/seo-drift

name: seo-drift
description: Capture an SEO baseline snapshot for a domain or URL, then on later runs compare the current state and surface regressions. Tracks authority, traffic, keywords, backlinks, and on-page content. Three subcommands — `baseline`, `compare`, `history`. Use when the user asks for "SEO drift", "baseline this site", "did anything break", "SEO regression check", "compare before and after", "deployment check", or "monthly SEO snapshot".

> Example output: [examples/seo-drift-wix-com-20260514/compare/DRIFT-REPORT.md](../../examples/seo-drift-wix-com-20260514/compare/DRIFT-REPORT.md)

SEO Drift

Git for SEO. Capture a snapshot of a domain or URL's SEO state ("baseline"), then on later runs diff the current state against the baseline and surface regressions. Catches the things that get worse silently after a deploy, redesign, or content cull.

> **Acknowledgements:** drift-as-an-SEO-skill framework originated in `claude-seo` by AgriciDaniel (with the original concept credited to Dan Colta, Pro Hub Challenge). MIT-licensed both directions; this implementation is independent but the framing is theirs.

Prerequisites

• SE Ranking MCP server connected.
• Claude's `WebFetch` tool available (for URL-mode page fingerprinting).
• User provides: target domain or URL, plus a subcommand (`baseline`, `compare`, `history`).

Optional flags

| Flag | Mode | Effect | |---|---|---| | `--no-firecrawl` | baseline, compare | Skip Firecrawl-based `<head>` + JSON-LD capture even when Firecrawl is installed (saves credits at the cost of canonical / robots / og:* / JSON-LD diff coverage). | | `--skip-cwv` | baseline, compare | Skip the Google CrUX capture (step 4b) even when `google-api.json` is configured. Useful when you only care about content/structural drift, or when CrUX rate-limit concerns outweigh CWV coverage. Mirrors theirs at `seo-drift/SKILL.md:107, 131`. | | `--baseline-id <n>` | compare | Compare against a specific baseline by ID rather than the most recent. | | `--limit <n>` | history | Cap the number of historical entries shown. |

Subcommands

`baseline <target>`

Capture the current SEO state and write it to a snapshot file. No diff produced.

`compare <target>`

Load the most recent baseline for the target. Capture the current state. Diff. Produce `DRIFT-REPORT.md`.

`history <target>`

List all stored baselines for the target with their dates and key metrics (DA, traffic, keyword count). No diff produced.

Process

baseline mode

1. **Validate target.** Determine if domain or URL. Domain = `example.com`; URL = anything starting with `http(s)://`.

• **SSRF protection (URL mode).** If target is a URL, validate via `python3 -c "from scripts.google_auth import validate_url; import sys; sys.exit(0 if validate_url('{target}') else 1)"` (or import `validate_url` directly in any helper script). Reject loopback (127.0.0.1, ::1, localhost), private IP ranges (10/8, 172.16/12, 192.168/16), link-local (169.254/16), and Google metadata endpoints. If validation fails, abort with a clear error and don't proceed to fetch — feeding an unvalidated URL into Firecrawl / WebFetch / Google APIs would risk SSRF against internal services. Mirrors theirs at `seo-drift/SKILL.md:97`.

2. **Preflight.** See `skills/seo-firecrawl/references/preflight.md` for the canonical 3-stage preflight (credit balance, Firecrawl availability, Google APIs). Skill-specific notes:

• Estimated SE Ranking cost for this skill: typical baseline costs ~10–20 SE Ranking credits depending on whether step 4 (URL-mode page snapshot) is included.
• Firecrawl: optional with WebFetch fallback, +1 Firecrawl credit per URL if available (URL mode). When available, the snapshot also captures `<head>` + JSON-LD content so canonical / robots / og:* / JSON-LD changes are detectable on diff. Without it the snapshot is partial. Pass `--no-firecrawl` to skip Firecrawl even when available (saves credits at the cost of diff coverage).
• Google APIs: tier 0 unlocks CrUX p75 LCP/INP/CLS capture (origin in domain mode, URL in URL mode); tier 1 (URL mode only) additionally captures URL Inspection state (`indexStatusVerdict`, `googleCanonical`, `lastCrawlTime`) so subsequent compares can flag field-data and indexation drift. See `skills/seo-google/references/cross-skill-integration.md` § "seo-drift" for the full recipe.

3. **Domain snapshot** (always):

• `DATA_getDomainOverviewWorldwide` — DA, traffic, organic + paid keyword counts.
• `DATA_getDomainKeywords` — top 100 organic keywords with positions.
• `DATA_getBacklinksSummary` — backlinks total, referring domains total.
• `DATA_getBacklinksRefDomains` — top 20 referring domains with authority.

4. **Page snapshot** (if target is a URL): `WebFetch` (always) + `mcp__firecrawl-mcp__firecrawl_scrape` (when available)

• **WebFetch** (free): extract `<title>`, all `<h1..h6>`, lang, word count, internal-link count, image count, body markdown for prose-level diff.
• **Firecrawl** (1 Firecrawl credit per URL) — recovers `<head>` and `<script>` content WebFetch strips:
• From `metadata`: canonical URL, robots meta, og:title, og:description, og:image, twitter:card.
• From returned `html`: every `<script type="application/ld+json">` block. Capture both detected `@type`s and a hash of the full block content (so any schema-content change is detected on diff, not just type-list changes).
• **If Firecrawl unavailable (or `--no-firecrawl` passed):** only WebFetch fields enter the fingerprint. `BASELINE.md` notes: `Snapshot fields recovered via WebFetch only — canonical, robots, og:*, twitter:*, and JSON-LD changes will not be detected on subsequent compares. Install Firecrawl for full coverage.`
• Compute a fingerprint hash of the captured fields.
• Also capture page authority: `DATA_getPageAuthority`.

4b. **Google field-data snapshot** *(only if google-api.json is present AND `--skip-cwv` not set)*

• Tier 0 (always when configu