Indexing

Indexing decides which Pages search and answer engines may find. A Page serves the moment it publishes, but it enters the index only when the Startup can keep the promise the Page makes.

Published is not indexedCopy Anchor Link

Every Page carries an index state, indexState, separate from the Lifecycle of its Startup. Serving and indexing are different decisions: people and Agents with the link read a Page from the first second, while search engines wait for permission.

Every new Page starts held, and a Page whose state is unknown is treated as held. Nothing reaches the index by default.

Fulfillment gates acquisitionCopy Anchor Link

A Page that promises nothing a buyer can pay for indexes at once. A Waitlist Page and a positioning essay go open on publish, because the worst outcome is an early signup.

A Page that sells waits. Pricing, comparison, and answer Pages that lead to an Offer leave held once the Startup can take payment and deliver. Both are Live entry checks: payouts connected and work defined.

Until then, demand comes from Plays that reach a few buyers at a time, such as cold email and a smoke test. Delivery is done by hand where it must be.

The reason is cost. A ranked Page that sells what the Startup cannot deliver turns searchers into refunds. A Domain full of thin Pages teaches search engines to distrust every Page on it, including the good ones written later.

The quality gateCopy Anchor Link

A Page moves from held to certified when it passes every check:

1. Every claim resolves to a record, and no proof renders before Live.
2. The copy passes the interchangeability test and names a real artifact of the buyer's world.
3. Every link resolves, and the Page renders in HTML, Markdown, and JSON.
4. Structured data is complete for its type, or absent.
5. The Page answers a Keyword no other Page on the Site targets.

Evaluators score the copy and Guards block on the rest. The Agent that wrote a Page never certifies it: the checker is always a different Worker from the performer.

A gate that never fails certifies nothing. Each check runs against a set of known-bad Pages on every release, and a defect that recurs becomes a new check.

Release in batchesCopy Anchor Link

Certified Pages enter the sitemap in batches, not all at once. Take a Directory of solar installers with 3,000 city Pages. It releases 100 Pages, and the SEO System watches impressions, rank, and citations for that batch.

The next batch waits until the last one holds. A batch that earns no impressions in its window pauses the release and returns its Pages to held for rework. The programmatic SEO Play runs this loop; editorial SEO and AEO release the same way at a smaller scale.

Leaving the indexCopy Anchor Link

A Page leaves search without breaking a link:

• Dormant. When a Startup goes Dormant, its Site stays published and every Page moves to withdrawn. Readers with a link still arrive.
• Removed. A Page deleted by a definition Change answers 410 Gone, so engines drop it on the next crawl instead of retrying a 404.
• Moved. A Page whose path changes answers its old path with a permanent redirect to the new one.

Many Startups, one ownerCopy Anchor Link

Startups that share an owner link to each other sparingly, with varied anchor text, and each Site discloses the common ownership. No Site carries a sitewide footer of links to its siblings. Each Site earns its rank on its own Pages.

What indexing is notCopy Anchor Link

llms.txt and the Markdown form of each Page serve Agents that already found the Startup. They are not ranking levers, and no Page claims they are. Structured data types that search engines retired, such as FAQPage and HowTo, are not emitted.

NextCopy Anchor Link

• Publishing: how a Page reaches readers before it reaches search.
• Storefront: where readers from search become Customers.