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Updated: August 19, 2022.
Looking to get immoderate applicable SEO knowledge? Here is simply a database of apical 100 SEO mistakes I identified successful the past 100 SEO audits I conducted.
I americium a method SEO specializing successful performing precocious and in-depth SEO audits that often instrumentality maine 20-40 hours to complete.
I usage 25+various tools to audit a azygous website truthful that I tin person the full representation of its SEO well-being.
Over the past 2 years, I’ve performed astir 100 audits and identified assorted SEO mistakes.
In this list, I americium sharing with you the 99+ disfigured SEO mistakes I identified successful the past 100 SEO audits I person performed.
Whether you are an SEO oregon a website owner, I judge you tin truly larn a batch from this list. Let’s dive in!
100 disfigured SEO mistakes to avoid
The SEO mistakes I database present are not successful immoderate peculiar order.
To compile this list, I simply went done the audits I had performed and hand-picked the astir absorbing SEO mistakes.
Under each mistake, you volition find the accusation astir its benignant (technical, on-page, etc.) and severity (low, medium, high, and critical).
These sites decidedly did not travel the SEO champion practices outlined by Google.
❗I americium not capable to disclose circumstantial domains and successful astir cases, these issues person already been resolved truthful wherever imaginable I stock a screenshot either from my audit oregon from a antithetic tract with that error.
SEO Newsletter by #SEOSLY
Low-value links
Type: on-page SEO
Severity: high
This website utilized “Read more” links connected each pages, including the blog page, homepage, and class pages. Practically each interior links had the aforesaid anchor substance of “Read more”.
This is 1 of the astir communal mistakes I brushwood connected the websites I audit.
I judge that websites should ever usage descriptive anchor substance for interior links to assistance Google recognize the taxable of the linked page.
So, alternatively of utilizing “Read more” successful an interior nexus to my usher connected SEO audits, I usage “how to bash an SEO audit”.
The developer of the tract removed “Read more” and marque titles of the articles links. This site’s visibility went done the roof.
Type: technical SEO
Severity: critical
“Load more” requires a idiosyncratic to click to presumption much content. Googlebot does not click connected buttons and whitethorn not spot the contented that is displayed aft clicking connected “Load more”.
The tract was utilizing “Load more” connected the blog leafage and each class pages which by default displayed lone 4 blog posts.
To marque things adjacent worse, each blog categories had a no-index tag. As a result, Google did not adjacent scale the bulk of articles.
No interior linking operation connected apical of “Load more” & “Continue reading”
Type: on-page SEO
Severity: critical
Internal linking is undoubtedly 1 of the astir important aspects of SEO. This tract had practically nary interior linking structure:
- The tract had 1 web leafage (homepage) whose circumstantial parts were linked from the main paper with the assistance of leap links. You clicked connected a circumstantial paper constituent and you jumped to a circumstantial conception of the homepage.
- The tract had a blog but by default, it displayed lone six articles. The links to these articles were implemented done “Continue reading”.
- The remaining articles were disposable lone upon clicking “Load more”.
- There was nary interior linking betwixt these articles.
As a result, lone the homepage was indexed and nary of the articles was!
Homepage contented invisible to Google
Type: technical SEO
Severity: critical
At a archetypal glance, this tract looked similar a modular small-business WordPress site.
However, arsenic I ever do, crawled the tract with JavaScript rendering and checked the site’s screenshot successful PSI and Rendertron.
To my surprise, the contented of the homepage was invisible. To corroborate this, I did a site: hunt with a condemnation copied from the homepage successful quotation marks. No results were returned.
Googlebot is getting amended astatine crawling and knowing JavaScript but successful this peculiar case, the contented of the homepage was not disposable to Google.
Type: on-page SEO
Severity: medium
Headings should beryllium utilized to disagreement the contented of the leafage into circumstantial sections. However, much often than not elements specified arsenic cooky notices oregon chat functionalities go headings.
I really had 2 websites with these issues:
- An e-commerce website that had nary headings different than the full cooky announcement constituent with antithetic prime options marked arsenic headings of antithetic levels.
- A small-business tract with chat functionality wherever each imaginable chatbot responses were injected arsenic headings! This looked some comic and scary.
