SOP #45 — The Single-Keyword Audit That Avoided a 70% Collapse

SOP #45 — The Single-Keyword Audit That Avoided a 70% Collapse

Niche site, $6,800/mo, listed at 38x. Traffic looked diversified in the seller deck. We ran the concentration check:

1. Pull top 50 landing pages by traffic from Search Console (request screen-share access, never screenshots).
2. Compute the share from the single biggest page. Pass if under 20%. Result: one 'best X 2024' page drove 71% of all clicks.
3. Check that page's keyword in a rank tracker over 12 months — flag volatility. Result: it bounced between position 1 and 4 monthly.
4. Model revenue if that one page drops to page two — recompute the multiple.

Outcome: a single algorithm update could erase 70% of revenue. We passed. Buyer who took it at 38x saw a March core update cut traffic 64% within 6 weeks.

Save this — run it every deal.