Either four phases (menstrual, follicular, ovulation, luteal) for clinical accuracy or five phases breaking late luteal (PMS) out as its own page for editorial depth. Both work. Five-phase splits suit content sites that lean into hormone-aware self-care; four-phase splits suit clinical-leaning publishers.

Yes. Define a second page group at /menstrual-cycle/day/{slug}/ with rows for each cycle day, and keep the phase reference at /menstrual-cycle/{slug}/. Cross-link them: each phase page lists its day range as links to the day-level pages, and each day page links back to its phase.

Either anchor the phase reference to a normalized 28-day baseline with notes about how the phases shift for shorter or longer cycles, or run parallel page groups at /menstrual-cycle/short-cycle/{slug}/ and /menstrual-cycle/long-cycle/{slug}/. Most publishers anchor to 28 days and surface the variability through editorial notes.

Perimenopause sits at the edge of the cycle-phase model since cycles become irregular. Most sites handle it as a separate page group at /perimenopause/{slug}/ with phase-equivalent reference content covering hormone fluctuations, symptom clusters, and management options.

The sheet is the single source. When new research updates the symptom-to-hormone attribution, update one column and flush the SleekRank cache. Every affected phase page picks up the new framing on the next request, with consistent attribution if you keep a sources column in the sheet.

SleekRank caches the source per cacheDuration set in seconds. Edit the sheet, clear the SleekRank cache via WP-CLI or admin, and the next request rebuilds the page with new data. For phase reference content (a slow-changing domain) set cacheDuration high so the sheet is not constantly refetched.

Yes. Each generated URL is a real WordPress page included in the sitemap. The base template is excluded automatically so the scaffolding does not compete with real phase pages. Run a rewrite flush after adding new slugs so the routes resolve immediately on production.

Yes. SleekRank ships with a related entries helper that filters by category and renders up to six related pages with a deterministic shuffle. Group phases as a tight set (all four or five phases together) and the related cluster forms automatically per page.