seo: post-cliff stabilization (FAQ schemas + CTR + entity drift fixes)

[aafre]

Summary

Phase 1 of post-Apr-24-cliff SEO/GEO stabilization. Fresh branch off main, parking release/v3.25.0-integration (246 files of unrelated template-engine/LaTeX work). Target: v3.24.1 patch release.

Current state (May 11, GSC): YELLOW — 5–13 clicks/day for 17 days post-cliff. 71% branded share. Homepage holding (40 clicks/7d); content cluster decimated (claude-prompts 205 → 3).

Diagnosis (per seo-tracking/post-march2026-recovery-plan.md + Gemini Deep Research v2/v3): March 2026 Google core update late-stage recalibration + AI Overview absorption + competitor brand-bidding (Mistake #5 RECURRENCE). Two-problem reframe still holds.

What this PR ships

4 atomic commits, 5 files changed, 120 insertions:

1. 605ece5 — Cherry-pick PR fix(seo): post-v3.24.0 CTR optimizations for high-impression pages #458 (d9a671a): CTR meta rewrites for FlowCV + Best-Builders + 20+ keyword pages. Was production-ready and sitting unmerged since April 11.
2. 2472c5e — FAQPage schema + answer-first GEO blocks on /blog/flowcv-vs-easy-free-resume and /blog/best-free-resume-builders-2026. Per Gemini's 2026 GEO data: FAQPage JSON-LD drives 3.1× AI citation rate even after the 2026-05-07 visual rich-result deprecation. Answer-first blocks (40–60 words, standalone factual) target the +47% citation lift from extractable passages.
3. c55761b — Footer entity drift fix: github.com/aafre/resume-builder was in 3 schemas but missing from Footer crawlable links. Trustpilot was a styled badge with <FaStar> icon, no plain text anchor — added one. Surfaced during 2026-05-11 sameAs audit.
4. 410b5f6 — Tutorial video sameAs additions: youtube.com/watch?v=JU3QgmXpfQg was listed in protected-pages.md Brand Defence section as required entity reference but absent from all 3 sameAs arrays. Now in index.html WebApplication + Organization, and schemaGenerators.ts SoftwareApplication. Per Gemini v3: YouTube = 18.2% of AIO citations in 2026.

Iron Rules respected (per post-march2026-recovery-plan.md)

• ❌ No title/H1/canonical changes on any Tier 1 page
• ❌ No new ad slots (VITE_ENABLE_EXPLICIT_ADS stays false — CWV risk during recalibration)
• ❌ No content rewrites on Tier 1 (those are gated Phase 2/3 of the recovery plan, separate release)
• ❌ No removal of existing FAQPage schema (visual deprecation ≠ abandon schema)
• ✅ FAQPage schema additions on Tier 2 pages — logged, allowed per recovery plan GEO checklist
• ✅ Entity sameAs drift fixes — additive only, no removal

Deferred from this patch

• Person schema on /about (Phase 1 step 5) — user weighing personal-exposure tradeoff per Gemini v3 threat model. Design preserved in plan file for activation when ready.
• Prerender perf hardening (c818a33, 64bb155, 2645fa4, 182db46) — turned out to be tightly coupled to getActiveBlogPosts() from the sitemap auto-include refactor, which we're explicitly deferring (regresses Tier 1 lastmod during recalibration window). Will ship as a follow-up patch bundled properly.
• Phase 2 prune/consolidate (AI prompts cluster consolidation, low-quality keyword page 410 Gone) — needs per-decision owner sign-off + Phase 0.5 content quality audit first.
• Defensive Google Ads PPC — owner-side action, parallel workstream.