The corrupt and/or overly analyzable operation of headings
Type: technical SEO
Severity: medium
Many things tin spell incorrect with headings. In the lawsuit of this site, the homepage had much than 200+ headings of assorted levels and lengths.
In immoderate cases, full sentences were marked arsenic headings oregon azygous numbers. This tract was a cleanable illustration of an (incorrect) usage of headings for styling purposes.
Random oregon nary ALT text
Type: accessibility/user experience
Severity: medium
This is different precise communal SEO mistake that usually takes 1 of these 2 forms:
- The website has a batch of high-value images but does not usage ALT substance anywhere. This is simply a immense SEO accidental missed if these are archetypal images that imaginable clients whitethorn privation to find utilizing Google Image Search. I audited astatine slightest a fewer e-commerce sites whose images did not person the ALT text.
- The website uses banal images and uploads them to the tract without immoderate modification of the record name, record size, oregon representation EXIF data. The banal representation descriptions are often utilized arsenic ALT substance of these images. Not lone is it a atrocious idiosyncratic experience, but these mages basal perfectly nary accidental of ranking successful Google Image Search.
Canonical links pointing to non-indexable pages
Type: technical SEO
Severity: critical
I spot this mistake decidedly much often than I should.
In the lawsuit of this tiny e-commerce site, the main merchandise pages had canonical links pointing to non-indexable default bare merchandise pages (the tract had customized merchandise pages with antithetic URLs). Not surprisingly, neither default nor customized merchandise pages were indexed by Google.
A canonical nexus is treated arsenic a hint by Google but successful specified a lawsuit it whitethorn pb to the leafage not getting indexed by Google oregon being removed from the scale (if this mistake happens aft a migration, for example).
Duplicate homepages with incorrect redirects
Type: technical SEO
Severity: high
This was a truly disfigured SEO mistake.
The tract (a tract of a bank) had 2 versions of the homepage, specified arsenic domain.com and domain.com/index.html. There were nary canonical nexus elements used.
In the website’s interior linking, each links were pointing to the .com/index.html. The /index.html mentation was 302-redirected to .com.
302 redirect (depending connected however agelong is successful place) is treated arsenic a impermanent implementation and whitethorn effect successful the redirected URL being indexed, not the people URL.
This was precisely the contented of this website. The .com (canonical) mentation of the homepage was not indexed portion .com/index.html was.
Type: technical SEO
Severity: high
This was a freshly-redesigned e-commerce website and this SEO mistake was truly UGLY.
All links from the main paper and the homepage were inactive pointing to the staging URLs which had a no-index tag.
The effect was a immense postulation nonaccomplishment aft the migration and deindexation of immoderate important merchandise and merchandise class pages.
Horrendous velocity scores
Type: technical SEO
Severity: high
In this case, I was performing velocity & show audits of assorted brands of Procter & Gamble.
The velocity & show scores successful immoderate cases were precise atrocious and immoderate sites needed 2 oregon much minutes to afloat load oregon go afloat interactive.
Speed whitethorn beryllium a tiny ranking origin oregon a tie-breaker but if a site’s velocity is successful minutes, past I stake it volition person a antagonistic interaction connected idiosyncratic acquisition and – consequently – SEO.
No substance connected the homepage
Type: on-page SEO
Severity: medium
This is again the mistake I privation I could spot little often.
In the lawsuit of this website (e-commerce), each contented connected the homepage was successful the signifier of sliders and graphic banners. There was nary azygous condemnation oregon a heading.
For Google, that was a fundamentally bare leafage that did not merit to fertile for thing and was incapable to transportation its authorization to different web pages of the site.
No Schema
Type: enhancements
Severity: medium
Again and again, I spot sites, including WordPress sites, that usage nary structured data, adjacent for basal worldly similar Organization, Breadcrumbs, oregon FAQ.
Structured information whitethorn beryllium a spot much precocious worldly but it has ne'er been easier to adhd it to your website.
You don’t request to cognize however to codification to bash that. All you request to bash is acceptable up a plugin (such arsenic Rank Math) and adhd astatine slightest basal Schema types to your website.
Type: on-page SEO
Severity: high
This was the mistake I detected connected an e-commerce website.
This website had a batch of types of products and each merchandise had antithetic variations. Each merchandise saltation had a abstracted URL but the rubric tags and H1 tags of these URLs were each identical.
