Evidence required: identify domains that link to multiple relevant competitors but not to the audited site, then manually verify the specific source pages and why they link. Pass/fail: pass when the shortlist contains realistic, topically relevant sources with a clear editorial path; fail when the list is just a tool export containing irrelevant, paid, duplicated, or inaccessible sources. Severity: opportunity rather than defect. Owner: digital PR or outreach owner. Corrective action: rank prospects by relevance, editorial fit, and destination readiness. Validation: each retained prospect has a verified source page and a documented reason it belongs on the outreach list.

Technical review determines whether the domain can expose the pages and signals you intend search engines to discover, process, and consolidate. Every failure should point to affected URLs and a reproducible test, not a generic sitewide warning.

• Checkpoint 13 - Crawl coverage versus sitemap intent: Evidence required: compare sitemap URLs, crawl-discovered URLs, blocked URLs, canonical targets, and available Search Console indexing evidence. Pass/fail: pass when important canonical URLs are discoverable and unexpected gaps are explained; fail when intended URLs are unreachable, blocked, orphaned, or excluded without a deliberate reason. Severity: high when priority sections are affected. Owner: technical SEO. Corrective action: fix the specific discovery, robots, status-code, canonical, or internal-link issue. Validation: rerun the same crawl and confirm the affected URL set now behaves as intended.
• Checkpoint 14 - Canonical implementation: Evidence required: export declared canonicals, resolved targets, status codes, and conflicting signals such as internal links or sitemap inclusion. Pass/fail: pass when indexable pages point to the intended canonical version and supporting signals agree; fail on loops, chains, non-indexable targets, accidental cross-canonicals, or contradictory signals. Severity: high where duplication affects important pages. Owner: technical SEO or developer. Corrective action: align canonical declarations, internal links, redirects, and sitemap entries with the intended URL. Validation: recrawl and inspect representative pages after deployment.
• Checkpoint 15 - Redirect chain depth: Evidence required: map redirect hops for internal links, backlink destinations, migrated URLs, and priority landing pages. Pass/fail: pass when important requests resolve directly to the intended destination or through a necessary minimal redirect; flag avoidable chains and loops. Severity: high for loops or broken paths, medium for avoidable chains on priority URLs. Owner: developer with technical SEO review. Corrective action: update internal references and redirect rules so known source URLs point as directly as practical to the final destination. Validation: recrawl the source set and confirm the expected status path.
• Checkpoint 16 - Core Web Vitals status: Evidence required: use available field evidence for the relevant page groups and preserve the measurement source and date. Pass/fail: pass when important templates meet the source's good-status criteria; flag template groups that do not. Severity: prioritize by user impact, traffic importance, and template reach rather than by a single page example. Owner: performance engineer or developer. Corrective action: diagnose the specific loading, interaction, or layout cause on the affected template. Validation: retest after deployment and distinguish lab diagnostics from field status.
• Checkpoint 17 - Mobile rendering and usability: Evidence required: crawl with mobile rendering where available and manually inspect priority templates for blocked resources, hidden content, viewport failures, intrusive overlays, or broken interactions. Pass/fail: pass when important content and actions remain accessible and usable on representative mobile devices; fail when rendering or interaction defects prevent normal use. Severity: high when navigation, conversion, or primary content is affected. Owner: front-end developer with SEO review. Corrective action: fix the reproducible rendering or interaction defect. Validation: repeat the same device and crawl checks after release.
• Checkpoint 18 - Internal support for priority pages: Evidence required: identify the highest-priority pages, count and inspect internal links to them, and record source-page relevance, anchor context, crawl depth, and orphan status. Pass/fail: pass when priority pages receive deliberate, contextually relevant support from appropriate sections; flag important pages that are isolated or supported only by weak template links. Severity: high for orphaned strategic pages, otherwise medium. Owner: SEO strategist or content owner. Corrective action: add or revise internal links where they genuinely help users move between related pages. Validation: recrawl and confirm the intended links are present, indexable, and pointing to the canonical destinations.

Phase 3 should be reconciled with Phase 1 and Phase 2 rather than treated as a separate report. If an authority, link, or index anomaly can be explained by a technical defect, update the earlier finding and keep the evidence chain connected.

Content review asks whether the domain covers relevant subjects with distinct intent, useful depth, and coherent internal relationships. Do not treat a named topical-authority score or a generic completeness rule as proof. The evidence should come from the site's actual pages, queries, links, and unresolved audience needs.

