Outcome Deals

Setup, Run, and Update

Three actions drive your outcome. Each one starts a chat with the agent. You run Setup once, Run many times, and Update when the evidence calls for it.

Where to find them

Open your outcome. Run next action starts a Run. The arrow beside it opens all three. You can also type / in any chat's message box and pick outcome-setup, outcome-run, or outcome-update.

At a glance

Setup

Run it first, once. It's a conversation, not a form. The agent reads your site and your Search Console history before it asks you anything, so it only asks what it can't find out itself.

What it asks

• Your business. What the site offers, who it's for, and which parts of it are in scope.
• What to protect. The number is set by your deal: Google Search clicks to your site. So this is about what must not happen on the way there. Pages not to touch, claims not to make, words your brand doesn't use.
• Where it can act. Where your site's pages are edited, what you've tried before, and what you think might work. This is where you connect GitHub or Bitbucket, or tell it your platform. Connect your website.

Specific beats complete. “Don't touch /pricing, legal reviews it” helps more than a long brand document.

What it proposes

Before it saves anything, the agent shows you its plan. It lists the kinds of change it wants to start with (its levers) and a first set of predictions (its hypotheses). Each prediction names what will change and what result would prove it wrong. Push back on anything that looks off. Nothing is saved until you approve.

After Setup, the Levers and Hypotheses tabs fill in. Your site is untouched.

Run

Your main action, and the one Run next action starts. Each run makes one change.

What happens in a run

1. 1The agent records any readings that are due on earlier changes.
2. 2It picks one change: one page, one lever, one prediction. It ranks every candidate by the clicks it's expected to add in the time your window has left.
3. 3It writes down its prediction before making the change, including what would prove it wrong.
4. 4It writes the change. If your code is connected, it opens a pull request. If not, it gives you a handoff: exactly what to change and where.
5. 5You put it live, then tell the agent in the same chat, with the page's address.
6. 6The agent checks that Google has seen the change, then measures it on the searches that page was changed for.

Two kinds of change

Some runs go for quick wins on pages that already show up in Google: a sharper title and description, a clearer page, better links to it. These can pay off inside your window. Other runs build new pages for searches your site doesn't show up for yet. New pages usually take months to earn clicks, so they're what keeps working after your deal ends. The agent alternates between the two.

On a starter deal, your site has little search history yet, so most runs build new pages.

When a run makes no change

Sometimes a run ends without a change. It may send you to Update because every open prediction is waiting on results. It may send you to Setup because something it needs, like access to your code, is missing. Do what it points to, then run again.

How often to run

Report the last change live before you start the next run, so the agent plans with it in view. It won't make a second change to a page Google hasn't seen yet, because two changes on one page can't be told apart.

Update

Update is the agent stepping back. It changes nothing on your site. It:

• Judges each prediction against what happened: supported, refuted, or inconclusive. “Not enough evidence yet” is a valid answer.
• Works out why, when clicks stay flat after changes have had time to show.
• Retires what didn't work, adds new predictions, and rebalances new ideas against proven ones.

Run it when a run sends you there, or yourself once a few changes have had time to show results. Running it every day doesn't help: results take time to arrive. Update can't change the number your deal is measured on.

A rhythm that works