This was a precise disfigured SEO mistake that fundamentally prevented merchandise variations from ranking for a batch of long-tail phrases with modifiers similar color, size, style, etc.
Type: technical SEO
Severity: high
Fortunately, I spot less and less of these mistakes but they inactive happen.
This was a blog that utilized some tags and categories and did not usage them successful the close way:
- Tags were the aforesaid arsenic categories.
- Both tags and categories were indexable.
- Tag and class pages listed the aforesaid posts.
This resulted successful duplication which resulted successful some tag and class pages not ranking for anything.
No optimization of images & graphics
Type: technical SEO
Severity: medium
This was a WordPress website with a customized plan with a batch of curves, antithetic shapes, and photos of people.
All the graphics and photos utilized were successful archetypal sizes and were PNG files. Some files weighed arsenic overmuch arsenic 5 MB.
Needless to say, this slowed down the tract immensely and made it hard to usage connected a mobile instrumentality with a poorer connection.
FAQs with nary FAQ Schema
Type: technical SEO
Severity: medium
I spot much and much sites having FAQ sections, which is great. Unfortunately, much often than not, FAQ sections are not marked with FAQ Schema.
This was different tiny e-commerce tract that had truly large contented and a batch of E-A-T. It had an FAQ conception nether each merchandise but the questions were not marked with FAQ Schema.
Lorem Ipsum contented connected the unrecorded site
Type: User experience
Severity: high
This is rather communal with website redesigns and migrations. I person precocious audited a freshly-redesigned website.
One of the archetypal things I noticed (during a manual reappraisal of the website I ever bash astatine the commencement of the audit) was that connected the homepage and connected the blog leafage determination was inactive a batch of “Lorem ipsum” content.
Fortunately, it had been fixed earlier anyone but maine noticed.
A no-index tag connected the homepage
Type: technical SEO
Severity: high
This was a precise speedy audit. My task was to analyse wherefore the tract does not fertile for its branded queries.
I was acceptable for immoderate heavy probe but it turned retired that the tract simply had a no-index tag connected the homepage.
Author container with “Admin”
Type: E-A-T
Severity: high
Here I was doing an E-A-T audit of the website which was a YMYL website.
This truly struck maine due to the fact that the authors of the tract were so experts connected the substance but the writer bio connected blog posts showed “Admin”.
When it comes to the T – spot – successful E-A-T, this was a precise antagonistic awesome sent some to Google and users.
Links that bash not look similar links
Type: user experience
Severity: high
This was a custom-designed lawyer website that had interior links styled similar mean text. It was not imaginable to find what is simply a nexus and what is not.
As a result, users seldom clicked connected interior links pointing to important pages oregon clicked them accidentally.
The intent down this was not to manipulate Google but this was a atrocious idiosyncratic experience.
When it comes to Google, I judge the links implemented this mode not lone misled users but besides carried little “SEO” foodstuff than mean (underlined) links.
Non-indexable URLs successful the XML sitemap
Type: technical SEO
Severity: medium
Having non-indexable URLs successful the XML sitemap submitted to Google is simply a discarded of Google’s clip (i.e. crawl budget).
Of course, this is not a occupation with tiny (a mates of hundreds oregon thousands of pages) websites which taxable a clump of non-indexable URLs successful XML sitemaps.
However, with immense e-commerce sites, this so tin go an issue.
The tract I was auditing was a precise immense e-commerce tract (millions of pages) that had hundreds of thousands of non-indexable pages successful XML sitemaps.
The main occupation this tract was dealing with was that 25% of its indexable pages were enactment into the “Discovered presently not indexed” bucket successful GSC and Google wasn’t adjacent crawling them.
Was Google spending its resources wherever it shouldn’t have?
No substance links
Type: technical SEO
Severity: high
It is bully to person beautiful-looking boxes for highlighting website sections oregon articles.
However, this peculiar tract did not usage substance links astatine each and each links were implemented successful the signifier of specified boxes wherever the full constituent was a nexus wrapped successful <div>.
My proposal was to region the nexus from the full constituent and alternatively marque the rubric of the nonfiction a substance link.
No redirects from WWW/NON-WWW and HTTP
Type: technical SEO
Severity: high
In astir cases, Google tin woody with sites that bash not person redirects from www to non-www (or vice versa) oregon HTTP to HTTPS and chooses the canonical nexus constituent correctly.
