domain-authority-auditor

Overview of domain-authority-auditor skill

What domain-authority-auditor actually does

The domain-authority-auditor skill is a structured domain trust and authority review workflow built around a 40-item CITE audit. Instead of giving a vague "this site seems reputable" answer, it scores a domain across four dimensions—Citation, Identity, Trust, and Eminence—then applies domain-type weighting and veto checks to catch serious credibility risks.

Who should use this skill

This skill fits people who need a reasoned authority assessment rather than a generic SEO opinion:

• SEO teams comparing sites or auditing owned domains
• publishers and affiliate operators checking brand trust signals
• consultants diagnosing authority gaps after traffic loss or penalty concerns
• reviewers doing trust evaluation for Brand Review workflows
• AI operators who want a repeatable report format instead of freestyle prompting

The real job-to-be-done

Most users are not asking for abstract "domain authority." They want to answer practical questions such as:

• Is this domain trustworthy enough to publish on, cite, or partner with?
• Why does this site feel weak despite having backlinks?
• Which credibility issues are most damaging right now?
• What should be fixed first to improve trust perception and search resilience?

The domain-authority-auditor skill is useful because it turns those fuzzy questions into a scored audit with prioritization.

What makes domain-authority-auditor different

The main differentiators are not just the score:

• it uses a multi-factor rubric instead of a single-metric shortcut
• it adjusts evaluation by domain type, which matters for realistic expectations
• it includes veto checks for severe trust failures
• it produces a concrete improvement list, not just a label like "low authority"

That makes it better suited to decision support than a basic "rate this website" prompt.

What to know before installing

This is a judgment framework, not a live data crawler by itself. The skill works best when the model can inspect the target site, search for public evidence, or use MCP/network-enabled SEO tools if your environment supports them. If your agent cannot access the web or you provide almost no evidence, output quality will depend heavily on your manual inputs.

How to Use domain-authority-auditor skill

Install context for domain-authority-auditor

Install domain-authority-auditor through your skills workflow for the aaron-he-zhu/seo-geo-claude-skills repository. The repo metadata indicates compatibility with Claude Code, skills.sh, ClawHub, and the Vercel Labs skills ecosystem, with no system packages required.

If your environment supports optional MCP network access, that can materially improve evidence quality for authority checks.

Read these files first

Before first use, read these in order:

1. cross-cutting/domain-authority-auditor/SKILL.md
2. cross-cutting/domain-authority-auditor/references/example-report.md

SKILL.md explains when the skill should trigger and how the CITE workflow is structured. The example report is the fastest way to understand expected output shape, scoring logic, and improvement prioritization.

Best trigger situations

The domain-authority-auditor skill is best triggered when the request sounds like:

• audit domain authority for a site
• check domain trust or domain credibility
• explain whether a domain is authoritative
• investigate a site after a penalty or trust drop
• evaluate a domain for Brand Review

It is less useful for keyword research, technical SEO crawling, or backlink gap analysis by itself.

What inputs produce the best audit

At minimum, provide:

• the domain
• the domain type or business model
• the purpose of the audit

Better inputs also include:

• target market or country
• whether the site is a publisher, SaaS, ecommerce, local business, nonprofit, or personal brand
• known problems such as traffic loss, deindexing, spam history, thin author pages, or weak mentions
• any evidence you already have from backlink, traffic, or reputation tools

The domain type matters because the skill uses weighting logic rather than judging every site as if it were the same business.

Turn a rough request into a strong prompt

Weak prompt:

• "Check my domain authority."

Stronger prompt:

• "Use the domain-authority-auditor skill to audit example.com as a B2B SaaS brand in the US. Focus on trustworthiness for search and buyer confidence. If evidence is missing, state assumptions clearly. Return the CITE score, veto findings, top weaknesses, and the 5 highest-impact fixes."

Why this works:

• names the skill explicitly
• defines the domain type
• tells the model what "authority" should mean in context
• requests assumptions and prioritization, which reduces hand-wavy output

Recommended workflow in practice

A practical domain-authority-auditor usage flow looks like this:

1. Identify the domain and classify its type.
2. Gather visible evidence: About, Contact, author pages, policies, press, citations, backlink quality, and reputation signals.
3. Run the CITE audit and note any veto triggers first.
4. Review the weighted dimension scores.
5. Convert weak areas into a short action plan ordered by impact.

This sequence matters because severe trust failures can outweigh otherwise decent authority signals.

What the output should look like

A good run should produce:

• a domain overview
• domain type
• CITE score and rating band
• veto status
• dimension-by-dimension scores
• score calculation or weighting logic
• top priority improvements ranked by impact

If the output only gives a loose narrative without explicit scoring, dimensions, or veto handling, you are not getting the full value of the skill.

