Canonical Tag: When You Need It and Why Google Ignores It
A canonical tag is a hint, not a command. Here is when rel=canonical is needed, how it differs from a 301 and noindex, and why Google picks a different canonical URL.
October 19, 2026Read
Redirect chains: how to find and fix them
A redirect chain is several 301s in a row before the real page. What Google does with it, where chains come from and how to find every one on your site.
October 12, 2026Read
Faceted Navigation: Which Filter Combinations to Index
Six filters with five values each give one category 46,655 addresses. Here is how I decide which filter combinations to open for indexing and what to close the rest with.
October 5, 2026Read
Pagination and SEO: how to set it up in a catalogue
Google no longer uses rel=next/prev and asks you not to canonicalise page two to page one. Three ways to show a product list, and what the crawler sees of each.
September 28, 2026Read
Click depth: how many clicks from the homepage is fine
Google never published the three-click rule. Here is how click depth differs from URL depth, how to measure it with a crawler and which pages actually need lifting.
September 21, 2026Read
Staging vs Production: Keep Disallow: / Off Your Live Site
Staging sites get blocked with robots.txt, and Disallow: / ends up in production. How to password-protect staging and what to check in the first five minutes after a release.
September 14, 2026Read
Website migration checklist: how not to lose traffic
Moving to a new CMS, domain or URL structure. I break down what actually breaks, how to build the redirect map and what to check in the first two weeks after the switch.
September 5, 2026Read
Crawl Budget: When It Actually Matters
Crawl budget is not most websites' problem. Here is how to tell whether Googlebot really cannot keep up with your site, and what actually fixes it.
September 1, 2026Read
404, 410 or redirect: what deleted pages should return
You deleted a page — what should its URL return? I explain the difference between 404, 410 and a 301 redirect, when each one fits, and why soft 404s and homepage redirects hurt.
August 21, 2026Read
Duplicate Content: How to Find and Fix Duplicate Pages
Duplicate content splits your ranking signals and wastes crawl budget. Here is where duplicate pages come from, how to find them in Search Console and what to consolidate them with.
August 20, 2026Read
Sitemap.xml and robots.txt: what belongs in each
Sitemap.xml and robots.txt solve different problems and get confused constantly. What belongs in your sitemap, what to block in robots.txt and which mistakes cost you indexing.
August 16, 2026Read
Orphan Pages: How to Find Pages With No Internal Links
An orphan page has no internal links pointing to it. Here is why that hurts SEO, how to find orphan pages with a crawler, sitemap and Search Console, and what to do with them.
August 12, 2026Read