However, successful the lawsuit of the tract I was auditing the results were devastating. The tract had “www” earlier the migration. After migration, the “www” was removed and nary redirects were implemented.
The tract mislaid 90% of postulation and rankings and ne'er afloat recovered due to the fact that I audited it 6 months aft this unsuccessful migration.
The aforesaid H1 connected each pages
Type: on-page SEO
Severity: high
This was different e-commerce tract and its mistake was simple. All 2000 pages had the nonstop aforesaid H1 with the sanction of the store.
The tract was struggling to fertile for thing and I powerfully judge that this was 1 of the things that contributed to that.
The highly analyzable operation of the website
Type: technical SEO
Severity: high
Whenever I audit a site, I ever cheque its operation visualization successful Screaming Frog and/or Sitebulb.
I emotion seeing elemental and wide structures. Sometimes, however, I spot horrible things.
This is what I saw connected 1 of the recently-audited websites.
The contented the tract had was incorrect interior linking, nary pagination, no-index tag connected class pages, and a batch of breached links.
No blog section
Type: general
Severity: high
In 99% of cases, the champion mode to turn the site’s integrated postulation is to person the blog conception with often published articles targeting circumstantial keywords/topics.
This illustration comes from a tiny e-commerce website selling a clump of products. This tract was precise tiny (10+ pages) and had occupation increasing integrated traffic.
What I suggested doing was creating a blog conception with assorted how-to and informational articles relating to the products.
70+ outdated plugins moving connected the website
Type: WordPress
Severity: high
This disfigured SEO mistake tin rapidly go ace disfigured if it gets retired of control.
This is unluckily what happened with this site.
My task was to find the origin of precise mediocre show and speed. If I had lone been looking astatine Google PageSpeed Insights, I wouldn’t person got the full picture.
Fortunately, I asked the proprietor (as I usually do) to springiness maine entree to the WordPress dashboard. What I saw was truly ugly.
The tract was virtually moving 70+ WordPress plugins. Most of them were outdated and not utilized by the tract (but were active). I truly had a batch of cleaning to do.
No customized 404 page
Type: user experience/technical SEO
Severity: high
Whether you similar it oregon not, your users volition sooner oregon aboriginal onshore connected a non-existent leafage connected your website.
If you contiguous them with a nice-looking customized 404 that invites them to research different parts of your website, you basal a accidental of not losing them entirely.
If, connected the different hand, your users spot an disfigured red-while mistake leafage that looks wholly antithetic than the remainder of your site, past you cannot expect from them thing different than clicking the backmost button.
I saw this mistake connected aggregate occasions connected e-commerce websites moving customized CMSes that bash not person a customized 404 leafage by default.
Mixed contented aft server change
Type: technical SEO/user experience
Severity: high
I spotted this disfigured SEO mistake connected a WordPress website that had conscionable been moved to a caller server.
The tract had an SSL certificate but immoderate of the links and resources were inactive being loaded implicit HTTP.
With WordPress sites especially, determination is simply a precise speedy hole for that, truthful the tract was fixed successful nary time.
Empty links “#”
Type: technical SEO/user experience
Severity: high
This is different precise predominant mistake I spot successful caller freshly-developed websites. The idiosyncratic who was adding the contented and links simply forgot to update each links and near a fewer “#” present and there.
This is not a tragic happening successful presumption of SEO but tin beryllium confusing to users and perchance to hunt engines if we hide to adhd a precise important interior link.
Targeting the aforesaid keywords connected each pages
Type: SEO
Severity: high
This is simply a precise superior strategical SEO mistake.
This was an e-commerce website that specialized successful selling 1 benignant of merchandise and targeted 1 operation (a precise wide one) connected each its web pages.
The tract was selling sports shoes. It had 1000 antithetic types of shoes. Every merchandise leafage was targeting the nonstop aforesaid operation “shoes” alternatively of focusing connected a circumstantial merchandise similar “Nike moving shoes”.
Unsurprisingly, nary of the web pages ranked for anything.
I did keyword probe and mapped the close and unsocial keywords to each URL.
500K excluded pages successful GSC
Type: technical SEO
Severity: high
Depending connected what you spot successful the Excluded study successful GSC, it whitethorn oregon whitethorn not beryllium a problem.
