offsite-signal-analyzer

Off-Site Signal Analyzer

Reports the two off-site signal families a domain earns from the outside world: the backlink profile (who links to you and how clean those links are) and the AI-assistant referral channel (how much traffic AI answers send you and whether it converts). Both are CITE-adjacent — they feed CITE Citation and Trust items — but they come from different data sources joined only at the domain level, so the skill keeps them behind a mode selector.

Mode set:

Mode	Data source	Answers
backlinks (default)	~~link database export / pasted CSV	Referring domains, anchor mix, toxic-link share, disavow candidates, competitor link gaps
ai-referrals	GA4 / GSC / server-log export	AI-assistant referral sessions, trend, top landing pages, AI-vs-organic conversion

The seam: backlinks answers "is this domain worth trusting as a source?" from the link graph; ai-referrals answers "are AI engines already sending citations-as-traffic?" from your own analytics. Never blend the two datasets into one number — report each mode's figures under its own heading and let domain-authority-auditor join them into a CITE score.

Quick Start

Analyze backlink profile for example.com
Find link-building opportunities by analyzing competitor1.com, competitor2.com   (--mode backlinks)
Track AI referral traffic for example.com over the last 90 days                  (--mode ai-referrals)
How much of my traffic comes from ChatGPT and Perplexity, and does it convert better than organic?

If no mode is given, infer it: link/anchor/toxic/referring-domain wording → backlinks; AI-assistant/ChatGPT/Perplexity/GA4-referral wording → ai-referrals. State the chosen mode in the first line of output.

Skill Contract

Expected output: for backlinks, a backlink report (profile overview, quality/anchors/toxicity, competitive gap, change tracking) or delta summary; for ai-referrals, an AI-referral channel definition plus trend, top landing pages, and AI-vs-organic conversion. Both plus the standard handoff summary ready for memory/monitoring/.

• Reads:

- backlinks — target domain, backlink/referring-domain exports, competitor domains, anchor data, any user-provided or tool metrics. - ai-referrals — domain, date range, the user's GA4 export / Search Console data and/or server access logs, conversion event/goal, and any prior AI-traffic baseline in memory.

• Writes: a user-facing monitoring deliverable and a reusable handoff summary under memory/monitoring/.
• Promotes: significant changes, confirmed anomalies, new AI sources appearing, and follow-up actions to memory/open-loops.md (via status pending-decision; this skill does not write decisions.md directly).
• Done when:

- backlinks — referring domains, anchor mix, and toxic-link share are reported with each metric source-tagged (or N/A), the toxic ratio is computed, and at least 3 link-building or disavow actions are named. - ai-referrals — the AI source list is explicit, every figure is source-tagged, AI sessions and conversion are compared to organic for the same window, and any movement is read against a control per the measurement protocol.

• Primary next skill: domain-authority-auditor when toxicity or authority concerns need formal CITE scoring (backlinks); performance-monitor to roll the AI channel into a stakeholder report (ai-referrals).

Handoff Summary

Emit the standard shape from skill-contract.md §Handoff Summary Format. Include which mode ran and, for ai-referrals, the final AI source regex as evidence.

Scope Guard

This skill does not: score CITE or run vetoes (that is the domain-authority-auditor gate — this skill only supplies the off-site inputs); analyze internal link structure (site-structure-optimizer); report keyword positions (rank-tracker); or assemble the multi-metric stakeholder report (performance-monitor). It works one lever — off-site signal — and hands off.

Decision Gates

Stop and ask the user when:

• backlinks — no backlink data is provided and no ~~link database is connected; link counts cannot be measured. Offer: (1) paste a backlink/referring-domain export, (2) connect a tool, (3) cancel. Do not estimate referring-domain volume from the domain alone.
• ai-referrals — no GA4/GSC/log export is provided and no analytics tool is connected; AI sessions cannot be measured. Offer: (1) paste a source/medium or access-log export, (2) connect analytics, (3) cancel. Do not estimate AI sessions from the domain alone.
• Mode is genuinely ambiguous (the request names both link and AI-traffic intent) — present the two modes and ask which to run first; do not auto-run both.

Continue silently (never stop for):

• Which of several competitors to deep-dive (backlinks) — analyze the top 3 by overlap and note the rest.
• Missing optional fields (geography, link velocity; comparison window when a default is obvious) — mark N/A or use a sensible default and proceed.
• No conversion event named (ai-referrals) — report sessions/engagement only and note the gap.

