What the evidence contract enforces
AI features in UpSearch — AI Analyst, premade reports, Content Studio, Marketing Hub — all run through the same evidence pipeline and validator stack. The model can only speak about what the pipeline actually returned.
If the data needed to answer is missing, the output gets an `*_UNAVAILABLE` block, not a guess.
- No invented URLs — every URL is verified against your live crawl
- No fabricated metrics — every number traces to GSC, GA4, crawl, or SERP
- No invented competitors — competitor names come from qualified SERP discovery
- Citations on every claim, so you can verify before acting
- Output validators reject hallucinations before they render
How validation works
Validation runs at three points: prompt, output, and render.
- Prompt: only verified evidence is injected, nothing else is in the context
- Output: schema-validated markdown against the report contract
- Render: HR placement, table rules, citation rules, *_UNAVAILABLE blocks
- Failed validation falls back to a labelled "data unavailable" state, never a guess
- Validator changes are tracked so old reports remain reproducible
Why this matters for operators
AI that hallucinates is worse than no AI. A confident-but-wrong recommendation can damage rankings, waste a content sprint, or push your team in the wrong direction. The cost of bad AI in SEO is real.
Evidence-led AI is slower to ship and harder to build, but it produces output you can actually act on without a fact-check pass.
What you can trust
When AI Analyst names a competitor, that competitor really ranks for queries you care about. When a report cites a number, that number is in your Search Console. When a brief recommends fixing a page, that page exists.
Those are low-bar promises. The fact that most AI SEO tools cannot make them is the problem we built around.
Related features
AI Analyst
Ask real SEO questions and get evidence-backed answers from your own data — not generic AI guesses.
Read moreAutomatic SEO Checks
Real automated SEO checks that watch your titles, headings, schema, performance, and crawl coverage — and only flag what really needs attention.
Read moreSmart Filtering
Fewer false alarms, clearer priorities. Smart Filtering recognises expected behaviour so your audit only flags what truly needs fixing.
Read moreFrom the blog
Frequently asked questions
Does this make UpSearch slower?
Slightly. The trade is correctness for speed, and we think that is the right trade.
Can validators be wrong?
Validators are deterministic rules. They are not perfect, but they are auditable. When they fail, the output is blocked rather than published.
What does *_UNAVAILABLE mean?
It is the labelled gap in a report when the data needed for that section is missing. It is a signal to connect the missing source, not a failure.