## 1. SEO Metadata and Social Tags

- [x] 1.1 Ensure homepage and policy pages expose required `title`, `description`, `robots`, and canonical metadata.
- [x] 1.2 Ensure Open Graph and Twitter metadata fields are present and mapped to current page context.
- [x] 1.3 Add verification checks for deterministic canonical URLs and valid absolute social image URLs.

## 2. Structured Data (Newspaper and NewsArticle)

- [x] 2.1 Implement and verify homepage `Newspaper` JSON-LD output with publisher/site identity fields.
- [x] 2.2 Implement and verify `NewsArticle` JSON-LD output for hero and feed items using required semantic fields.
- [x] 2.3 Add deduplication logic so repeated hero/feed references emit one semantic entity per article URL.

## 3. Delivery and Caching Performance

- [x] 3.1 Apply and validate gzip compression for eligible responses.
- [x] 3.2 Apply and validate explicit cache-control policies for static assets, APIs, and HTML routes.
- [x] 3.3 Verify route-level header behavior with repeatable checks and document expected header values.

## 4. Rendering Performance and UX

- [x] 4.1 Ensure non-critical images use lazy loading with explicit dimensions and async decoding hints.
- [x] 4.2 Ensure shimmer placeholders are visible until image load or fallback completion in feed and modal contexts.
- [x] 4.3 Ensure smooth scrolling behavior remains consistent for in-page navigation interactions.

## 5. Validation and Acceptance

- [x] 5.1 Validate structured data output for `Newspaper` and `NewsArticle` entities against schema expectations.
- [x] 5.2 Validate HTML/metadata output against project validation goals and resolve conformance gaps.
- [x] 5.3 Execute regression checks for homepage rendering, article card behavior, and policy page metadata.

## 6. Documentation

- [x] 6.1 Document SEO/structured-data contracts and performance header expectations in project docs.
- [x] 6.2 Document verification steps so future changes can re-run SEO and performance acceptance checks.