In the lawsuit of this website, it was a immense problem. The tract had been hacked with nary 1 noticing that for galore months.
The fig of excluded spammy pages successful GSC was increasing rapidly.
There was a batch of cleaning up to bash but we did it and the fig of excluded pages yet started to autumn down.
Chinese characters successful hunt results
Type: security
Severity: high
This mistake is akin to the 1 above. If you don’t person entree to the GSC information to cheque what is successful the Coverage report, you decidedly request to cheque the tract with the site: command.
In the lawsuit of this site, I discovered that the tract has 60K spammy Chinese pages successful the index.
The hack was truthful superior that adjacent Ahrefs was showing thousands of Chinese keywords arsenic integrated keywords of this site.
This wholly distorted Ahrefs integrated visibility and integrated keywords reports.
To velocity up the deindexation of these pages, I served 410 presumption codes.
Type: technical SEO
Severity: high
This was a comparatively tiny tract of a US-based business. The tract had a full of 50 pages successful English and astir 10 pages successful Spanish.
Unfortunately, nary hreflang tags were utilized and arsenic a result, English-speaking users were often served Spanish results and vice versa.
Host issues successful the Crawl Stats study successful GSC
Type: technical SEO
Severity: high
Host issues successful the Crawl Stats study successful GSC mean that the tract was not disposable for Google. If this concern pertains, Google whitethorn commencement deindexing the site.
The cognition of those issues tin beryllium highly utile and tin prevention you a batch of trouble.
That’s wherefore I ever importune connected getting entree to the GSC information truthful that I tin truly cognize what is going connected with the website from the wrong (and look astatine it done Google’s eyes).
This was a lawyer website that was utilizing mediocre hosting that had a batch of issues. We changed the server and each issues were rapidly resolved.
Type: enhancements
Severity: high
This is simply a precise communal mistake I see. The tract has breadcrumbs but does not usage Schema to springiness these breadcrumbs much meaning.
Breadcrumbs assistance users recognize wherever successful the operation of the website they are. For crawlers, breadcrumbs are simply interior links to different pages connected the website.
However, if we utilized Breadcrumb Schema for breadcrumbs, we volition adhd much discourse for hunt engines and we whitethorn beryllium displayed successful a much salient mode successful hunt results (rich results).
Type: E-A-T/user experience
Severity: high
This is simply a precise communal mistake I spot connected WordPress sites. The tract I analyzed was a salient illustration of that.
The tract had an astir leafage astir the writer and a modular WordPress writer leafage similar domain.com/author/name.
Some interior links pointed to the astir leafage others to /author. External links besides pointed to both, which dispersed the signals into 2 pages alternatively of one.
What we did was precise simple. We redirected the WordPress writer leafage to the astir page. Within weeks, the astir leafage started to summation much visibility.
In the lawsuit of my site, I person 2 writer pages:
- https://seosly.com/about/ which is the main About page
- https://seosly.com/author/olgazarzeczna/ which is 301-redirected to the supra About page.
Suspicious outer links to low-quality sites
Type: E-A-T/quality
Severity: high
This was a truly UGLY SEO mistake. This was the tract of a brick-and-mortar concern successful California.
When crawling the site, I noticed the tract has a batch of outer links, sometimes adjacent 20 outer links from 1 page.
When I analyzed the links successful detail, it turned retired that these are the links to low-quality PBN-type of sites.
The proprietor of the tract was not adjacent alert of that.
It seems that these were the leftovers from the erstwhile – and not needfully ethical – SEO agency.
Pages oregon resources that should not beryllium indexed by Google are indexed
Type: security/quality
Severity: high
Sometimes we bash everything to marque Google scale our pages and Google conscionable won’t. Other times we hide to adhd a no-index tag and Google indexes the contented we privation to fell immediately.
This was a sports website wherever you could bargain acceptable gym workout plans.
When auditing the site, I typed site:domain.com filetype:pdf and noticed that each paid plans are indexed and disposable successful Google.
This was the lawsuit for galore years and nary 1 had an thought that conscionable with the cognition of the site: bid anyone could get those plans for free.
All interior links redirected
Type: technical SEO
Severity: high
“Link juice” whitethorn not beryllium afloat transferred done a redirect truthful unless it’s perfectly indispensable we should debar redirects, particularly successful interior links.
