fix(geo): I6 — every stat was real and attached to the wrong claim

Audited each statistic in agents/resources/ against primary sources after
the VSI fiction (I2) showed WebSearch launders SEO-blog consensus.

The failure mode is not invention — it is plausible recombination, which is
what a model half-remembering a search result produces:

- "Adding statistics increases AI visibility by up to 40% (Aggarwal et al.)"
  — paper real (KDD 2024), number real, SCOPE WRONG: 40% is the aggregate
  over the whole method set, domain-dependent. No per-technique figure
  exists.
- "Pages not updated quarterly are 3x more likely to lose AI citations
  (LLMRefs)" — LLMrefs' actual 3x says brand mentions correlate ~3x more
  strongly with AI visibility than backlinks. DIFFERENT SUBJECT. No source
  supports a quarterly decay multiplier.
- "QAPage cited 58% more often than Article" — uncited. Nearest real number:
  AccuraCast 2025, `Person` schema at 58.9% PREVALENCE among cited sources —
  wrong type, and its FAQPage figure (1.8%) points the opposite way to the
  claim it propped up. This one drove Tier 1 ranking.
- "62% of searches involve voice" — uncited; 62% circulates as smart-speaker
  ADOPTION. Same family as the "50% by 2020" myth ComScore denied (origin: a
  2014 Andrew Ng interview).

Corrected my own framing too: I claimed three times these stats "drive axis
weights". They do not — the weight tables carry no citations. They drive
Tier/priority recommendations and, worse, geo-analyzer's "Cite sources" rule
pushed them into CLIENT reports as research-backed.

Fixes: recommendations kept on mechanism, fabricated numbers removed with
the incident documented inline so they are not re-added. Unverified stats
(48% AI Overviews, 2.5B queries/day, Gartner -25%) labelled [UNVERIFIED]
rather than asserted or deleted — I did not check them.

Structural, not just exhortation: resources/README.md now mandates
`<claim> — <source, year, venue|vendor> — measured: <what the source ACTUALLY
measured> — <link>`. `measured:` is the field that catches this — all four
errors survive a source name; none survives stating the real measurement
next to the claim. WebSearch demoted from verification to crawler/tool-name
lookup only.

Verified: make test 35 GREEN / 0 RED.

agents/geo-analyzer.md

@@ -13,10 +13,13 @@ Apple Intelligence**. Google classical search is handled by the
 
 ## Context — why GEO is its own discipline in 2026
 
-- AI Overviews trigger on ~48% of Google searches (April 2026).
+- `[UNVERIFIED — 2026-07-16]` AI Overviews trigger on ~48% of Google
-- ChatGPT processes 2.5B queries/day.
+  searches (April 2026); ChatGPT processes 2.5B queries/day; Gartner
-- Gartner projects commercial organic search traffic to fall 25% by
+  projects commercial organic search traffic to fall 25% by end-2026 as
-  end-2026 as discovery shifts to AI engines.
+  discovery shifts to AI engines. Framing only — **never quote these to a
+  client** until each carries `source + measured: + link` per
+  `resources/README.md`. GEO is worth doing on mechanism; it does not need
+  these numbers to be true.
 - Classical SEO ≠ GEO. Some signals overlap (headings, Schema.org)
   but the optimization levers differ: entity clarity, definition
   architecture, citable stats, crawler permissions.
@@ -936,8 +939,15 @@ PROCHAINE ETAPE : <highest-priority>
   unknown fields → `[À COMPLÉTER]`, never a value copied from a sibling
   on-site source.
 - **Remove deprecated schemas rather than keep broken ones.**
-- **Cite sources.** When emitting stats in the report, link
+- **Cite sources, and only citable ones.** A stat reaches the client only
-  `content-shape-for-ai.md` research citations.
+  if it carries `source + measured: + link` per `resources/README.md`.
+  Anything marked `[UNVERIFIED]` is framing for you, never a line in the
+  report. Quote the source's ACTUAL measurement, never a widened or
+  re-subjected version of it — the 2026-07-16 audit found every stat in
+  that directory real but attached to the wrong claim, and this rule is
+  what pushed them into client deliverables as research-backed.
+  A recommendation that only stands up with a number you cannot source was
+  never standing up: make it on mechanism, or drop it.
 
