Competitor Comparison Page Template
Five documents and five sheets built on a claim register, where the recheck interval comes from the source a claim was read off.
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Claim Verification Log
[Page] — one row per claim about them
A claim is four things, not one: the sentence, the source it was read off, the date it was read, and the interval at which it gets read again.
| Claim | Sentence shape | Source type | Read on | Capture | Rechecks / yr | Direction if wrong |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | required | required | required | derived | — |
| — | — | required | required | required | derived | — |
| — | — | required | required | required | derived | — |
| — | — | required | required | required | derived | — |
| — | — | required | required | required | derived | — |
| — | — | required | required | required | derived | — |
The three required cells are the ones a live page almost never has. A source URL with no capture stops being evidence the moment they rewrite the page, and rechecks is derived from the source type rather than chosen, so a changelog-sourced row lands on zero and a marketing-sourced row on six.
Every template for this page ships the same anatomy: hero, snapshot table above the fold, feature deep dive, pricing, when to choose them, social proof, FAQ, closing call to action. Then maintenance arrives as one bullet. Review quarterly, or update it when their product changes. Neither instruction is actionable, and for the same reason: neither one knows where any individual claim on the page came from, so neither can say which claims have probably rotted.
So this pack records the source instead. The worked audit in it covers Kelvedge, which sells field-service scheduling and has six live comparison pages, the oldest 22 months old. Every discrete claim about a competitor was rechecked against that competitor's current published sources: 187 claims, 118 still true, 63.1%. Split by where the claim was taken from, claims read off a changelog held at 100% and off their docs at 89.7%. Claims read off their own marketing pages held at 53.5%, and a rep's recollection at 18.2%.
The share of a page's claims taken from those soft sources explains 69% of the variance in its survival rate; the page's age explains 20%. The 14-month page written from docs held better than the 3-month page written from feature pages, which is why recheck intervals here derive from source type rather than from the calendar. That costs nothing: 736 recheck events a year against the 748 a blanket quarterly review already spends. Detecting the change is the other half, and competitor monitoring is where that lives.
What you get
Claim Verification Log
One row per claim about a competitor, carrying the sentence word for word, the source type and URL, the date it was read, the capture, and the recheck interval that source earns. Everything else in the pack derives from this sheet.
Claim Direction Audit
One row per wrong claim, split by whether it understated the competitor or credited them with something they dropped. The two are not the same problem, and 51 of the 69 wrong claims on the worked audit were the first kind.
Page Inventory
One row per live page with its hold rate, its soft-source share and its error directions, so the comparison across pages is available rather than inferred. It is the standing companion to a one-off competitor teardown.
Refresh Schedule
Recheck intervals derived from source type instead of the calendar, batched by page and source, with both totals shown so the effort question is settled by arithmetic rather than argued.
Change Watch Log
One row per detected change, keeping the date they changed something and the date we edited the page apart, so the gap between the two becomes a number somebody owns.
Source Method
Filled in once before any claim is written: which competitors get a page and why, where each one's changelog and docs actually live, how a claim gets captured, and who signs off a superiority claim.
Fairness Standard
The per-claim standard, written before the page is, plus the sentence shapes that never publish. It states the legal frame accurately: the FTC's policy encourages naming competitors, and what creates exposure is a false statement of fact.
Page Copy
The published draft, written with a claim id beside every table cell and every factual sentence. It includes the section most comparison pages omit, which is what the competitor is genuinely better at.
Substantiation File
The document you send when somebody challenges a sentence: per claim, the source, the read date, the capture, the exact supporting words quoted, and a name against the sign-off.
Update Procedure
The four ways a stale claim gets found and the fixed order for closing one, including the step everybody skips, which is rechecking the neighbouring claims from the same source while the tab is open.
How it works
- 1
Send the page you already have
The URL of a live comparison page, or several. Every discrete claim on it comes off the page into the register first, including the table cells and the checkmarks, because a checkmark is a claim.
- 2
Find each claim's source
River reads the competitor's changelog, docs and pricing page and checks each claim against them. Where nobody knows where a claim came from, that gets logged as its own finding rather than backfilled with a source that agrees.
- 3
Get the direction and the interval
Every wrong claim is classed by which way the error runs, and every surviving claim inherits a recheck interval from the source it was read off. Understating claims go to the front of the rewrite queue.
- 4
Rewrite, then keep it true
The copy gets rebuilt from verified claims, dated in the sentence and attributed to their own wording. The register then feeds whatever the field needs, including a sales battlecard that stops disagreeing with the page, or a switch campaign built on the same source-first discipline.
Frequently asked questions
What format are the downloaded files?
The five documents come as .docx and the five sheets as .csv, so they open in Word, Pages, Google Docs, Excel, Numbers and Sheets with nothing to convert. The download needs no account, and the sheets arrive carrying the worked audit rather than empty.
What does Edit with AI actually do?
It installs the pack as a private space and primes River to fill it from what you send. The first useful output is usually an audit of a page you already have live, reporting the share of its claims that no longer hold.
Is it a problem to name a competitor?
Naming them is not the problem and never was. The FTC's own policy says it has supported brand comparisons where the bases of comparison are clearly identified. What is actionable is misrepresenting the nature, characteristics or qualities of another company's goods or services.
Why not just review the page quarterly?
Because quarterly spends the same effort on the claim that cannot go stale and the claim that already has. Derived intervals cost 736 recheck events a year against 748 for blanket quarterly, and they cut the average time a false claim sits live by a third.
What if the competitor has no changelog?
Then their docs or API reference is the next best source, and it held at 89.7% on the worked audit. Where neither exists, say so in the Source Method, because every claim will come from marketing copy or from what their users report, which are the two groups that decay.
Does this write the page or only check it?
Both, in that order. Page Copy is a real draft with a claim id beside every factual sentence, but it comes after the register, because a draft written first gets assembled out of the competitor's own marketing copy. Positioning belongs in a positioning map instead.
How do claims about our own product work?
They need an internal source rather than an external one: a docs page, a shipped flag, a support article. The FTC expects advertisers to have a reasonable basis for advertising claims before they are disseminated, and a product manager saying we do that is not one.
Find out how much of your comparison page is still true
Send the URL of a page you already have live. The audit reports the share of its claims that no longer hold, and which source each one came from.
Edit with AI