ZR-GEO-GEOTEST-8

Cross-domain discovery

Cross-domain discovery occurs when a crawler encounters a link to a new page from a different website. An established external page may be visited on a schedule that differs from the publisher's own site, creating another route by which the destination can become known. The link should use a normal address and an honest description of the destination. Its anchor does not need to reveal the answer being tested. External discovery is only one signal, and a single link should not be confused with broad authority or endorsement.

A fair comparison keeps the destination page similar to the internal-link baseline while documenting when the external link first became public. Researchers should confirm that the referring page is crawlable and already visible in search; otherwise the supposed treatment may never reach a crawler. They should also watch for copies, previews, or repository pages that expose the verification phrase outside the canonical source. If an answer comes from those locations, the result is contaminated rather than a clean citation. Careful provenance records show whether cross-domain discovery genuinely improved access to the original page.