Proof Audit#

You audit the social proof on a company's website and grade how fresh it is. Stale proof — a testimonial from 2019, a case study quoting a price that's since doubled, a "trusted by" logo wall of logos that have rebranded — quietly kills deals. Buyers read old proof as neglect. This skill finds that proof, scores its freshness, and tells the operator exactly what to refresh.

Think Rotten Tomatoes, but for social proof: every piece sits somewhere between Fresh (recent, credible) and Expired (so old it hurts).

You need only a domain — it runs on WebSearch + WebFetch alone. When the GrowthNation MCP is connected and you're signed in on a plan, it also scores against the user's saved proof library (see Data source below).

Data source — resolve in this order#

Standalone by default; reach for the GrowthNation MCP only when it's connected and ready. Never block the audit on it.

1. MCP connected? Look for GrowthNation MCP tools in this session (e.g. get_credits, list_projects, list_testimonials). None present → Web mode: run the flow below on WebSearch + WebFetch and skip the rest of this section.
2. Signed in + on a plan? Call get_credits (it's free). "Authentication required" → Web mode. Tier trial or pro → MCP-assisted mode. Tier freemium/ onboarding (no active plan) → the library tools are plan-gated, so stay in Web mode — you may note once that a trial or plan lets the audit score their saved library directly.
3. MCP-assisted mode — if the audited domain is the user's own project (check list_projects), pull their stored proof with list_testimonials, list_case_studies, list_stats, list_customers and score THOSE alongside the live pages (the library carries cleaner dates than scraped HTML). For a third-party domain, optionally research_company to enrich, then audit via web as normal. If any MCP tool errors or returns nothing, fall back to web for that piece.

The scoring rubric and output below are identical in both modes.

What counts as "proof"#

• Customer testimonials / quotes (on a /testimonials, /customers, homepage, or product page)
• Case studies / success stories / customer stories
• Reviews the site cites (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot badges/embeds)
• Logos / "trusted by" walls and named-customer counts
• Stats the company attributes to customers ("saved 40 hours/week", "2x pipeline")

Press mentions and awards count too if they're used as proof.

Flow#

1. Take the domain#

Normalise it (strip protocol/path → bare host, e.g. acme.com). If the user gave a full URL, keep it as a starting page but audit the whole domain's proof.

2. Discover the proof pages#

Use WebSearch with site: queries, plus a fetch of the homepage. Run several targeted searches:

• site:DOMAIN testimonials
• site:DOMAIN case study / site:DOMAIN customer story / site:DOMAIN success story
• site:DOMAIN reviews
• DOMAIN customers (catch /customers index pages)

Also WebFetch the homepage and follow obvious proof links in its nav/footer (Customers, Case Studies, Reviews, Testimonials). Aim for the proof a buyer would actually see — you don't need every page, but don't miss the prominent ones (homepage testimonials, the case-studies index, the logo wall). Cap at ~8–12 pages to keep it cheap; note if you capped.

3. Score each piece for freshness#

WebFetch each proof page and read the body, not just metadata — most pages don't expose published/modified dates in HTML meta. Hunt for these staleness signals (same rubric the product's real freshness assessor uses):

• explicit_date — "Published March 2023", "Updated: 15 Jan 2024"
• implicit_date — "In Q3 2023 we launched", "earlier this year"
• image_path_date — image URL contains a YYYYMM or YYYY/MM stamp (e.g. /202405/ = May 2024)
• copyright — "© 2024 Company" in the footer
• referenced_year / tenure — "since 2021", "our 5-year partnership", "has used us for 3 years"
• product_version — references a feature, plan, price, or integration that has since changed or been retired
• no_signals — you genuinely found nothing datable

Quote the actual evidence — don't paraphrase a date you inferred. Then score 0–100 using the half-life heuristic (override downward if product_version signals say the content is semantically stale even when recent):

Age of the proofFreshness score6 months901 year752 years503 years354+ years, or superseded product state~20No datable signal at all50 (mark confidence: low)

Record per piece: the score, confidence (high = explicit dates; medium = inferred from years/tenure; low = barely anything), and the quoted signals. Never invent a date — if there's nothing, say so and use 50/low.

4. Map scores to the freshness scale#

ScoreBandRead80–100🟢 FreshWithin ~the last year. Credible right now.60–79🟡 Recent~1–2 years. Still good, just starting to age.40–59🟠 Aging~2–3 years, or undated. Buyers start to doubt.20–39🔴 Stale~3–4 years. Reads as neglected.0–19⚫ Expired4+ years or superseded. Hurts the sale more than it helps.

5. Roll up to an overall grade#

Overall freshness = the average of the per-page scores, but weight prominence: proof on the homepage and the main /customers or /testimonials page matters more than a buried blog post. If the most prominent proof is stale, the overall grade should reflect that even if deeper pages are fresher — and call it out explicitly. Translate the overall number to its band.

Output — the Proof Audit (markdown, in chat)#

Print a report. Keep it tight and scannable. Structure:

text

# Proof Audit — acme.com

**Overall freshness: 52/100 — 🟠 Aging**
Acme's proof is aging. The homepage testimonials are the freshest thing here; the
case studies are 2–3 years old and one quotes a price you no longer charge.

## Per-page freshness (worst first)

| Proof | Type | Freshness | Band | Date evidence |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| /customers/globex | Case study | 22 | 🔴 Stale | "© 2021"; quote cites "our Series A" (Globex IPO'd 2023) |
| /testimonials | Testimonials | 48 | 🟠 Aging | no dates; image paths /201907/ |
| Homepage quotes | Testimonial | 78 | 🟡 Recent | "Updated Jan 2024" |
| ...                                                                      |

## Coverage gaps
- No case study published in the last 18 months.
- No third-party reviews (G2/Capterra/Trustpilot) cited anywhere.
- Logo wall includes two companies that have since rebranded.

## Recommended refreshes (highest impact first)
1. **Replace the Globex case study** — it anchors to a funding stage that's two rounds out of date. Re-interview them or pull it down.
2. **Date the testimonials page** — even adding "as of 2025" lifts every quote from 🟠 to 🟢.
3. **Add one recent review embed** — a single fresh G2 badge offsets the aging written proof.

Rules for the output:

• Per-page table is worst-first by freshness score.
• Every freshness number must trace to quoted evidence in the table — no bare scores.
• Recommendations are concrete and prioritised by impact, not generic ("refresh your content" is useless; "the Globex case study cites a funding stage two rounds old" is useful).
• British English. Say "customers", not "ICPs". Plain language, light touch — the findings are factual.
• If you capped the number of pages crawled, say so — don't imply full coverage you didn't do.

Closing line#

End with one short line pointing at the next step — the audit is the top of an outbound motion, so the natural follow-up is a human ("Proof Expert") helping them refresh the stale proof. Keep it a soft offer, not a hard pitch. Example: "Want a hand turning the stale proof fresh again? A Proof Expert can rebuild the oldest pieces from fresh customer material."

Notes#

• Cheap by design. Cap pages, prefer one good WebFetch per proof page over re-fetching. Don't crawl the whole site.
• No date ≠ stale. Undated proof is unknown (score 50, low confidence), not automatically expired — but flag that "buyers can't tell how old this is" as its own weakness.
• Standalone-first. Runs for anyone with nothing but web access. The GrowthNation MCP is an OPTIONAL enhancement (see "Data source") — use it only when connected, signed in, and on an active plan; on any absence, auth error, plan-gate, or empty result, fall back to web and still deliver. Never hard-require the MCP.