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Read-only local campaign artifact

seo-forensic-incident-response.md

direct-content-wave-21/seo-forensic-incident-response.md

# SEO Forensic Incident Response: Flat Fee House Cleaners Sarasota

**Execution status:** PARTIAL

## Executive incident summary

No verified organic-traffic, ranking, indexing, or manual-action incident was supplied. The retained browser evidence identifies historical mobile-navigation and mixed-content risks, but neither establishes an SEO decline. Therefore the correct classification is **unconfirmed technical-risk review**, not an algorithmic, penalty, or traffic-drop diagnosis.

**Confidence:** High that an SEO incident cannot be diagnosed from the available inputs. Low on every root-cause theory below until fresh evidence is collected.

## Evidence inventory

| Evidence | What it supports | What it does not support |
|---|---|---|
| Retained homepage text, SHA-256 recorded in `SOURCE-NOTES.md` | Page was captured and contains Sarasota cleaning-service content | Current crawlability, indexation, rankings, or availability |
| 2026-08-06 mobile screenshot evidence | Historical mobile menu overflow risk | Current mobile UX or Googlebot impact |
| 2026-08-06 console evidence | Historical HTTP image request/mixed-content warning | Current render health or traffic impact |
| No GSC, analytics, logs, deployment history, crawl, or SERP data | The investigation boundary | An actual incident timeline or root cause |

## Testable hypotheses

| Priority | Hypothesis | Evidence now | Validation required | Safe next action |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mobile navigation hides service paths on small screens. | Retained screenshot measurement only. | Fresh 390x844 browser run, focus order, close control, and link-path checks. | Read-only browser test; do not change WordPress. |
| 2 | An HTTP image reference creates a mixed-content warning. | Historical console capture only. | Fresh browser console and network capture; confirm the resource and its source template. | Record current request result before any CMS change. |
| 3 | A search-visibility drop exists. | No evidence. | GSC clicks, impressions, positions, index coverage, and manual-actions export for 6-12 months. | Establish a timeline before selecting a recovery action. |
| 4 | A deployment or plugin change caused a technical regression. | No evidence. | WordPress, Elementor/Elementskit, host/CDN change logs around the drop date. | Compare a known-good date with the suspected change. |

## Prioritized response plan

1. **Triage:** obtain the first date of any reported decline and read-only GSC/analytics exports.
2. **Reproduce:** run a fresh desktop and 390x844 browser inspection, preserving screenshot, console, and network evidence.
3. **Segment:** compare branded/non-branded, mobile/desktop, and home/service-page data.
4. **Diagnose:** inspect robots, canonicals, sitemap, redirects, response codes, and recent WordPress/plugin changes only after the timeline identifies an incident window.
5. **Recover:** choose rollback, hotfix, or content remediation only after a hypothesis is confirmed.

## Closure criteria

This forensic workflow is not complete until a verified incident timeline, current technical evidence, and a post-change recovery measurement exist. No remediation was applied here.