The task and original case
Build a content inventory that counts article identities separately from observed URL forms. Use the three supplied fictional observations rather than crawling a live website. Your deliverable should retain redirects and canonical declarations as evidence, with a clear boundary around what they establish.
| Case element | Value or requirement |
|---|---|
| Inputs | Three observed URLs; two resolve to one canonical article and the third to another. |
| Build | A small technical content audit with a primary URL for each intent. |
This is an original invented exercise. It is independent practice, with no employer assessment or open-vacancy claim. Download the inputs, attempt your own result, then open the separate answer key.
Data and worked inputs
Build a result another person can follow
Create columns for observed URL, HTTP status, final URL and declared canonical. The slashless guide-a observation reports a308 redirect to guide-a/; the direct guide-a/ observation reports 200 and declares that same canonical. The guide-b/ observation reports 200 and declares a different canonical.
Group these observations by declared article identity while retaining every original URL row. Google's canonical documentation describes consolidation signals; a site's declaration is not proof of Google's selected canonical or actual indexing. For this exercise, treat consistent final URL and canonical evidence as the declared identity. Flag conflicting declarations for review instead of combining arbitrary pages automatically.
Sources[1]
Check the worked result
The inventory contains three observed URL forms and two declared canonical article identities. Guide A has two observed forms; Guide B has one. The 308 response belongs to the alias observation, while the two direct observations return 200 in the fixture.
Report these as fixture outcomes. The practice.example destinations are invented and are not live crawl results. A real audit would need actual dated responses and content comparison, and any statement about Google's selected identity would need separate search-engine evidence.
Make the failure visible
Change the guide-b canonical to guide-a while leaving its content description different. A canonical string match alone now risks merging separate intents. Flag the conflict and request content/evidence review. Also test a redirect chain ending in an error or a missing canonical; retain an unresolved state rather than counting it as a healthy article.
Revise it and ask someone to reproduce it
Ask a peer to reconstruct the two-identity count from the observation table. In revision two, add a query-bearing observation of Guide A and retain its full evidence rather than stripping every parameter blindly. Compare intended content identity with actual observed behavior, and keep indexing status outside the declared-canonical count.
- All three URL observations remain traceable.
- Two article identities are supported by the stated fixture evidence.
- Declared canonical, search-engine selection and indexing are not conflated.
Describe the work accurately
After completing your own version, you could adapt this project bullet: “Built a fixture-based content audit separating observed URL forms, redirect evidence and declared canonical article identities.”
Use Projects or Independent practice as the heading. Keep the input files, result and revision together. Describe only your own completed work; the invented numbers are model outputs, not employer results or measured business impact.