Quality and evidence · Branch Q.C, Originality and defensible value
Q-14 Case studies must carry a measurable evidence chain
A case study must be written around the problem, intervention, baseline, measurement window and result, and must not make unsupported success claims.
- Scope
- All public content
- Priority
- High priority.
- Quality bucket
- Original, non-commodity value
- Legacy coverage
- GEO-29
Why it matters
A success story with no baseline or measurement window cannot be checked, so readers have no reason to believe it. Search engines and AI answer engines gain nothing reliable from unsupported claims. Invented customer names make it worse.
How to implement
- Record the baseline before the work starts.
- Describe the intervention in detail.
- Define the metric and the measurement window.
- Report the result as absolute and relative figures where possible.
- State clearly when a case is anonymous, and never use an invented customer name.
Checklist
- Measure the baseline.
- Write the details of the intervention.
- Define the measurement window and metric.
- Give the result as both absolute and relative figures where possible.
- If the case is anonymous, say so, and do not use an invented customer name.
How to audit
- Check the project and evidence file.
- Replay the result calculation.
How UltimateSEO checks this automatically
Partly automated. The crawler can confirm dates and structure on case-study pages; the baseline, measurement window and outcome evidence must be supplied by the business. The crawl gives a signal; a person decides the final state with business evidence.
States used: PASS, FAIL, UNKNOWN, NOT_APPLICABLE or BLOCKED. UNKNOWN is never shown as a pass. How states work.
Sources
Part of The UltimateSEO Framework v4.1, revised 2026-10-07. Evidence states, control states and the publish gate are explained on the hub.