# Standards & References

## Google Search Central

- SEO Starter Guide: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide
- Search Essentials: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials
- Consolidate duplicate URLs: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/consolidate-duplicate-urls
- Build and submit a sitemap: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/build-sitemap
- Title links: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/title-link
- Snippets and meta descriptions: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/snippet
- Structured data introduction: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/intro-structured-data
- Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content
- Image SEO: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/google-images
- Search Console Performance report: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7576553

## Performance and accessibility

- Core Web Vitals: https://web.dev/articles/vitals
- Chrome Lighthouse performance scoring: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/performance/performance-scoring
- WCAG 2.2 Quick Reference: https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/quickref/
- WAI page structure tutorials: https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/page-structure/

## Structured data and other search platforms

- Schema.org Organization: https://schema.org/Organization
- Schema.org LocalBusiness: https://schema.org/LocalBusiness
- Bing Webmaster Guidelines: https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/webmaster-guidelines-30fba23a

## Interpretation principles

- Search-engine documentation defines eligible implementation and quality guidance; it does not guarantee rankings.
- Lighthouse and other lab scores vary with device, network, test version, and run conditions.
- Accessibility and performance improvements primarily improve visitor experience and task completion; they should not be presented as guaranteed ranking gains.
- Analytics and search-platform exports should retain their date range, filters, and original source.