10 Technical SEO Issues That Are Killing Your Rankings – Fix Them Now!
From your website’s HTTP header responses to 301 redirects, everything matters when it comes to indexing and ranking your content. Technical SEO handles all such topics including XML sitemaps, website speed, Robots.txt, structured data markup, etc.
While publishing your website, you must implement various technical strategies and best practices to enhance a website’s crawling, indexing, and ranking on search engines. Failing to do so will lead to poor ranking and inefficient indexing.
Let’s explore the world of Technical SEO and take a look at the most common Technical SEO issues and fixes. I will discuss how to detect the technical issues of your site and optimize it correctly to solve those problems.
Issue One – Creating Duplicate Content
In simple words, duplicate content refers to texts, images, product descriptions, etc., that are available in more than one website or URL. If you post similar content multiple times on the same website, it’s called internal duplicate content. Typically, it happens due to content management system (CMS) settings, URL parameters, or deliberate duplication for various reasons.
In case your site has the same content as other websites, Google takes it as external duplicate content. So, how does duplicate content affect technical SEO? When the same content exists on multiple pages, search engines might struggle to determine which version to prioritize, resulting in diluted ranking signals.
If different versions of the same content receive backlinks from other websites, the link equity, or the authority passed through those links, might be split between the duplicates. As a result, the overall SEO value of each version becomes weaker, making it difficult to crawl and index the content.
How to Detect?
To check whether your site has duplicate content, you can do the following:
- Use the Google Search Console. Access the “Coverage” report in Search Console to identify any duplicate content issues.
- Use online plagiarism checkers, such as Copyscape or Grammarly, to easily identify duplicate content.
- If you’re uploading the same content on multiple pages of your site, it’s best to implement canonical tags on your web pages. It will indicate to Googlebot the original source of the content when duplicate versions exist.
Easy Fix:
The key to getting rid of this technical SEO issue is to mark your content as original to Googlebot. For this, here’s what you need to do:
Step One – Fix Your URL
If you have a website that is accessible under multiple URLs (e.g., with and without the “www” prefix), it’s important to ensure that all versions of the URL point to a single, canonical version of your website.
To fix this, modify your server configuration or use the .htaccess rules for Apache servers.
Step Two – Use 301 Redirect
In case you want to keep the same content on multiple pages or URLs, you can use the 301 redirect. By setting up 301 redirects from the duplicate URLs to the preferred version, you’re signaling the search engines to redirect from the duplicate URLs to the original or preferred version.
Step Three – Implement Canonical Tags
On your duplicate pages or URLs, you can implement canonical tags to indicate the preferred version to search engines. You must place them in the HTML head section of the duplicate pages. This way, you’re referencing the URL of the preferred version.
Issue Two – Lack of HTTPS Security
To protect your site against common security attacks such as clickjacking or cross-site scripting, you must implement HTTPS security. Google considers HTTPS as a ranking signal in its search algorithm.
Without proper security, visitors will see a blank page or a security alert after clicking on the site URL. Websites with HTTPS have a higher chance of ranking better in search engine results.
How to Detect?
Check out your site URL to see whether it starts with “https://”.If not, it lacks proper security. You can also use popular tools like SSL Labs and Why No Padlock.
Easy Fix:
Here, all you need to do is get an SSL certificate. Below are the necessary steps:
Step One – Get an SSL Certificate
You can purchase the SSL certificate from a trusted certificate authority (CA) or use a free certificate from Let’s Encrypt. The SSL certificate will encrypt the connection between the browser and your website, providing secure HTTPS communication.
Step Two – Install the SSL Certificate
Once you have the SSL certificate, you need to install it on your web server. Refer to your hosting provider’s documentation or contact their support to learn how to install the SSL certificate.
Step Three – Update Your Site Material
After installing the SSL certificate, update all links and resources on your website to use the HTTPS protocol. You have to update links in your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Convert all references from “http://” to “https://” to ensure that all your site material is secured.
Issue Three – Missing XML Sitemaps
With proper XML sitemaps, you’re providing search engines with a map or blueprint of the pages on your website that you want to be indexed. They contain additional information about each URL, such as the last modified date, priority, and frequency of updates.
So, if your site is missing XML sitemaps or has unreliable or outdated sitemaps, Google might display your broken or blocked pages. In some cases, there will be no pages at all and the user will get a 404 error page.
How to Detect?
Access the root directory of your website and look for a file named “sitemap.xml”. If you don’t find any XML sitemap file, it indicates that you are missing one.
