# 04 — Discoverability

The problem this project exists to fix. `AGENTS.md` §2 has the measurements: a
server-side fetch of the live site returns three words.

---

## The baseline being replaced

| | Now `[verified 2026-08-25]` | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Content in server HTML | `SML Company · DISPUTE RESOLUTION · Unpacking...` | Every word |
| Indexable pages | 1 | 17 + articles (19 fixed URLs, less the two `/legal/*` pages, which are `noindex` and excluded from the sitemap) |
| `<title>` | `SML Company · Dispute Resolution` — pre-rebrand placeholder | Unique per page |
| Meta description | none | Unique per page |
| `<meta viewport>` | **absent** | Present |
| Canonical URL | none | Every page |
| OG / Twitter tags | none | Every page |
| Structured data | none | Person, ProfessionalService, Article, FAQ, Breadcrumb |
| `robots.txt` | 403 | Served |
| Sitemap | none | Generated at build |
| Favicon | none | Full set |

Astro's static output solves most of this by existing. The rest is the spec below.

## Why static output matters more than usual here

Google can sometimes render client-side JavaScript. Bing largely does not.
LinkedIn's preview crawler does not. Slack's unfurler does not. **And the
crawlers behind AI assistants — increasingly how counsel and in-house teams
find a neutral — generally do not.**

A site that requires three CDN round trips and an in-browser Babel compile before
producing a sentence is invisible to all of them. That is the whole argument for
D1.

---

## Metadata

Every page passes through one `SEO` component. A page without it is not finished.

```
title            50–60 chars, unique. Pattern: "<Page> · Pouya Lajevardi"
                 Home: "Pouya Lajevardi · Mediation & Arbitration · Toronto"
description      140–160 chars, unique, written for a human, not stuffed
canonical        absolute, https, trailing slash
og:title/description/image/url/type/site_name/locale  (en_CA)
twitter:card     summary_large_image
robots           index,follow — except /legal/* which is noindex,follow
```

**OG images:** 1200 × 630. Generate at build with `satori` or `astro-og-canvas`
using the site's own type and palette. One template: display headline on cream,
infinity mark, designation line. Never a screenshot.

## Structured data

JSON-LD only. Validate against Google's Rich Results Test before cutover.

| Type | Where | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| `Person` | `/about/`, referenced site-wide | `name`, `jobTitle`, `description`, `alumniOf` (Bond University), `knowsLanguage` (en, fa), `hasCredential` (Q.Med), `sameAs` (LinkedIn), `image`. **`jobTitle` = "Director of Firm Operations"; omit `worksFor`** — populating it either names the boutique (D16) or misstates the employer |
| `ProfessionalService` | Home | `areaServed` Toronto/Ontario, `serviceType` Mediation/Arbitration, `provider` → Person, `priceRange` once `/fees/` is real. **Never `LegalService`** — schema.org defines it as a business providing legal advice and *representation*, which asserts in machine-readable form exactly what D13 bars and §4 Forbidden calls out |
| `Service` | Each practice page | `serviceType`, `provider` → Person, `areaServed` |
| `Article` | Each article | `headline`, `description`, `datePublished`, `dateModified`, `author` → Person, `image` |
| `BreadcrumbList` | All nested pages | Matches visible breadcrumbs |
| `FAQPage` | `/for-parties/`, `/med-arb/` | Only where the visible page genuinely is Q&A. Never fabricate questions to farm a rich result |

**`hasCredential` must reflect reality.** Q.Med is held. Q.Arb is not. Marking an
unheld credential as held in structured data is a misrepresentation that happens
to be machine-readable.

## Crawlability

**`public/robots.txt`:**

```
User-agent: *
Allow: /
Disallow: /legal/

Sitemap: https://adr.smlcompany.ca/sitemap-index.xml
```

Do not block AI crawlers. Being read by an assistant that a general counsel is
using to shortlist neutrals is the point.

**Sitemap:** `@astrojs/sitemap`, excluding `/legal/*` and any `draft: true`
article. Submit to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools at cutover.

**Internal linking.** Every practice page links to `/mediation/` and
`/arbitration/`; those link back to the practice areas; every article links to
at least one practice page. This is what turns Insights into ranking power for
the pages that convert. Breadcrumbs on every nested page.

**404 page.** Real, styled, with search-intent links out. CloudFront must return
it with a genuine 404 status — not a 200, which the S3 website-endpoint pattern
gets wrong by default.

## Performance

Core Web Vitals are a ranking input, and the current build fails all of them.

| Metric | Budget |
|---|---|
| LCP | < 2.0 s, Slow 4G |
| CLS | < 0.05 |
| INP | < 150 ms |
| JS per route | < 100 KB |
| Lighthouse (mobile) | ≥ 95 all four categories |

How: static HTML, self-hosted preloaded subset fonts, AVIF/WebP with explicit
dimensions, critical CSS inlined, no third-party scripts on any page except the
booking embed on `/contact/` — and that one is lazy-loaded behind a click.

## Local and professional presence

Not code, but it belongs in the launch checklist: Google Business Profile for the
practice; ADRIC and ADRIO directory listings pointing at the site; a LinkedIn
profile whose headline and Featured section match the brand (brief §VIII);
consistent name, address, and phone across all of them.

## Post-launch verification

- [ ] `curl -s https://adr.smlcompany.ca/ | grep -c "<h1"` returns ≥ 1
- [ ] Every page renders its full text with JavaScript disabled
- [ ] Rich Results Test passes on Person, ProfessionalService, Article
- [ ] OG preview renders correctly in LinkedIn Post Inspector and Slack
- [ ] Sitemap submitted to Google Search Console and Bing
- [ ] No page returns 200 for a URL that should 404
- [ ] Lighthouse ≥ 95 mobile on `/`, `/about/`, one practice page, one article