What Skills Does
While other Actions features handle strategy and content generation, Skills focuses on underlying site mechanics. A well-planned content strategy cannot drive citations if AI crawlers are blocked inrobots.txt or if internal link redirect chains drop crawler requests.
Skills also serves as the primary execution engine for Technical action items flagged inside Brand, Trust, Authorityaudits.
The Four On-Demand Audits
Deliverables & Report Structure
Every run outputs a timestamped.xlsx report that automatically collects in Deliverables:
1. Link_Audit_Report.xlsx
- Summary: High-level crawl overview.
- Broken & Suspect: Priority list of broken internal/external links.
- Verify Manually: Flagged links returning 403 status codes (bot protection vs. broken link).
- Redirects & Orphans: Redirect chains to collapse, along with stranded/weak pages.
- Link Opportunities: AI-recommended internal linking paths between related pages.
2. Onpage_Audit_Report.xlsx
- Summary & Page Scores: Overall on-page health metrics.
- On-Page Issues & Schema: Missing metadata, invalid JSON-LD, or canonical errors.
- Answer Blocks (GEO): Identifies pages with extractable 40–80 word summaries, Q&A pairs, and structured tables.
- Fixes: Template-level consolidation sheet containing single-row fixes that repair hundreds of pages at once.
3. AI_Crawlability_Report.xlsx
A fast-diagnostic audit confirming whether major AI search crawlers can access, render, and index your core URLs.
4. Search Console Audit Plan
A 28-day Search Console action plan highlighting high-value SEO rankings that lack AI citations and AI citations that lack traditional search rank.Recommended Execution Schedule
- Project Onboarding (Run All Four): Start with AI Crawlability (as crawl blocks invalidate downstream audits), followed by On-Page SEO & GEO, Broken Links, and GSC Audit once connected.
- Monthly Technical Maintenance: Run audits monthly to catch quiet site decay, broken external links, or missing internal links on newly published campaign pages.
- Post-Migration & Redesign Verification: Re-run audits immediately after site migrations, CMS updates, or major redesigns to ensure canonicals, redirects, and crawler access remain intact.
FAQs
Do I need a Topical Map or Brand Details to run Skills?
Do I need a Topical Map or Brand Details to run Skills?
No. Skills analyze live site URLs directly and operate completely independently of project setup documents.
Is Google Search Console required for all four skills?
Is Google Search Console required for all four skills?
No. Search Console is only required for the GSC Audit. The other three skills only require your live site URL.
Why are some URLs listed under "Verify Manually" instead of broken?
Why are some URLs listed under "Verify Manually" instead of broken?
The crawler received a
403 Forbidden response rather than a 404 Not Found. Because many sites block automated crawlers while serving normal content to human visitors, these are separated to prevent false positives.How often should I run Skills?
How often should I run Skills?
Run all four skills during initial onboarding, once per month for routine maintenance, and immediately following any major site migration or CMS update.