Easy Fix:
In this case, you have to generate the XML sitemap for your site. You can either hire an expert or follow the process given below:
Step One – Create Your XML Sitemap
For content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, you can use a sitemap generator tool or a plugin. Ensure that all the important pages are included in the sitemap.
Step Two – Upload to the Root Directory
After creating your XML sitemap file, you need to link it to your site’s root directory. The root directory is usually the main folder where your website’s index file is located.
Step Three – Clear All Errors
Use the Ahrefs Webmaster Tool to clear out all the issues related to sitemap. Here, you can remove the blocked and non-indexed pages.
Issue Four – Incorrect Site Indexing
Average Google users won’t see your website if it’s not indexed properly. To index a webpage, you must allow the search bots to crawl your content. If you have a noindex tag or have blocked Googlebots from crawling your robots.txt page, the content won’t appear in the search results.
How to Detect?
Simply copy the URL of your site or webpage and paste it into the Google search bar. If your site appears in the results, it’s indexed correctly.
Easy Fix:
In case your website or pages aren’t indexed and visible to the users, you can take the following measure:
Step One – Find Out Indexing Errors
Use Google Search Console or Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to review any reported indexing errors. Go to the ‘Site Audit’ option and check out the ‘Indexability’ reports. Resolve any identified errors based on the recommendations provided.
Step Two – Fix Canonicalization and Noindex Issue
To resolve the canonicalization issues, clear the bad URLs in your link rel=”canonical” tag. Input valid URLs and ensure using HTTPS security headings.
If there’s any ‘noindex’ tag in any of your content, remove them. Also, you must correctly configureyour website’s robots.txt file and make sure you haven’t blocked any pages.
Issue Five – Mobile Device Incompatibility
Google introduced the ‘mobile-first indexing’ feature in 2018. It prioritizes the mobile version of a website’s content for indexing and ranking in search engine results.
When creating a site, many web developers ignore mobile-specific considerations like page load speed, mobile-friendly design, ease of navigation, etc. As a result, the site fails to rank higher in the search results.
How to Detect?
First, check your website from a mobile device or tablet to see how it performs. Google offers a Mobile-Friendly Test tool that analyzes your website. You can use it to get feedback on the mobile-friendliness of your site.
Simply enter your website’s URL into the tool and it will provide suggestions for improvement.
Easy Fix:
Go to your Google Search Console and follow the process given below:
Step One – Check User Experience
On the search console, access the ‘Experience’ section. Check out your site’s ‘Mobile Usability Report’ and you’ll notice the number of issues marked in red. Resolve all the issues as per the recommendations.
Step Two – Optimize for Mobile
Now, you need to make the necessary changes to optimize your site for a smooth mobile experience. Use the appropriate links and ‘hreflang’ codes. Update your URLs and metadata to improve mobile indexing.
Issue Six – Slow Speed
If your webpage takes more than 3 seconds to load, you’re more likely to lose users to faster pages. Page speed is one of the most important elements of Core Web Vitals (CWV) which measures overall user experience.
High page speed ensures great user experience and high ranking on Google. When you load your website with large videos, images, JavaScript content, etc., it might become slower without technical SEO.
How to Detect?
Load your webpage from multiple devices to see how long it takes to load. You can also use the PageSpeed Insights tool to measure your page speed and compare it with the competitors.
Easy Fix:
Slow webpage speed can be caused by various factors, including server performance, website design, and network issues. So, first, you need to identify the core problem and act accordingly. Here’s what you can do:
Step One – Optimize and Minify Visual Content
As mentioned, images, videos, and JavaScript animations often slow down a webpage. Compress and resize images before uploading them to your website. You can use tools like Adobe Photoshop, TinyPNG, or Squoosh to reduce file sizes without compromising image quality.
To minify your CSS and JavaScript files, remove unnecessary characters, whitespace, and comments.
Step Two – Change Your Hosting Provider
If you suspect the slow speed issue is caused by the hosting provider, you can change to a more reliable one. Ensure that your web hosting provider offers adequate server resources and has a reputation for good performance.
Issue Seven – Broken or Shady Links
It’s important to regularly check and update the internal and external links of your site. Too often, many sites fall and the links become unavailable. It affects the searcher and brings down the quality and reliability of your site.
Also, if your HTTPS URLs are directing to an HTTP page, the user might see a security notice which greatly affects the ranking.
How to Detect?
There are browser extensions available that can help you identify broken links on a webpage automatically. Some popular ones include Check My Links (for Google Chrome) and Link Checker (for Mozilla Firefox).