Instructions

Label every metric Measured (tool/export), User-provided, or Estimated (model inference); never present an estimate as measured; if a required metric is unavailable, mark it N/A — do not invent it. State the running mode in the first output line.

Mode: backlinks

1. Generate Profile Overview — key metrics, link velocity, authority distribution, and profile health score, each metric carrying its source tag.
2. Analyze Link Quality — top backlinks, link-type mix, anchor-text distribution, and geography.
3. Identify Toxic Links — risk indicators, links to review, and disavow recommendations; report the toxic ratio as a labeled figure. Score borderline links with the Link Quality Rubric so weak links are not mistaken for toxic.
4. Compare Against Competitors — profile comparison, link intersection, and top linked competitor content.
5. Find Link Building Opportunities — intersection prospects, broken links, unlinked mentions, resource pages, guest posts, and effort-vs-impact priorities; draw outreach angles from Outreach Templates.
6. Track Link Changes — new and lost links, net change, and recovery priorities, each delta labeled against its baseline.
7. Generate Backlink Report — executive summary, strengths, concerns, opportunities, competitive position, recommended actions, and KPIs, every figure source-tagged.

Reference: Backlink Analysis Templates for the compact output templates used in all seven steps.

CITE item mapping (what feeds domain-authority-auditor if run next):

Backlink metric	CITE item	Dimension
Referring domains count	C01 (Referring Domains Volume)	Citation
Authority distribution (DA/DR breakdown)	C02 (Referring Domains Quality)	Citation
Link velocity	C04 (Link Velocity)	Citation
Geographic distribution	C10 (Link Source Diversity)	Citation
Dofollow/nofollow ratio	T02 (Dofollow Ratio Normality)	Trust
Toxic-link / naturalness analysis	T01 (Link Profile Naturalness), T03 (Link-Traffic Coherence)	Trust
Competitive link intersection	T05 (Backlink Profile Uniqueness)	Trust

Mode: ai-referrals

1. Scope the request — confirm domain, date range, comparison window, and the conversion event/goal. If no conversion is named, report sessions/engagement only and note the gap.
2. Define the AI channel — apply the starter regex to the user's observed source/medium values; add or drop sources to match what actually appears. Record the final source list as evidence.
3. Pull AI-referral sessions — in GA4 use an Exploration on Session source / medium filtered by the regex, or a custom channel group with "AI Assistants" placed above Referral so it matches first. From server logs, count requests whose Referer matches the regex. Tag each count Measured / User-provided / Estimated.
4. Build the AI trend — report AI sessions period-over-period and AI share of total sessions; compute the delta from the ledger, not by eye.
5. Top AI landing pages — list the pages AI assistants send traffic to, with sessions and conversion rate per page. These are your likely cited/surfaced URLs — an engagement signal that informs (does not evidence) CITE C05/C06. Referral traffic proves an AI answer linked you, not that the answer cited you prominently; treat it as a lead for C05/C06, not proof.
6. AI vs organic — compare engagement and conversion rate of the AI channel against organic for the same window. State the gap as a ratio, and flag low sample sizes.
7. Cross-check GSC — where available, note AI-Overview / AI-feature query and click movement from Search Console as corroboration; mark coverage as partial.
8. Read movement against a control — before crediting any change to an AI-traffic shift, apply measurement-protocol.md: pick the readback window up front, compare delta-vs-control, and label the result Promote / Keep-testing / Rollback / Unproven. Separate an observed change from a plausible cause.

CITE item mapping (ai-referrals): these figures are an engagement signal that informs (does not evidence) the Citation dimension — AI-referral volume informs C05, primary-vs-supplementary landing-page mix informs C06, and cross-engine spread of AI sources informs C07. Referral analytics cannot confirm a citation happened, only that an AI answer linked here; hand these to domain-authority-auditor as leads, not as scored CITE evidence.

Next Best Skill

• backlinks, toxic ratio > 15% or authority concern → domain-authority-auditor for formal CITE scoring. Otherwise → Terminal.
• ai-referrals → roll the AI channel into a full stakeholder report with performance-monitor. Otherwise → Terminal.

Termination: visited-set check (if the target already ran in this chain, STOP and report chain-complete), max-depth: 3, and ambiguity-stop per skill-contract.md §Termination rules. Do not auto-run both modes in one chain — finish the requested mode, then recommend.

Full source on GitHub (appendix / reference sections omitted for length).