How to use domain-authority-auditor for Brand Review

For domain-authority-auditor for Brand Review, emphasize identity and trust evidence, not just link metrics. Ask the model to inspect whether the brand is clearly attributable, contactable, consistently represented, and supported by third-party signals.

A useful prompt pattern:

• "Use domain-authority-auditor for Brand Review on example.com. Evaluate whether the brand looks legitimate, attributable, and trustworthy to users and search systems. Prioritize entity clarity, reputation evidence, editorial transparency, and any veto-level concerns."

This is especially helpful when reviewing newer brands that may have weak traditional authority but strong legitimacy signals.

Practical constraints and tradeoffs

This skill does not replace specialist tools for:

• link index depth
• penalty confirmation inside search consoles
• legal or compliance review
• exhaustive technical SEO audits

Its value is decision structure. It helps an agent combine mixed evidence into a credible judgment, but the final score is only as good as the evidence available.

Tips that improve output quality fast

Three tactics usually improve results the most:

• specify the site type clearly
• ask for evidence-backed scoring, not intuition
• require "missing evidence" notes so false confidence is visible

Also ask for a short section on uncertain findings. That makes the audit more usable when data is incomplete.

domain-authority-auditor skill FAQ

Is domain-authority-auditor beginner friendly

Yes, if you already understand basic website trust signals. You do not need to memorize the whole framework before using it, but you should know what kind of site you are auditing and why. Beginners will get better results if they follow the example report structure instead of improvising.

Is this better than a normal prompt

Usually yes. A normal prompt often produces generic praise or criticism. The domain-authority-auditor guide is better because it forces a rubric, weighting, veto checks, and prioritized fixes. That reduces inconsistent judgments across domains.

Does it measure Moz-style Domain Authority

No. The skill is broader than a single vendor metric. It assesses authority and trust from multiple evidence types, so treat it as an audit framework, not a clone of third-party proprietary scores.

When should I not use domain-authority-auditor

Skip it when your real need is:

• technical crawling
• indexation diagnostics
• keyword opportunity mapping
• raw backlink export analysis
• competitor SERP gap work

In those cases, use a more specialized skill or tool first, then use domain-authority-auditor for the trust and authority interpretation layer.

Can it help with penalty recovery questions

Yes, especially for initial triage. The trigger list explicitly includes penalty-related use cases. It can surface whether authority weakness may be tied to trust failures, unnatural signals, or identity gaps, but it cannot verify every penalty state without external evidence.

Does it require live web access

Not strictly, but web access helps a lot. Without live access, you should provide the domain facts manually. Otherwise the model may produce a neat framework with weak substantiation.

How to Improve domain-authority-auditor skill

Give domain-authority-auditor stronger evidence

The biggest quality lever is evidence quality. If possible, provide or let the model inspect:

• About and Contact pages
• author or editorial policy pages
• business registration or company details
• third-party mentions
• backlink profile summaries
• traffic trend context
• reputation or scam complaints, if relevant

This improves both scoring accuracy and the action plan.

Reduce false confidence with explicit assumptions

Tell the model:

• "State assumptions where evidence is unavailable."
• "Separate verified findings from inferred findings."

This makes the domain-authority-auditor skill much more trustworthy for real decisions, especially on smaller sites with limited public signals.

Improve prompt specificity by naming the domain type

A common failure mode is asking for a domain audit without saying what the site is. A publisher, local service business, ecommerce store, and SaaS company should not be judged identically. Naming the type helps the skill apply more realistic weighting.

Ask for the highest-impact fixes only

Do not request a giant laundry list. Ask for the top 3 to 5 improvements ranked by impact on the CITE score or trust outcome. This keeps the result actionable and aligned with the skill's prioritization logic.

Use the example report as a quality benchmark

Compare your output to references/example-report.md. If your result is missing:

• veto checks
• dimension scoring
• weighting explanation
• ranked improvement priorities

then rerun with a more explicit prompt. The example report is the best calibration file in the repository.

Iterate after the first audit

A good second-pass prompt is:

• "Re-run the domain-authority-auditor using the first audit as baseline. Challenge weak assumptions, tighten the evidence, and update only the scores or recommendations that materially change."

This improves consistency and prevents overreacting to a rough first pass.

Common failure modes to watch for

Watch for these problems:

• score with no evidence
• trust conclusions based only on backlinks
• no distinction between brand legitimacy and popularity
• no handling of veto-level risks
• recommendations that are too generic to implement

If you see those, the issue is usually weak inputs or an underspecified prompt, not the framework itself.

How to get more value from domain-authority-auditor

Use domain-authority-auditor as part of a broader decision flow:

1. gather raw site and reputation evidence
2. run the audit
3. validate major claims with external tools
4. turn the top weaknesses into implementation tasks
5. re-audit after meaningful fixes

That is the most practical way to convert the skill from a report generator into a useful operating tool.