Technical SEO
Titles, canonicals, robots, sitemaps, links and everything that decides whether a page can rank.
Guides
- SEO13 min read
'Discovered – currently not indexed': what it means and what to do
Google knows the URL and has not fetched it. How that differs from "Crawled – currently not indexed", the real causes on small sites in order of likelihood, and a 20-minute triage with three checks.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO12 min read
404 vs 410 vs redirect: what to do with removed pages
When a page goes, choose per URL between a 301 to its equivalent, a 410 for pages gone for good, or a plain 404. This guide gives the decision rules, the server snippets and the bulk workflow for a whole list of removed URLs.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO8 min read
A one-page SEO audit, the getReport way
Forty checks on one URL in about a minute: title, description, headings, canonical, robots, indexability, links, images, structured data. This guide explains what the audit covers, how to read the score, which findings to fix first and which to ignore for a given kind of page.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO14 min read
AI crawlers and robots.txt: who fetches your site and how to decide
GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and 15 more read your robots.txt. See which ones train models and which send visitors, copy a robots.txt that matches your site, and add a valid llms.txt.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO10 min read
AMP in 2026: keep it or remove it, and how to remove it safely
AMP no longer earns a place in Top Stories or a ranking boost, and it doubles the pages you maintain. Who still benefits, what it costs, and the order of steps that removes it without losing traffic.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO10 min read
Breadcrumbs: navigation and structured data together
A breadcrumb trail tells visitors where they are and lets Google print a readable path in your listing. Build the visible trail and the BreadcrumbList JSON-LD once, with HTML and WordPress settings.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO14 min read
Bulk URL checker: 1,000 status codes and redirects at once
Paste an old sitemap or a redirect map into a free bulk URL checker and see the final status, hops, noindex and canonical of every URL, then fix a migration in the right order.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO8 min read
Canonical tags explained, with every mistake we see
The canonical tag decides which URL Google ranks when the same content lives at several addresses. This guide covers what it should say, how redirects and www variants interact with it, and the six mistakes that quietly give your rankings away.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO12 min read
Canonicals across domains: syndication, mirrors and republishing
When one article lives on two domains, learn which case needs a cross-domain canonical, which needs noindex and which needs a redirect, with Google's current syndication advice and code.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO14 min read
Crawl budget for sites under 10,000 pages (usually not your problem)
Google says crawl budget only matters for very large or fast-changing sites. Prove whether yours is limited, see what wastes Googlebot's visits on a small site, and fix it in the right order.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO12 min read
Duplicate titles and descriptions across a site
Two pages with the same title look like one page to Google and like two identical options to a searcher. Find every duplicate on your site in an afternoon and fix the templates for good.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO12 min read
Faceted navigation and parameter URLs: keeping filters out of the index
Filters and sort options turn one category into thousands of URLs. Learn which parameter URLs to index, which to canonicalise, noindex or block in robots.txt, and how to see what Googlebot actually crawls on your shop.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO10 min read
Favicon and touch icons: sizes and formats that work everywhere
Four files cover every browser tab, Google result, iPhone home screen and Android install prompt. The sizes, formats and link tags, one script to generate them, and how to check the result.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO10 min read
How to find and fix broken links on any page
Find every link on a page that answers 404, 500 or nothing at all, see which ones redirect, and fix them in the right order. With a free checker, real examples and the WordPress shortcuts.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO11 min read
hreflang in sitemaps vs in HTML: pick one and keep it consistent
hreflang can live in the page head, in an HTTP header or in the XML sitemap. This guide compares the three, shows a working sample of each, and explains how to pick one so the sets never disagree.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO8 min read
Hreflang return links — why Google ignores your language tags
hreflang only works when every language version points back at every other one. Learn how return links fail, how to check all of them at once, and how to generate the tags so they never drift again.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO11 min read
Internal links that redirect: find them and fix them at the source
Internal links that answer with a 301 still work, but every click pays an extra round trip. Find them, fix menus, content and templates at the source, and keep the redirect for everyone else.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO13 min read
Internal links: how many, where, and with what anchor text
Internal links are how Google finds your pages and how ranking signal moves between them. Realistic numbers per page, where links count most, anchor text that works, and a 15-minute audit.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO13 min read
International sites: subfolder vs subdomain vs ccTLD, by the numbers
Choose between example.com/de/, de.example.com and example.de with a trade-off table, the signals Google really uses for country targeting, and the hreflang rules that hold on all three.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO11 min read
JavaScript-rendered content and Google: what gets indexed
Google runs your JavaScript, but later, with a budget, and not for everything. What breaks when content only exists after scripts run, how to see what a crawler sees, and the server-rendering fix.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO11 min read
Meta descriptions: length, wording and when Google rewrites them
The meta description does not rank you, it gets you clicked. Learn the length Google shows, what a good one contains, why Google replaces yours, and how to set one per template in WordPress and Shopify.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO12 min read
Nofollow, sponsored and ugc: link attributes explained
Which rel attribute goes on paid links, comment links and links you do not vouch for, why none belongs on your own links, and how to read the report's nofollow share finding. With WordPress examples.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO10 min read
noindex, nofollow and friends: the robots directives reference