Install one of these extensions, navigate to your webpage, and run the link checker tool. It will scan the page and highlight any broken links it finds.
Easy Fix:
To get rid of broken links, you can follow the steps given below:
Step One – Detect Broken Links
Signin to your Google Search Console account, select your website property. Now, navigate to the ‘Coverage’ section. There, you’ll find a list of errors and issues on your site, including broken links.
Step Two – Update or Remove Links
If the broken link is pointing to a valid page but the URL has changed, update the link to the correct URL. Otherwise, you need to remove the link or replace it with a reliable one.
Issue Eight – Robots.txt Issues
It’s best not to implement any robots.txt files on your website server. However, if you have them, you must ensure that they don’t contain any errors or incorrect directives.
The robots.txt guides the web crawlers to index your web content. It prevents the bots from accessing pages that you’ve blocked. If the robots.txt files have errors, it will create issues while indexing your web content.
How to Detect?
Visit the root directory of your website using the “/robots.txt” suffix. If the file is missing, there is no specific robots.txt file for your website. In case you find the file, use the Google Search Console’s robots.txt Tester to check its validity.
Easy Fix:
If you have identified issues with a robots.txt file and need to fix them, here are some steps you can take:
Step One – Fix the Robots.txt File
Open the text file using a text editor and make the necessary changes to address the issues. Common fixes include correcting syntax errors, modifying directives, or adding missing directives.
Step Two – Format by Following Proper Guidelines
Ensure that the robots.txt follows the correct syntax and format. Each directive should be on a separate line and the file should adhere to the Robots Exclusion Protocol guidelines. Pay attention to the placement of user agents, allow, and disallow directives.
Step Three – Upload the Fixed File
Save the changes to the text file and upload it to the website’s root directory, replacing the old file. Make sure the file has the correct permissions and is accessible to web crawlers.
Issue Nine – Broken Pages
In general, broken pages cause 4XX page not found errors and 5XX server errors. Both of these cause Google to not crawl and index your web pages. The broken page issue occurs due to hosting issues, incorrectly formatted URLs, or changes in page structure.
How to Detect?
Access your Google Search Console and check out the ‘Coverage’ report. It will list any pages on your site that are experiencing errors, such as 404 Not Found or server errors.
Easy Fix:
To address broken pages from a technical SEO standpoint, you can take the following steps:
Step One – Improve Hosting Performance
Keep an eye on your website’s server and hosting to ensure they are functioning properly. If you notice any issues, contact your hosting provider for assistance.
Step Two – Check the Page URLs
Regularly check the URLs on your website and pages to ensure they are correctly formatted. Also, the URLs must not contain any special characters or symbols that may cause issues.
Step Three – Audit Your Site
Use tools like crawling software or online SEO audit tools to identify broken pages on your website. These tools will quickly discover broken links, HTTP status codes, and other technical issues.
Issue Ten – Title and Meta Description Issues
When it comes to technical SEO, optimizing your Title and Meta tags is crucial. These tags and short snippets pique the interest of readers and provide an overall idea of what the content is about.
Using duplicate or inappropriate title tags will negatively affect the ranking of your site, no matter how good your content is. Besides, not using meta tags and descriptions or not optimizing them will also yield the same results.
How to Detect?
In the HTML source code, search for the <title> tag. The <title> tag represents the title of your webpage. Make sure it is present and contains a descriptive and relevant title for your page. To check on the meta description, search for the <meta name=”description” content=”…”> tag.
Easy Fix:
In case you’ve identified title and meta description issues on your webpage, here are some steps to fix them:
Step One – Provide A Suitable Title Tag
Modify the <title> tag in the HTML source code to provide a more accurate and descriptive title for your page. Keep the title within the recommended length limit of around 60 characters.
Step Two – Add and Optimize Meta Description
Perform an SEO audit to detect all the pages without a meta description. While you’re on it, check if there are any other meta tags that might affect the page’s title and description. Make your meta tags accurate and relevant as well.
Wrapping Up!
That covers the topic of technical SEO issues and fixes. As discussed, the most common SEO issues you’ll face include duplicate content, lack of HTTPS security, incorrect indexing, and missing XML sitemaps.
Broken links and pages, slow speed, robot.txt issues, etc., are also some common mistakes. Follow my detailed guide to find out the ways of detecting these technical SEO issues on your site. Also, you can try the potential fixes i’ve provided to get rid of these issues without spending a penny.
