Creating and Managing Search Projects

Projects are the backbone of StretchSearch. Every target, crawl job, SEO finding, and ranking preview belongs to exactly one project, so getting your project structure right keeps everything else organized and searchable.

What a project is

A project is a named container for a body of search work. It records a type, an optional owner brand, a status, and a description, and it owns a unique project key generated from the name. Federated search, findings, and rankings all filter by project, so a clean project structure pays off across the whole product.

Choosing a project type

Pick the type that matches the work — it signals intent and keeps reporting clean:

• owned_site — a property your organization owns.
• client_site — a property a client has authorized.
• competitor_research — competitive analysis of sites you don't own.
• brand_audit — a structured brand/site audit (often feeding StretchBAS).
• seo_intelligence — ongoing SEO monitoring and content work.
• research — general research that doesn't fit the above.

Create a project

1. Open StretchSearch → Projects.
2. Choose New project.
3. Enter a name (up to 180 characters). Make it specific — include the site and the engagement or period.
4. Select a project type.
5. Optionally add an owner brand and a description (up to 4,000 characters).
6. Save. The project is created with status active and its own key.

Edit a project

1. Open the project from the Projects list.
2. Choose Edit.
3. Update the name, type, owner brand, description, or status. Only the fields you change are updated.
4. Save.

Pause or archive a project

Projects support three statuses: active, paused, and archived.

1. Open the project and choose Edit.
2. Set status to paused to temporarily set it aside, or archive it when the work is complete.
3. To archive from the list, use Archive — the project is retained for history but drops out of the active view.

Archiving is reversible by editing the status back to active; it does not delete targets, jobs, or findings, so your audit trail stays intact.

A realistic example

A marketing team runs a recurring audit. They keep one owned_site project named Company Site — Standing SEO that they never archive, plus per-quarter seo_intelligence projects like Blog Refresh — Q3. When a quarter closes, they archive the quarterly project but keep the standing one active, so the dashboard Overview stays focused on live work.

Tips

• Use a consistent naming convention: Site — Engagement — Period. It makes federated search and facets far more readable.
• One engagement usually equals one project. Resist mixing an owned-site audit and competitor research in the same project — the types and authorization needs differ.
• Set owner_brand when you manage multiple brands; it becomes a useful facet in federated search.
• Archive finished work rather than deleting it — you keep the evidence trail and can revive it later.

Troubleshooting

"Invalid StretchSearch project payload." A required field is missing or too long — the name is required and capped at 180 characters; descriptions and owner brand have their own limits. Correct the field and resave.

A project I archived is gone from my list. Archived projects are filtered out of the active view by design. Switch the list filter to include archived, or edit the status back to active.

Deleting a project. Deleting archives the project rather than hard-removing your history. If you truly need it gone, contact your platform administrator.