I ranked my services and conditions by preference, but my content plan doesn't follow that order. Why?

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Sound familiar?

"I put sports massage top and it's halfway down the plan." "The plan starts with a condition I ranked low." "Did my preferences even save?" They did save, and they drive the plan. Here is exactly how, and why the order on screen can still differ from your list.

What's happening

Your rankings are not one input among many. After your practice priorities, they are the plan's order.

Your plan is grouped under five headings, in this order:

Your Practice Priorities, all three equal.
Your top services: the first five on your ranked services list, in the order you put them.
Your top conditions: the first five on your ranked conditions list, in order.
Your clinicians' specialisms: anything ranked sixth or lower, and expertise your clinicians hold that you have not ranked.
Building out your topics: the remaining work that rounds out your topic areas.

Every top-five service and every top-five condition is guaranteed a place, unless there is a stated reason it can't have one. So if your number one ranked service is not at the top of your plan, the usual reasons are these, in order of likelihood:

A practice priority comes first. Priorities sit above everything. If the top of your plan is not one of your ranked services, check whether it is one of your three priorities.
Services come before conditions. Your top services sit above your top conditions, even if you think of a condition as more important.
We published its main page for you recently. Pieces we write for you leave the plan once published and come back for a refresh no sooner than 12 weeks later. Meanwhile the topic gets its best supporting article instead.
You marked it "Not relevant". A rejected suggestion is removed, and similar ones are held back for 90 days.
There is nothing eligible to write for it right now. The plan records that as the reason rather than guessing.
You ranked it sixth or lower. Only the first five on each list get a guaranteed place. The rest sit under "Your clinicians' specialisms", where your team's expertise decides the order.

The card on each item says which of these applies.

Why it works this way

The plan's job is to turn your strategy into an order of work, not to replace it. Starting from your priorities and your rankings means the plan can only ever be a sharper version of what you already decided. The measured evidence then does the part you cannot do by hand, which piece first, what patients actually ask, and where you are being left out of AI answers that name your competitors.

A worked example. You ranked sports massage first, and its page sits at number four while "low back pain in runners" sits at number one. The usual explanation: low back pain is one of your three practice priorities, so it comes first, and sports massage is the first item under "Your top services". Your ranking did exactly what it should; something you told us mattered more sat above it.

What to do now

Open your plan at https://content.co-kinetic.com/my-clinic/plan and read the explanation on any item whose position surprises you.
Check your rankings still say what you want on the clinic profile page, and that the top five of each list are genuinely your top five.
If two of your own labels are near-duplicates (for example "Sport Injuries" and "Sports Injuries"), tidy your list so one topic is not split in two.
If a topic matters more than its current position, the levers are in "How do I push a topic up my content plan?"
If an item genuinely does not fit your practice, as opposed to being lower than you expected, mark it "Not relevant".
Remember the plan reflects your settings as of its last build. Reordering your lists changes the next build, not the list on screen.

The question behind the question

"There's a topic I think should be appearing, and it isn't." That is usually the real frustration under this question. Three things move a topic: make it one of your three practice priorities, move it into the first five of your ranked services or conditions, or have the clinician who carries that expertise declare it on their profile, ideally a clinician you have starred. All three add real evidence rather than overriding it, and they stack.

The next question is usually...

How do I push a topic up my content plan?
What do practice priorities actually do?
How is my content plan organised, and how does it decide what goes where?

Still stuck? This usually means...

The order looks wrong even after reading the cards. Tell us in the chat with the item titles. We keep the full workings for every plan and can show you exactly why each item placed where it did.
You changed your rankings and nothing moved. Changes to your top five services or conditions rebuild the plan automatically about an hour after your last change, at most once a day. Give it an hour, then look again.