Every robots meta and X-Robots-Tag directive Google supports, how they differ from robots.txt and rel="nofollow", which one to use for staging, thank-you, search and filter pages, and how to check.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO11 min read
One H1 and a sane heading order for every page
Give every page one clear H1 and a heading outline without skipped levels, so readers, screen reader users and search engines can follow it, in WordPress, Shopify or plain HTML.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO13 min read
Orphan pages: finding them and linking them back in
An orphan page is one no other page on your site links to. Learn how they happen, how to find every one with your sitemap, a crawl and the bulk URL checker, and how to link them back or retire them.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO12 min read
Page titles that rank and get clicked
Write title tags that Google keeps, that fit the result page and that earn the click. Length in characters and pixels, patterns per page type, brand placement, pagination, and where to set them in WordPress and Shopify.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO11 min read
Pagination in 2026: rel=prev/next is gone, what now
Google stopped reading rel=prev/next in 2019 and most pagination advice still assumes it. What page 2 needs now: canonical, title and link rules, WordPress settings, and what to do with load more.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO11 min read
Query parameters and canonicals for tracking links (utm, gclid)
Tracking parameters make a new URL for every campaign click. Keep them out of the index and the cache without breaking analytics, with canonical rules, cache configs and a per-parameter table.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO13 min read
Redirect chains after a migration: finding every hop
Migrations leave redirects stacked on redirects. Learn why chains appear, how to find every hop with the redirect checker and the bulk URL checker, and how to collapse each chain into one 301 on nginx, Apache and WordPress.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO12 min read
Redirects without chains: 301, 302, 307, 308 and one hop
Which redirect status to use when, why http → https → www → slash chains happen, and how to collapse them into one hop on nginx, Apache, Caddy, Cloudflare and WordPress, with a free redirect checker.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO7 min read
robots.txt — test it before it hides your site
One Disallow line can remove a whole site from Google, and it happens every week when staging rules reach production. This guide explains what robots.txt can and cannot do, how to test a URL against it the way Googlebot does, what to put in it for a typical site, and how to handle AI crawlers.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO11 min read
robots.txt patterns: wildcards, Allow, crawl-delay and the AI bots
How Google actually parses robots.txt (RFC 9309), with working patterns for parameters, file types and one-file exceptions, why crawl-delay does nothing for Google, and a clean policy for AI crawlers.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO14 min read
Site migration checklist: domain, https and CMS moves without losing traffic
A before, during and after checklist for moving a site to a new domain, to https or to a new CMS, with the redirect map, the staging checks, the launch-day order and the bulk URL verification that catches the classic mistakes.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO11 min read
Sitemap index files: splitting large sitemaps the right way
A sitemap stops at 50,000 URLs or 50 MB. This guide shows how to split it into an index with child files by type, date or language, what to leave out, and how WordPress and other CMSs do it for you.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO11 min read
Sitemap lastmod: when to set it and when it hurts
Google uses the lastmod date in your sitemap to decide what to recrawl, but only while it stays honest. Learn when to set it, which date to use, the format, and how to spot a generator that fakes it.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO13 min read
Soft 404s: pages Google treats as missing even though they return 200
A soft 404 is a page that says "not found" or shows nothing while answering HTTP 200. Learn how Google spots them, how to find yours with Search Console and the report, and the fix for each cause.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO13 min read
Structured navigation for large sites: hubs, breadcrumbs, link depth
Organise a site of thousands of pages so every page is a few clicks from home, with hub pages, breadcrumbs, crawlable pagination and the sitemap as a backstop, then audit it page by page.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO13 min read
Thin content: what it is and when short pages are fine
Thin content is about value, not word count. Which pages Google considers thin, when a 120-word page is right, how to read the word-count finding, and what to do with archives and doorway pages.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO7 min read
Title and meta description — writing for the result page
The title tag and meta description are the only parts of your page most people see before they click. This guide covers the lengths Google actually shows, how to write both for a click, why Google rewrites them, and how to set them per template in WordPress, Shopify and static sites.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO12 min read
Trailing slashes, www and https: pick one and redirect the rest
Every page can be reached at up to eight addresses. Pick one form, send the other seven to it with one 301, and keep canonical, sitemap and links on it. Configs for nginx, Apache, Caddy and WordPress.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO12 min read
URL length and structure: what actually matters
URLs are a minor ranking signal and a major usability one. The rules that hold up for length, words, folders and parameters, when to change an existing URL, and which permalink setting to pick.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO13 min read
Why is my page not in Google? The indexability checklist
Work through the ten reasons a page stays out of Google in the order that finds the cause fastest, from a leftover noindex to a stray canonical, and confirm the fix in Search Console.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO10 min read
x-default explained: the hreflang fallback for unmatched visitors
x-default names the page Google shows when no language or region in your hreflang set matches the searcher. Learn when to use it, which page it should point at, and how to write it correctly.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO8 min read
XML sitemap validation: the errors that make Google drop it
A sitemap with one bad date or a relative URL is a sitemap Google stops trusting. This guide validates yours against the protocol, checks the listed pages actually answer 200, and shows how to fix each error in the CMS or the generator.Updated 25 Sept 2026 - SEO14 min read
Your server logs, decoded: Googlebot, AI bots and the fake ones
Read your access log in the browser: which bots crawl you, where Googlebot wastes fetches on 404s and redirects, which AI crawlers read your pages, and which "Googlebot" is fake.Updated 25 Sept 2026
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