Changelog
A dated public log of every price correction, scoring revision, and material editorial change on this site. If we move a price, change a recommendation, or correct an error, it is logged here.
Why this page exists: our methodology page promises a public correction policy. This is the receipt. It is also the simplest way for a reader (or a provider) to ask — when did this change? — without taking our word for it.
- Site
Affected: Homepage, all /tests/ cornerstones, both health-umbrella guides
Change: Moat day 11. Internal-link audit + targeted cross-links. New `scripts/orphan-audit.py` maps inbound href references across the corpus. Most-impactful fixes: homepage now links the /data/ open-data hub, /methodology/, /changelog/ and price-spread audit in a dedicated 'Open data' strip. PriceVerification component now links /methodology/ from its main visible body. Every cornerstone /tests/ page now links the two under-linked supporting guides (are-home-blood-tests-accurate, can-i-pay-for-nhs-blood-test). The men's-health and women's-health umbrella guides each gained a single-test buyer-guide rail.
Reason: Result: /guides/are-home-blood-tests-accurate/ 3 → 11 inbound (+267%). /guides/can-i-pay-for-nhs-blood-test/ 2 → 10 inbound (+400%). /data/ index now linked from the homepage. /methodology/ pushed from every cornerstone. orphan-audit.py committed so future deploys can audit before going live.
- Editorial
Affected: 8 cornerstone /tests/ pages: thyroid, testosterone, vitamin-d, ferritin, hba1c, psa-prostate, cholesterol-lipids, vitamin-b12-folate
Change: Moat day 10. New <ReaderQA /> component renders 3 reader-question Q&As per cornerstone, targeting long-tail search-intent gaps that the existing FAQ does not cover. Each question is framed as a real lived scenario (synthetic personas, editorial answers); each answer is genuinely substantive and grounded in NHS / NICE / BSH / BSSM guidance where applicable.
Reason: The standard FAQ on each page already covers how-the-test-works queries. ReaderQA targets the harder long-tail: "my B12 is 220 with tingling hands, what do I do"; "my PSA is 4.2 at 67, should I panic"; "South Asian family history, cholesterol 5.2 'in range'". This is what readers actually search before buying a private test. Each Q&A is emitted as JSON-LD FAQPage schema for featured-snippet eligibility.
- Price
Affected: /tests/thyroid/, /guides/uk-blood-test-price-spread-2026/
Change: Medichecks basic thyroid panel: £59 → £45 (24% reduction). Yorktest thyroid currently displayed at £41 sale (RRP £59). Verified directly against each provider's live UK product page on 24 May 2026.
Reason: Day 9 verification cycle caught real price movement at Medichecks (basic Thyroid Function Blood Test). The May 2026 price-spread audit was corrected the same day to reflect the new cheap-end (£41 sale / £45 list).
- Site
Affected: 12 /tests/ pages
Change: Moat day 9 (first half). New <PriceVerification /> component replaces hand-edited 'Prices verified DD MMM' callouts on every /tests/ page that has a pricing row in the dataset. The component reads from src/data/pricing-index.json at build time and renders both the latest verified date and an expandable per-provider verification table with confidence flags.
Reason: Single source of truth means the verification stamp can never drift from the data. The expandable per-provider table is what readers should be able to see to trust a 'verified' claim.
- Editorial
Affected: Pricing dataset (src/data/pricing-index.json)
Change: Day 9 verification cycle (partial). 7 Medichecks rows + 1 Yorktest row HTTP-verified directly against live product pages on 24 May 2026. Forth, Numan, Thriva, Bluecrest, LetsGetChecked, MyHealthChecked and Randox rows DEFERRED honestly — their pages are Cloudflare-protected, JS-rendered or have moved slugs, and a fresh date stamp on a non-re-fetched row would breach our methodology promise.
Reason: "Verified" must mean verified. Stamping today's date on rows that were not actually re-checked today would be theatre, not editorial honesty.
- Editorial
Affected: 5 /tests/ pages: thyroid, testosterone, vitamin-d, ferritin, hba1c
Change: Moat day 8. New <WhenNotToBuy /> refusal block added to the five highest-traffic /tests/ pages. Each block names 5 specific scenarios where buying the private test is the wrong move — grounded in named NHS / NICE CKS guidance.
Reason: A site that recommends every private test for every situation is a tool, not an editor. The refusal sections are the structural counterpart to the recommendations — same authority, opposite direction. NICE / NHS authority links cited per page.
- Editorial
Affected: All 6 /reviews/ pages
Change: Moat day 7. New <ReviewLimits /> editorial-honesty block added to all six provider review pages (Medichecks, Forth, Thriva, Randox, Bluecrest Wellness, LetsGetChecked). Each block states the structural limits of what the review can know about that specific provider — lab assignment opacity, complaint-rate visibility, catalogue stability, pricing-vs-experience justification.
