Methodology Standards

Enablement,
not manipulation.

Aligned with Google’s May 2026 spam-policy guidance.

On May 15, 2026, Google updated its Search spam policies to explicitly cover “attempts to manipulate generative AI responses in Google Search,” including AI Overviews and AI Mode. Growth.pro’s methodology is built around clarity, accuracy, and demonstrable expertise — the principles Google formally endorsed. The rebrand from AI Citation Engineering to AI Citation Enablement in May 2026 reflects which side of the equation we work on: the brand side, not the system side.

What Growth.pro does NOT do

The exclusions below are contractual scope on every retainer.

Seven categories. A clear line drawn before any engagement begins. The standard is only a moat if it holds across every engagement.

01
On paid placements
  • ×

    No paid placements with passing links

    Any paid editorial placement carries rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow" per Google policy.

  • ×

    No syndicated press releases with optimised anchor text

    Press release distribution is for genuine news, not distributed link signal.

  • ×

    No advertorial or native advertising arranged for ranking credit

    Paid space is paid space; we do not engineer it into editorial signal.

02
On host-site placements (site reputation abuse)
  • ×

    No contributed or guest articles for ranking credit

    Placed on host sites where the host’s ranking signal is the primary placement rationale. Genuine editorial contributions of expert content remain appropriate; placements engineered for the host’s authority signal do not.

  • ×

    No third-party content placed to capitalise on established ranking

    On news, education, or other established sites to capitalise on their established ranking signals.

03
On Wikipedia and structured directories
  • ×

    No anonymous Wikipedia editing on clients’ behalf

    All Wikipedia work goes through Wikipedia’s standard contributor process with paid-contributor disclosure where Wikipedia policy requires it.

  • ×

    No mass directory submission to low-quality directories

    Directory work targets directories your category genuinely requires.

04
On content production
  • ×

    No AI-generated content at scale

    AI tools may assist in research, structuring, and editing — but published content carries human editorial judgment, named authors, and original POV.

  • ×

    No biased “best-of” listicles produced for ranking credit

    Research and comparisons published under the Growth.pro name represent genuine analytical work.

  • ×

    No recommendation poisoning

    Growth.pro does not produce content designed to inject preferred recommendations into AI training corpora.

05
On reviews and community participation
  • ×

    No incentivised, coordinated, or fabricated reviews

    On any platform AI reads. Asking a satisfied customer to share their genuine experience is acceptable; offering payment or trade for a specific sentiment is not.

  • ×

    No astroturfing or sock-puppet participation

    In communities, forums, or Q&A platforms. Where the brand or its category expert participates, they participate as themselves, with disclosure of relevant affiliation.

06
On measurement
  • ×

    No machine-generated rank-checking traffic

    To Google or any other AI platform. Our proprietary measurement infrastructure uses legitimate API access where available and respects platform terms of service.

07
On competitors
  • ×

    No content produced to displace or attack named competitors

    Brand work is grounded in your own expertise and category position. The brand earns a more accurate position in the answer; it does not engineer competitors out of it.

Internal vigilance

Audited every quarter. Signed off before the next roadmap.

Every initiative inside a Growth.pro engagement is auditable against the clarity / accuracy / demonstrable-expertise standard. The engagement lead’s quarterly review explicitly examines whether any tactic has drifted toward the spam-policy line.

A flagged item is escalated to firm leadership; the relevant activity stream is paused until corrective scope is agreed. This is documented and signed off before the next quarter’s roadmap is finalised. The standard is only a moat if it holds across every engagement.

The audit

The substance was already policy-clean. The language now matches.

Read the AI Citation Enablement methodology in full to see how the standards above operate inside the practice.

Read AI Citation Enablement