5
Components in the finished document
Manual Action / Penalty Review
A determination of whether a decline is a penalty or something else, and what a reconsideration would require.
Where This Sits
2
Measured directly, not asserted
3
Pieces that carry my judgment
This is a Diagnostics deliverable, which means it establishes what is true about the site now. It is the unit of scope: it can be commissioned on its own, priced on its own, and accepted on its own, whether or not anything else is bought alongside it.
It is not a package and not a retainer. It is one document with 5 components, and the list below is the whole of it.
What Is Inside It
Every component is listed with the one sentence that says what it is. They are grouped by how each one is produced, because the difference between a number a tool gave me and a number I decided matters more than most reports admit.
Measured
Pulled straight from tools and logs. No interpretation, so you can re-run any of it yourself and get the same numbers.
- Backlink profile export
- The referring domain and page inventory with authority, anchor and first-seen date.
- Toxic link table
- Referring domains that plausibly carry risk, with the reason each was flagged.
Judged
My reading of the evidence. This is the part you are actually paying for, and the part you are entitled to argue with.
- Manual action record
- Any active or historical penalty, its stated reason and its resolution state.
- Historical timeline
- Traffic and ranking history annotated with site changes, algorithm updates and market events.
- Prioritised recommendation list
- Every recommendation in the order it should be acted on, with the reason for that order.