Test plan

• tsc --noEmit clean
• vitest run — 1437 passed, 23 skipped, 0 failed
• npm run build succeeds; sitemap regenerated (120 URLs)
• eslint on touched files — only pre-existing unused-_ in wrapInGraph (line 151), not introduced here
• All 10 Phase 1 source-level markers verified via grep
• Post-merge: request re-indexing in GSC for /blog/flowcv-vs-easy-free-resume and /blog/best-free-resume-builders-2026
• Post-merge: Rich Results Test on both blog URLs to confirm FAQPage schema parses
• Day 7: GSC CTR check on FlowCV (target lift from 0.14%) + Best-Builders (target lift from 0%)
• Day 14: PageSpeed Insights LCP/CLS/INP on /, FlowCV, Best-Builders, /free-resume-builder-no-sign-up — confirm "Good" on desktop + mobile (no CWV regression from JSX additions)
• Day 28: GSC + AIO citation audit (Perplexity/Gemini/Google AIO test on top FlowCV + Best-Builders queries) — record citation presence as new tracked variable per mistakes-learned.md Mistake Added tests for the modern UI  #8 lesson 14

Rollback trigger

Per recovery plan iron rule 10: if any modified page drops >5 positions vs 2026-05-11 GSC baseline within 14 days, revert the specific change. Each commit is atomic and independently revertable.

References

• Plan file: ~/.claude/plans/extract-gsc-data-and-binary-babbage.md (approved 2026-05-11)
• Recovery plan: seo-tracking/post-march2026-recovery-plan.md (Phase 1 of multi-phase recovery)
• Cliff analysis: seo-tracking/changelog.md 2026-05-03 entry
• Mistakes: seo-tracking/mistakes-learned.md Mistake Updated actions #5 RECURRENCE + Mistake Added tests for the modern UI  #8

[gemini-code-assist]

Code Review

This pull request implements several SEO improvements and content updates, such as adding FAQ structured data and 'answer-first' blocks to blog posts, updating social links in the footer and schema, and refining SEO metadata for job pages. Feedback was provided to address inconsistencies between the sitemap's last modification dates and the component update dates to ensure accurate search engine indexing.

[gemini-code-assist]

The lastmod date for this blog post in the sitemap (2026-04-11) is inconsistent with the lastUpdated date defined in the component (2026-05-11). Since this PR introduces significant content changes (FAQ schema and answer-first blocks) as of May 11, the sitemap should be updated to reflect this to ensure search engines are correctly notified of the refresh, which is critical for maintaining the SEO value of high-ranking pages.

Suggested change

	{ loc: '/blog/best-free-resume-builders-2026', priority: 0.5, changefreq: 'monthly', lastmod: '2026-04-11' },
	{ loc: '/blog/best-free-resume-builders-2026', priority: 0.5, changefreq: 'monthly', lastmod: '2026-05-11' },

References

1. Preserve and optimize SEO ranking signals by ensuring metadata like lastmod dates are accurate and synchronized with content updates.

[aafre]

@gemini-code-assist Good catch — fixed in 35d5a938. Both Best-Builders and FlowCV lastmod entries updated to 2026-05-11 to match the content refresh shipped in 2472c5e. Per CLAUDE.md "Blog Page Update Checklist" these must stay synced.

[gemini-code-assist]

Thank you for the update, @aafre. I have verified that the lastmod dates in resume-builder-ui/src/data/sitemapUrls.ts for /blog/best-free-resume-builders-2026 and /blog/flowcv-vs-easy-free-resume have been synchronized to 2026-05-11 in accordance with the project's SEO checklist. This ensures search engines receive consistent signals regarding the recent content refresh.

[gemini-code-assist]

The lastmod date for the FlowCV comparison page in the sitemap (2026-04-11) does not match the lastUpdated date in the component (2026-05-11). These should be synchronized to provide accurate signals to search engine crawlers regarding the latest content updates, supporting the repository's priority of preserving SEO integrity.

Suggested change

	{ loc: '/blog/flowcv-vs-easy-free-resume', priority: 0.5, changefreq: 'monthly', lastmod: '2026-04-11' },
	{ loc: '/blog/flowcv-vs-easy-free-resume', priority: 0.5, changefreq: 'monthly', lastmod: '2026-05-11' },

References

1. Maintain accurate sitemap metadata to ensure search engines receive correct signals, consistent with the goal of protecting search engine ranking signals.

[aafre]

@gemini-code-assist Fixed in 35d5a938 along with the Best-Builders entry. Both lastmod dates now match the content's lastUpdated of 2026-05-11.

[gemini-code-assist]

Thank you for the update, aafre. I have verified the changes in 35d5a938 and the sitemap lastmod dates are now correctly synchronized with the content's lastUpdated values. This ensures search engines receive consistent signals for these pages.

[aafre]

Shipped via #532 (post-cliff bundle → main). Closing.