STEVEN HSU

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Google’s 3 major tips for checking “technical SEO issues” to improve website search rankings

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Steven Hsu

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In this digital age, we navigate the vast ocean of the internet, searching for our own land. Technical SEO is like the compass that guides us, ensuring our website stays on course amidst the frequent updates of Google’s search engine, making it an essential part of SEO optimization.

Here are the three technical SEO tips you should utilize:

Check if Your Pages are Indexed

The first step in addressing technical SEO issues is to see if your web pages are indexed or indexable. Google Search Console’s “URL Inspection Tool” can be used for this purpose, providing information on whether a page is indexed.

How to Use Google Search Console for Index Checking

  • Use the “URL Inspection” tool in Google Search Console to check the indexing status of a page.
  • The tool shows whether a page is indexed and highlights any issues that might be preventing indexing.
  • It also provides the last crawl date, which helps understand Google’s interest in your site and underscores the importance of updating your pages.

Ensure Page Indexability

  • Make sure your website does not use the “noindex” tag, which prevents search engines from indexing the page.
  • Check the “Robots.txt” file to ensure it’s not mistakenly blocking important pages.
  • Confirm that your “sitemap.xml” is submitted and up-to-date to help Google crawl and index your site more effectively.

Check for Duplicate Contents

Duplicate content can impact your website’s SEO performance. Use Google Search Console’s “Coverage” report to see if any pages are marked as duplicate content or if other pages are designated as canonical.

Identifying Duplicate Contents

Duplicate content dilutes or disperses the uniqueness and value of a webpage, so search engines may lower its ranking. Unless the duplicate content is intended to deceive users or manipulate search engine results, the impact on ranking is usually not significant.

  • Use professional SEO tools (such as Search Console or Screaming Frog SEO Spider) to identify possible duplicate content on your site.
  • Check your web pages to see if different pages point to the same content.

Managing Canonicals

  • Use the canonical tag to explicitly indicate your preferred page.
  • Regularly check Google Search Console to ensure your canonical tags are correctly recognized.

The canonical tag is an HTML element that specifies the standard version of a webpage. When search engines encounter multiple pages with identical content, they use the canonical tag to determine which URL is the correct version.

Example canonical tag format:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/canonical-page.html">

* The href= attribute specifies the URL of the standard version of the webpage.

Check Page Rendering

Google’s final tip is to “check page rendering,” which is very useful. Page rendering, including the result of JavaScript execution, shows what the HTML looks like after all JavaScript has been executed, which may differ from the source code. This can be used to check for issues in the HTML.

Using Search Console

Steps to view “Rendered HTML” in Search Console:

  1. Select your site: On the Search Console home page, choose the site you want to inspect.
  2. Use the URL Inspection tool: In the menu on the left side of the console, find and click the “URL Inspection” tool. In the search box that appears, enter the URL of the page you want to inspect.
  3. View test results: After submitting the URL, the system will analyze it. Once the analysis is complete, click “Test live URL” to see more details.
  4. View rendered HTML: In the test results, you’ll see an option for “Tested page.” Click it, then select the “HTML” tab. This shows the rendered HTML code as seen by Googlebot.

Using Chrome Developer Tools

Chrome Developer Tools is a powerful tool for inspecting rendered web pages. Here are the steps to use Chrome Developer Tools to check page rendering:

  1. Open Chrome Developer Tools by clicking the vertical ellipsis in the top-right corner of the Chrome browser: More tools > Developer tools.
  2. For macOS users, press Command+Shift+P; For Windows/Linux/ChromeOS users, press Control+Shift+P to open the command menu.
  3. Type “Rendering” and select the “Show Rendering” option.
  4. The rendered HTML and CSS code of the webpage will be displayed at the bottom of the Chrome Developer Tools. You can hover your mouse over the webpage to view the HTML and CSS code at that location.

Conclusion

With Google Search Console and Chrome Developer Tools, you can easily review technical SEO issues. Understanding how to effectively use these tools is crucial for diagnosing and resolving SEO problems.

Google’s three tips for checking technical SEO issues are practical methods for anyone looking to improve their website’s SEO ranking. By following the guidelines above and using the appropriate tools, you can ensure that your website meets technical SEO standards.

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