Information Architecture SEO

Use this skill after semantic-core-architect and before internal linking, schema, or LLM-readable layers.

Read references/url-architecture.md before producing a full URL map.

Owns

• URL strategy;
• page taxonomy;
• page roles and content ownership;
• canonical model;
• hreflang groups;
• index/noindex policy;
• pillar/topic/news/article/blog/project role separation;
• duplicate-content prevention.

Does Not Own

• semantic core creation;
• final page copy;
• internal link graph details;
• JSON-LD implementation;
• rendered UI design;
• external backlinks.

Workflow

1. Read the semantic core, entity-topic map, site constraints, languages, and content model.
2. Identify the canonical page role for each cluster/entity/topic.
3. Define route patterns before individual URLs.
4. Set canonical policy per page role.
5. Define hreflang groups for localized equivalents.
6. Mark page status: planned, draft, published, noindex, or deferred.
7. Record duplicate-content risks and ownership boundaries.
8. Produce url-map.yaml using assets/url-map.template.yaml.
9. Hand off to internal-link-graph-architect and technical-seo-schema-engineer.

Canonical Rules

• A page can be self-canonical when it has a distinct user/search role and visible content.
• A short news brief and one expanded longform article can both be self-canonical when the brief is the fast news surface and the longform is the durable explanation surface.
• Do not canonicalize a standalone brief to its longform by default.
• Do not create extra public story variants beyond the declared model.
• Topic and pillar pages must summarize and organize; they must not duplicate article bodies.
• Locale alternates use hreflang; they do not replace canonical self-reference.

Multilingual Rules

• Default language owns x-default unless the site has a separate language selector page.
• Every localized page must declare its own canonical URL.
• Hreflang groups must contain only true equivalents, not loosely related pages.
• If translation quality is unknown, mark the localized page as draft or deferred, not published.

Safety And Privacy Boundaries

• Do not expose admin, API, private dashboards, raw analytics, raw IP logs, secret files, or staging URLs as public indexable pages.
• Use noindex or blocked internal routing for low-value utility pages; do not rely on public navigation hiding.
• Do not weaken authentication, access control, or security headers for crawlability.
• Do not place private source URLs, credentials, tokens, unpublished drafts, or internal notes in url-map.yaml, sitemap plans, or public LLM-facing artifacts.

Validation

Before marking work complete:

• every page has URL, page type, locale, canonical, index policy, and rationale;
• every language alternate has a coherent hreflang group;
• every story has at most one brief and one longform per language;
• topic pages do not duplicate article bodies;
• final link graph details are left for internal-link-graph-architect;
• schema implementation is left for technical-seo-schema-engineer.

Validate skill edits with:

python3 <codex-skills-dir>/senior-skill-architect/scripts/lint_production_skill.py ./skills/information-architecture-seo
python3 ./plans/seo-llm-skill-cluster/scripts/lint_skill_cluster.py .

Forward tests live in evals.json.

Output Shape

Return:

1. URL strategy summary.
2. Page role table.
3. Canonical and hreflang policy.
4. Duplicate-content risks.
5. Handoff notes for internal linking and technical SEO/schema.