Why an article or change was held back for review
Updated
Your agents only publish facts they can back up, and facts about your business must come from your own pages or your Trust Profile. Before anything goes live, a quality check reads it. If it finds a claim it cannot back up, such as an invented number, award or credential, that claim is removed. If too little is left, the work closes and nothing on your site changes. You can help by adding real facts to your Trust Profile.
What you might see#
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| "In progress: the agent is tightening this change before it goes live. Nothing needed from you." | The quality check is holding this change while it is fixed or closed. | Nothing. If it is not resolved within 7 days, it closes with nothing changed. |
| "Closed without changes: we only publish details we can back up, and this edit did not have enough to stand on. Nothing on your site changed." | After removing what it could not back up, too little was left to be worth publishing. The task closed. | Nothing to undo. When the panel adds "The credits it used were returned.", you were not charged. The same page can be proposed again later. |
| "Auto-paused:" a number of pages that "failed or were blocked" on a campaign | Many pages in a campaign were stopped by the quality check or failed. | See why was my campaign paused. |
| "Saved as drafts in your CMS for you to read and publish - nothing goes live on its own." on a batch of articles | Not a quality hold. Article batches publish on their own once they pass our checks. This batch was set to drafts, for example because you asked to read them first. | Read the drafts in your platform and publish the ones you want. |
| "Our quality check could not get this article to our bar, so it was not published. Nothing more will run for it." | A new article your agents wrote did not pass the checks below, even after one automatic repair. It was not published and the task closed. Nothing on your site changed. | Nothing. Your agents can propose the topic again later. Adding real facts to your Trust Profile helps the next article pass. |
| "Needs you: the quality check held the article as a draft, so no pull request was opened..." (sites connected through GitHub) | The article did not pass the checks, so it was not sent to your repository. | Open the task and click Review and edit under The draft. Publishing it from there opens the pull request. |
| "Queued: checked and queued to go live on its own; you will get a receipt with a one-click undo" | Not a quality problem. A full-page rewrite that passed our checks and goes live on its own. The first rewrite on a site no longer waits for you. | Nothing. It appears in your daily email with an Undo link. See the daily email of changes. |
| "Needs you: held back because the rewrite would remove an embed (map, video or widget)..." | Not a quality problem. The new text would drop something from your page. | Click Apply it now only if you want that removed. Otherwise click Dismiss. |
How the quality check works#
- Facts must come from you. Claims about your business, such as years of experience, credentials, awards, review counts and guarantees, are only written when they appear on your own pages or in your Trust Profile. Anything else is left out.
- A second check before publishing. A separate review reads each change before it reaches your site. When it finds a claim it cannot back up, that sentence is deleted and the change is checked once more.
- Ship or close. If what is left still improves the page, it goes live. If not, the task closes with "Closed without changes". When its credits came back, the panel adds "The credits it used were returned."
- You never get a half-checked draft to publish. The text the check refused is not shown to you as a decision. You only see the status line.
Why a new article stays a draft#
New articles also pass a set of basic checks. An article that fails any of them gets one automatic repair. If it still fails, it is never published: a batch article stays a draft, and a single article your agents wrote on their own is kept as a draft in SEOmatic while its task closes. The checks:
- It is shorter than 500 words.
- It has fewer than 2 sections with their own subheading.
- One word is repeated far too often.
- It is almost the same as a page you already have, or as another article in the same batch.
- It claims first-hand experience that is not on file for your business.
Help your agents write more that ships#
The more real facts your agents have, the less they leave out. Add them to your Trust Profile.
- Go to Settings > AI Agents and scroll to Trust Profile.
- Click Find facts on my site. SEOmatic reads your About, team and review pages and fills the list. This uses a small amount of AI credits.
- Check each fact. Click Wrong on anything that is not true, or Remove to delete it.
- Type any missing fact in the box, for example "Certified Gas Safe engineer since 2011", and click Add.
- If you see Questions from your agent, answer them. One line from you lets the agent say more, and it updates the page for you.
Who can edit the Trust Profile
Workspace admins and the owner see the Trust Profile. If you do not see it, ask one of them. When your agent has a question for you, the bell in the top bar shows "One question so the agent can say more about your business".
- Will the AI invent facts about my business?
- Your agents are built not to. Business claims must trace back to your pages or your Trust Profile, and a separate check removes anything it cannot back up before it goes live.
- Can I publish the held version anyway?
- Not for text our quality check refused. You can write the page yourself in your platform, or add the missing facts to your Trust Profile so the next version can include them.
- Was I charged for work that was closed?
- When the task panel says "The credits it used were returned.", no. See how credits work.
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