CLU-009 · Clustering and Canonical Ownership

Align canonical signals

• Structural
• IF
• AND
• THEN
• ELSE

The decision

• IF
  • duplicate or parameter URLs must remain accessible
• THEN
  • align canonical annotations, internal links, sitemap entries, redirects, and content signals
• ELSE
  • self-canonicalize the unique page

Primary metric

declared-selected canonical agreement

Guardrail

mixed signals

Reason

Makes the decision explicit, measurable, and reversible where possible.

LAKA levels

• Structural

Operators

• IF
• AND
• THEN
• ELSE

Governs gates

• distinct task

Source

04-IF-ELSE-AND-OR-RULEBOOK.md — CLU-009 — Align canonical signals

The other eleven rules in Clustering and Canonical Ownership

• CLU-001 One dominant intent, one owner IF a dominant intent cluster is approved Baseline
• CLU-002 Merge same-task candidates IF sense, task, answer structure, result class, and next action are compatible Baseline
• CLU-003 Split different tasks IF queries share vocabulary but require different completion conditions or document forms Baseline
• CLU-004 Use result overlap as evidence, not law IF current top results overlap strongly for two queries Baseline
• CLU-005 Detect cannibalization by behavior IF multiple owned URLs receive the same cluster’s impressions with unstable dominance or divided value Baseline
• CLU-006 Merge with migration discipline IF two pages are redundant and one combined page is superior Structural
• CLU-007 Reposition a useful weaker page IF a weaker page has independent value but overlaps the stronger page’s task Major
• CLU-008 Inspect equity before deletion IF a page appears useless or redundant Baseline
• CLU-010 Protect established URLs IF an older URL has links, traffic, or history and the only proposed improvement is a prettier slug Minor
• CLU-011 Keep lexical variants together IF differences are spelling, word order, pluralization, abbreviation, or stemming without task change Minor
• CLU-012 Test uncertain cluster boundaries IF merge/split evidence is inconclusive Baseline