Commodity Content Audit: a skill that scores replaceable content

5.32 million search results — that is how much data Kevin Indig went through before landing on a conclusion that argues with the usual panic: Google is not demoting listicles as a format. It demotes replaceable content, the kind you could delete without anyone missing it. That idea is now a tool: Indig released a Claude skill called Commodity Content Audit that scores how easily someone else's article could stand in for yours.

The logic is simple. Instead of asking «do we publish too many lists?», the skill asks a different question: what does this article have that the ten neighbouring ones do not. Proprietary data, first-hand experience, numbers from real accounts, a client case — anything that cannot be assembled from scratch in five minutes. Pieces without that score low and move into the rewrite queue. Indig announced the skill in Growth Memo, with the full scoring methodology open to paid subscribers.

What changes in day-to-day work:

• the format stops being the villain — the problem is retelling common knowledge, not the «top 10» wrapper;
• content audits become measurable: a score and a priority instead of «feels weak»;
• you get a filter for AI-written drafts: if the model produced it with no input of yours, it is replaceable by definition.

What to do on your own site:

• take your 20 highest-traffic articles and ask honestly about each one: what here is ours?;
• flag the ones fully covered by competitors — those need rewriting, not more links;
• add what nobody else has: your own stats, screenshots from live accounts, test results, a practitioner's comment;
• set a rule for new pieces: nothing ships without at least one original data source inside.