SEO Due Diligence Is Just Kicking the Tires (And Nobody Knows Where the Tires Are)

TL;DR - The Due Diligence Framework

Before you close: (1) Audit traffic quality - branded vs. non-branded, geographic distribution, page-level concentration. (2) Identify the five post-acquisition killers - brand confusion, URL changes, content consolidation, technical debt assumptions, team departure. (3) Assess the \"bus factor\" - how many people hold institutional SEO knowledge? (4) Run the red/yellow/green flag analysis on technical health, link profile, and competitive position. (5) Model the organic revenue at risk, not just the organic revenue at present. This takes 2-3 weeks, not 72 hours. If you don't have 2-3 weeks, at minimum run the traffic quality audit and the bus factor assessment. Those alone will tell you whether the organic number in the model is real or decorative.