• Checkpoint 19 - Topic coverage map: Evidence required: map important topics to existing hub, supporting, comparison, definition, workflow, and decision pages where those formats genuinely match user intent. Pass/fail: pass when important audience questions are covered by clear, non-duplicative pages with sensible relationships; flag missing needs, thin overlaps, or isolated pages. Severity: high when the gap blocks a core commercial or informational journey. Owner: content strategist. Corrective action: define whether the right response is a new page, an expansion, a merge, or an internal-link change. Validation: the revised map shows one clear destination for each important intent.
• Checkpoint 20 - Keyword and intent cannibalization: Evidence required: compare pages that receive impressions or rankings for materially similar queries and inspect whether their purpose, audience, and content actually differ. Pass/fail: pass when overlapping queries are explained by distinct intent or page role; flag pages that compete because they answer the same need without a useful distinction. Severity: medium, rising when important pages alternate or dilute internal signals. Owner: SEO strategist. Corrective action: consolidate, differentiate, redirect, or relink based on the evidence. Validation: recrawl the revised architecture and monitor whether the intended page becomes the stable destination for the target intent.
• Checkpoint 21 - Staleness review on high-visibility pages: Evidence required: inspect the top 20 pages by organic traffic or impressions and compare their claims, references, product details, screenshots, and update history with the current reality. Flag pages whose substantive content has not been reviewed for more than 18 months when the subject can materially change. Pass/fail: pass when current claims are accurate and the page still satisfies its intended need; fail when outdated information can mislead readers or make the page less useful. Severity: high for outdated commercial, safety, legal, financial, or product facts, otherwise based on impact. Owner: content owner with subject reviewer where needed. Corrective action: refresh only the portions that need updating and preserve useful stable material. Validation: a reviewer confirms the changed claims and records the evidence used. Freshness itself is not treated as a guaranteed ranking factor.
• Checkpoint 22 - Experience, expertise, authorship, and source clarity: Evidence required: inspect key pages for accurate authorship where appropriate, clear responsibility for claims, update context, and source support for statements that require evidence. Pass/fail: pass when readers can understand who is responsible for the content and what supports important claims; flag unsupported assertions, misleading credentials, stale ownership details, or citations that do not substantiate the statement. Severity: high where trust or regulated topics are involved. Owner: content lead and subject reviewer. Corrective action: correct attribution, remove unsupported claims, and add source support only where a real supporting source exists. Validation: sample the revised pages and verify every material claim against its cited or first-party evidence.

Phase 4 should produce a content decision queue, not a demand to publish more. Prioritize corrections and gaps where the domain already has relevance, clear audience need, and a credible path to useful coverage before opening unrelated subject areas.

Competitive analysis comes last so external examples are interpreted against a documented internal baseline. The goal is not to imitate competitors. It is to identify relevant opportunities, verify why they are useful, and avoid importing another site's weaknesses into your own plan.

• Checkpoint 23 - Keyword gap identification: Evidence required: find relevant queries where credible competitors appear in positions 1-20 and the audited domain does not, then inspect the results and the actual intent behind each query. Pass/fail: pass when each retained gap maps to a real audience need the domain can credibly serve; fail when the export is dominated by irrelevant terms, navigational queries, or subjects outside the domain's scope. Severity: opportunity, ranked by business relevance and content fit. Owner: SEO strategist. Corrective action: group retained gaps by intent and decide whether an existing page should improve or a new page is justified. Validation: every prioritized gap has a named destination or a documented reason to defer it.
• Checkpoint 24 - Competitor content structure review: Evidence required: inspect representative ranking pages for the priority gaps and record page purpose, information coverage, internal links, source support, and user-facing structure. Pass/fail: pass when the comparison produces specific reader or architecture insights; fail when the recommendation is simply to match word count, headings, schema, or another superficial pattern. Severity: opportunity. Owner: content strategist. Corrective action: convert useful observations into requirements that fit the audited site's audience and evidence, without copying competitor wording or assuming correlation proves causation. Validation: the resulting brief explains why each proposed change helps the intended user.
• Checkpoint 25 - Backlink opportunity prioritization: Evidence required: combine the reviewed link-gap candidates from Checkpoint 12 with the relevant query gaps from Checkpoint 23, then verify each potential source page, editorial fit, and suitable destination. Rank the top 10 only after removing irrelevant or unverified prospects. Pass/fail: pass when every prioritized source has a plausible editorial reason to reference the site; fail when priority is based only on a third-party authority score. Severity: opportunity. Owner: digital PR or outreach owner. Corrective action: assign the outreach or relationship task with a relevant destination and a reason the source's audience may benefit. Validation: track whether the source was contacted, whether any editorial reference was earned, and whether the final placement matches the reviewed opportunity.

After all 25 checkpoints are complete, synthesize findings by action stage. Use Immediate Corrections for verified defects that can be fixed without a larger dependency, Planned Remediation for work that needs coordination or deeper analysis, and Strategic Investment for longer-running content, architecture, or relationship work. The stage name matters more than a generic deadline because it tells the owner what must happen before validation.

Where repeated manual exports are the bottleneck, domain intelligence tools to automate this checklist can help collect authority, backlink, and technical evidence. Automation should reduce collection work, not replace the manual judgment required to classify relevance, manipulation, intent, or business priority across Phase 1 through Phase 3.