Draft
Definition
A draft is a page state in which the planned or CMS page exists for review but has not yet been intentionally released as the public version. It separates preparation and approval from publication.
Why draft matters in programmatic SEO
Drafts create a useful control point between generation and publication. Programmatic SEO can produce many valid-looking pages quickly, so a draft state gives teams a place to inspect the real destination, confirm the supported fields, resolve Review or Blocked findings, and verify the remote object before public release.
The key is that the draft refers to a specific page state. If the approved source changes after review, the new output should be checked again rather than silently inheriting a decision made against an older version.
A simple example
A team approves a set of location pages and sends them through a WordPress Draft Job. The CMS creates or updates standard Pages as drafts, preserving their WordPress IDs so the same remote objects can be verified, updated, or explicitly published later.
One Page fails verification because its remote state no longer matches the approved artifact. It stays out of Publish until the mismatch is resolved, while verified Drafts can move forward without replaying the entire batch.
Common misconception
“A draft is already a live search page that simply has not ranked yet. A CMS draft is normally not the public published page; whether it is reachable or indexable depends on the platform and configuration, so teams should verify the actual destination rather than assume.”
How pSEO Guard handles draft
pSEO Guard's WordPress workflow is draft-first for reviewed Projects. After Dry Run, a controlled Draft Job creates or updates standard Pages and stores page-level results and stable WordPress IDs instead of treating a successful write as a public release.
Verify reads the remote Draft back before Publish. Only explicitly selected verified Drafts move to public `publish` status, while failures, skips, and remote mismatches remain visible for deliberate retry or recovery.