 ### Process
 - **Every user action lists automation options.** Mandatory from

agents/resources/README.md

@@ -17,7 +17,52 @@ Loaded on demand — keep each file focused and current.
 
 These files capture state as of 2026-04. Crawler lists, Schema.org
 deprecations, and tool landscape shift fast. Agents MUST cross-check
-via WebSearch on each run when FULL depth is selected.
+crawler lists and tool names via WebSearch on each run when FULL depth is
+selected.
+
+## Citation standard (mandatory for every statistic)
+
+**WebSearch is NOT verification for a number.** It ranks SEO blogs, and SEO
+blogs cross-cite each other into a consensus that looks like corroboration.
+Two 2026-07-16 audits of this directory show how it fails:
+
+- A "VSI (Visual Stability Index) — new 2026 Core Web Vital" lived in
+  `seo-analyzer.md`. Ten blogs asserted it; several claimed CrUX already
+  collected it. It is absent from the CrUX API metric list and from
+  web.dev. WebSearch returned the echo, not the truth.
+- Every stat in this directory was real **and attached to the wrong
+  subject**: the GEO paper's 40% (all methods) pinned on one technique;
+  LLMrefs' 3x (brand mentions vs backlinks) pinned on freshness decay;
+  AccuraCast's 58.9% (Person schema prevalence) pinned on QAPage lift, with
+  its meaning inverted; a smart-speaker adoption figure sold as voice-search
+  share.
+
+The failure mode is not invention — it is **plausible recombination**, which
+is exactly what a model half-remembering a search result produces. So the
+format has to make an unsourced number conspicuous:
+
+```
+<claim> — <source, year, venue|vendor> — measured: <what the source ACTUALLY
+measured> — <link>
+```
+
+`measured:` is the field that catches it. All four errors above survive a
+source name; none survives having to state the source's real measurement
+next to the claim.
+
+Rules:
+1. **Primary source or no number.** Peer-reviewed paper, the vendor's own
+   published study, or an official API/doc. `developer.chrome.com/docs/crux`
+   is decisive for metrics: what CrUX cannot return, we cannot score.
+2. **Name the tier.** Peer review ≠ vendor marketing. LLMrefs, AccuraCast,
+   Ahrefs publish useful data and sell products — say "vendor".
+3. **Never widen scope.** An aggregate result is not a per-technique result.
+4. **No number beats a wrong number.** A recommendation that only stands up
+   with a fabricated statistic was never standing up. Delete the stat, keep
+   the recommendation if it survives on mechanism.
+5. **Unverified ⇒ labelled.** `[UNVERIFIED — <date>]` inline. Never quote an
+   unverified number to a client: `geo-analyzer.md` ("Cite sources") sends
+   these into client reports as research-backed.
 
 ## Loading pattern
 

agents/resources/ai-visibility-tools.md

@@ -4,9 +4,17 @@ Tools that track whether your brand appears in AI-generated answers
 across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, and Google AI
 Overviews.
 
-Context: Google AI Overviews trigger on ~48% of searches; ChatGPT
+Context `[UNVERIFIED — 2026-07-16]`: Google AI Overviews trigger on ~48% of
-processes 2.5B queries/day; Gartner projects commercial organic
+searches; ChatGPT processes 2.5B queries/day; Gartner projects commercial
-search traffic will drop 25% by 2026. Monitoring is no longer optional.
+organic search traffic will drop 25% by 2026.
+
+> Not checked against primary sources in the 2026-07-16 audit that corrected
+> the rest of this directory — flagged rather than asserted or deleted, per
+> the citation standard in `README.md` (rule 5). The Gartner projection at
+> least names its source; the other two float. Treat all three as
+> motivation, not evidence: **do NOT quote them to a client** until each
+> carries `source + measured: + link`. Their only job here is to explain why
+> this file exists, and that argument does not need numbers.
 
 ## Commercial tools
 

agents/resources/content-shape-for-ai.md

@@ -61,9 +61,18 @@ query. A one-sentence self-contained answer has the highest density.
 