Reason: Tool-only competitors (BloodTestCompare, TreatCompare) cannot publish this kind of editorial limit-statement — they have no editor to take ownership of it. It is the kind of section a serious reader notices and remembers.
- Editorial
Affected: /guides/uk-blood-test-price-spread-2026/
Change: Published original data piece: "The same UK blood test costs 100–250% more depending on who you buy it from." Audits standalone single-biomarker prices across 9 UK consumer providers (May 2026 verification window). Headline: PSA spread 130% (£37–£85), testosterone spread 258% (£19–£68). Built to be cited by health journalists.
Reason: First piece of original-research editorial designed for digital-PR outreach. Sits on top of the price index dataset that was already public.
- Site
Affected: /changelog/
Change: Changelog now auto-renders from .editorial/changelog.yml at build time (previously a hand-edited TypeScript array in the page source).
Reason: Moat day 6 of 11. Removes a chore that would have been skipped; future entries are a one-line YAML append.
- Editorial
Affected: /methodology/, /changelog/
Change: Glass-box methodology page published. Public changelog stub published.
Reason: Moat day 5 of the 11-day editorial-honesty plan. Methodology page makes the 8-criterion rubric, price-verification cadence, conflicts of interest, correction policy, and authorship transparency public and auditable.
- Editorial
Affected: /guides/blood-test-reference-ranges-explained-uk/, all /tests/ pages
Change: New explainer guide on UK blood test reference ranges. Internally linked from every /tests/ page.
Reason: Moat day 4. Reference-range literacy is one of the highest-impact gaps in UK private-testing content.
- Site
Affected: Site-wide (home, header, footer, BYP, editorial cards, trust band)
Change: WCAG AA contrast pass: dark-theme leaks fixed across editorial cards, price-comparison panels, BYP quick-start chips, trust band and section eyebrows. Accessibility score 95 → 99.
Reason: Visual review revealed the dark theme had several places where text inherited cream colour but the underlying background stayed white, causing near-invisible titles. Real fixes, not workarounds.
- Site
Affected: Site-wide
Change: Footer brand parity with header (icon + wordmark lockup). Mobile hero contrast scrim strengthened behind headline. Google Fonts loaded async (no longer render-blocking).
Reason: Phase 2 polish. Mobile Lighthouse performance 47 → 59, LCP 4.9s → 3.8s.
- Site
Affected: Site-wide
Change: Site-wide dark immersive theme shipped. New brand palette (dark teal + cyan + gold), new horizontal logo lockup, new Aether avatar composited into hero scene.
Reason: Phase 2 redesign to differentiate visually from competitor tool-sites (BloodTestCompare, TreatCompare). Cream body retained on YMYL article pages for readability.
- Editorial
Affected: 35 pages (all /tests/, all /guides/)
Change: <TrustBadges variant="dense" /> added across all entry-point pages.
Reason: Moat day 3. Consistent accreditation pills (UKAS, NHS-aligned ranges, GDPR, Independent reviews) at every Google landing point, not just the homepage.
- Site
Affected: /v2/*
Change: /v2/* design-experiment pages set to noindex and excluded from sitemap.
Reason: Indexing hygiene — experiment pages should never be candidates for search.
- Editorial
Affected: 9 head-to-head /compare/ pages
Change: New <ComparisonTablePair /> component (two providers, criterion-by-criterion) rolled across every head-to-head comparison.
Reason: Moat day 2.
- Editorial
Affected: /compare/best-uk-blood-test-providers/
Change: Editorial honesty trio added: "What this comparison won't tell you" / "Don't bother with these tests" / "Three reasons we'd hesitate to recommend our top pick".
Reason: Moat day 1. The flagship comparison should be honest first, persuasive second.
- Editorial
Affected: /reviews/letsgetchecked-review/, /compare/medichecks-vs-letsgetchecked/, /guides/letsgetchecked-uk-catalogue-shrinking-2026/
Change: New LetsGetChecked review + comparison + catalogue-investigation guide.
Reason: LetsGetChecked has materially reduced its UK catalogue; existing content needed an investigation page and a counterweight review.
- Price
Affected: /tests/psa-prostate/
Change: Randox PSA Home Test £37 added as cheapest standalone UK PSA. Thriva PSA £65 added. Randox listings split between £37 home test and clinic-profile pricing.
Reason: New product detected during weekly verification — £37 Randox PSA is the cheapest verified standalone PSA in the UK consumer market as of 9 May 2026.
- Launch
Affected: Whole site
Change: Site launched at bloodtestguide.co.uk.
Reason: Public start of the project.