Duplicate content audit checklist

Duplicate content audit checklist
Run across the generated set, not page by page.

☐ Step 1 (SEO): Sample 100 pages and shingle the body (5-word windows). Gate: >70% overlap between siblings → template is too templated, fail.
☐ Step 2 (Dev): Confirm each page has a self-referencing canonical with the exact production URL (protocol, host, trailing slash). Gate: canonical mismatch → fix before crawl.
☐ Step 3 (SEO): Check title + H1 + meta are unique per entity. Gate: any duplicate trio across the set → fail.
☐ Step 4 (Dev): Verify trailing-slash, www/non-www, and uppercase variants 301 to the canonical form.
☐ Step 5 (SEO): Look for cross-template overlap (city pages vs region pages competing). Gate: overlap → canonicalize the weaker pattern to the stronger.

Guardrail: uniqueness measured on rendered HTML, not source.

Ship gate: don't publish until all boxes are checked.