 ### 4. Citations and statistics (strongest measured lever)
 
-Adding peer-cited statistics with clear sources increases AI visibility
+Aggarwal et al., 2024 ("GEO: Generative Engine Optimization", KDD 2024)
-**by up to 40%** (Aggarwal et al., 2024 "GEO: Generative Engine
+report that their optimisation methods **collectively** boost visibility
-Optimization").
+**by up to 40%** in generative-engine responses, and state the effect
+**varies across domains**. Citations/statistics/quotations are among those
+methods.
+
+> **Attribute this correctly.** Until 2026-07-16 this section read "Adding
+> peer-cited statistics with clear sources increases AI visibility by up to
+> 40%" — pinning the paper's *aggregate* result on this *one* technique. The
+> paper publishes no separate figure per technique. When quoting it to a
+> client: "up to 40%, across the method set, domain-dependent" — never "+40%
+> if you add stats".
 
 Pattern: embed specific numbers with attribution.
 
@@ -100,8 +109,20 @@ Comparison tables are even stronger. Structure:
 
 ### 6. Freshness signals
 
-Pages not updated at least quarterly are **3x more likely to lose AI
+Freshness is a real retrieval input: RAG systems fetch live and read
-citations** (LLMRefs 2026 study).
+timestamps, so a page updated this quarter carries a stronger recency
+signal than the same page last touched years ago. LLMrefs (a **vendor**,
+not peer review) reports cited content running **~25.7% fresher** than
+organic top-10 across ~17M citations. Substantive updates only — bumping a
+date string is not freshness.
+
+> **The "3x" that lived here was grafted from another claim.** Until
+> 2026-07-16 this read "Pages not updated at least quarterly are 3x more
+> likely to lose AI citations (LLMRefs 2026 study)". LLMrefs' actual "3x"
+> says **brand mentions correlate ~3x more strongly with AI visibility than
+> backlinks** — a different subject entirely. No source supports a quarterly
+> decay multiplier. Recommend quarterly refresh on its merits; do not price
+> it with a borrowed number.
 
 What to maintain:
 - Visible "Last updated: YYYY-MM-DD" at the top of content pages

agents/resources/geo-schemas.md

@@ -21,8 +21,20 @@ existing instances. They no longer produce rich results.
 
 ### QAPage — single Q&A format
 
-Pages cited 58% more often by ChatGPT vs basic Article schema.
+Use when the page is built around ONE primary question. Emitting the type
-Use when the page is built around ONE primary question.
+that matches the content shape beats wrapping everything in a generic
+`Article`.
+
+> **No lift figure here — the one that lived here was wrong.** Until
+> 2026-07-16 this read "Pages cited 58% more often by ChatGPT vs basic
+> Article schema", uncited. Nothing supports it. The nearest real number is
+> AccuraCast 2025 (~2,000 prompts across ChatGPT / AI Overviews /
+> Perplexity, ~9,000 cited sources): **`Person` schema appeared in 58.9%**
+> of cited sources — a *prevalence* count for a *different type* — while
+> **`FAQPage` appeared in 1.8%**, which points the opposite way to the claim
+> it was propping up. Q&A shape is still worth doing on genuinely
+> single-question pages; it is not worth a fabricated number. Do NOT quote a
+> QAPage lift % to a client — there isn't one.
 
 ```json
 {
@@ -81,8 +93,16 @@ visible content.
 
 ### Speakable — voice + AI extraction marker
 
-62% of searches in 2026 involve voice. Speakable flags the passage
+Speakable flags the passage best suited for voice readout and AI summary.
-best suited for voice readout and AI summary.
+
+> **No voice-share figure — the one that lived here was a conflation.**
+> Until 2026-07-16 this read "62% of searches in 2026 involve voice",
+> uncited. No primary source carries it; 62% circulates as a *smart-speaker
+> adoption* number, not a share of searches. It is the same family as the
+> "50% of searches will be voice by 2020" myth — attributed to ComScore,
+> who **denied it**; the real origin is a 2014 Andrew Ng interview. Speakable
+> is cheap and harmless, so keep recommending it on TL;DR / summary blocks —
+> but justify it by extraction shape, never by a voice-share statistic.
 
 ```json
 {