This is simply a caller lawsuit of a WordPress website.
WordPress by default adds / astatine the extremity of URLs. If you benignant the code without /, it volition beryllium automatically redirected to the 1 with / astatine the end.
This website had each interior links implemented without /. As a result, each interior nexus went done astatine slightest 1 hop.
Homepage with the rubric tag of “Home”
Type: on-page SEO
Severity: high
Google is getting amended and amended astatine knowing websites adjacent if they are not optimized for SEO.
But adjacent so, it is ever a bully thought to optimize what is nether our control. The rubric tag (or the rubric link) is afloat nether our control.
So let’s not telephone our homepage “Home” unless we privation to/aspire to fertile for “Home”.
P.S. We should not privation to fertile for “home” arsenic this operation is mode excessively wide and ranking for it is virtually impossible.
No headings astatine all
Type: on-page SEO
Severity: high
This was different e-commerce website.
The main contented it had was that but for 1 heading connected the homepage, it did not usage headings astatine all.
The tract had merchandise pages, class pages, and blog posts. No headings whatsoever.
It was a WordPress tract created with Elementor, truthful fixing that was speedy and easy.
Images implemented arsenic background
Type: technical SEO
Severity: high
Images implemented with the assistance of CSS arsenic inheritance are treated arsenic portion of the layout and are not indexed by Google. Those images won’t amusement successful Google Image Search.
If you usage a batch of images (and particularly archetypal unsocial images of products), past you astir apt privation them to beryllium indexed and disposable successful Google Image Search.
This illustration comes from an e-commerce tract with a customized WordPress design. The decorator intelligibly did not cognize a batch astir SEO due to the fact that each merchandise images (both connected merchandise pages and class pages) were implemented arsenic inheritance images.
The result? Absolutely nary visibility from Google Image Search.
Blog successful the subdomain
Type: technical SEO
Severity: high
I americium not saying that having the blog successful a subdomain is simply a captious SEO mistake but I americium a beardown believer successful keeping the blog successful the main domain.
Google treats subdomains arsenic abstracted websites truthful immoderate nexus your tract gets supports either the main domain oregon the blog subdomain, not both.
If you support everything successful “one place”, you tin accumulate much signals and usage the blog to assistance your products fertile highly.
The tract I was auditing was a store with a blog successful a subdomain. The blog was ranking nicely but the store practically had nary visibility.
Type: E-A-T/quality
Severity: high
Google has nary problems getting to cognize erstwhile you really published oregon modified an article. Users – unless they are precise tech-savvy – won’t cognize it.
It is simply a atrocious acquisition if a idiosyncratic cannot find whether an nonfiction is up-to-date and is inactive relevant.
This was a immense tech website that had thousands of articles. The articles had nary dates and nary modification dates.
Technology particularly is rapidly-changing truthful it could origin users to distrust the website.
The contented the tract was facing was that it simply could not get retired of the stagnation phase.
After a fig of E-A-T optimizations and 1 halfway update, the tract started to turn nicely.
WordPress admin country with nary protection
Type: security
Severity: high
WordPress sites are particularly susceptible to hackers. If you don’t support your admin country successful immoderate way, sooner oregon aboriginal your tract volition beryllium hacked.
This was a precise atrocious example. The tract utilized modular /wp-admin/ URL to log successful and modular “admin” user.
Adding to that, determination was nary bounds connected login attempts and nary Captcha. The tract was virtually welcoming hackers and bots.
Fortunately, I noticed that aboriginal capable earlier thing atrocious happened.
Sitemap with HTTP links only
Type: technical SEO
Severity: medium
This was a precise immense website with hundreds of thousands of web pages. It had 10 compressed sitemaps successful the Gzip format.
The occupation was that each URLs successful the sitemap were HTTP portion the tract was utilizing HTTPS. This caused Google to spell done 1 hop for each URL indicated successful the sitemap.
I judge successful the lawsuit of immense websites this whitethorn person a antagonistic interaction connected the crawl fund and this tract had issues with Google crawling not often enough.
URL addresses (permalinks) with dates
Type: SEO/E-A-T
Severity: high
Having dates successful permalinks is rather problematic for 2 reasons:
- Having aged dates successful URLs indicates the nonfiction whitethorn beryllium outdated and whitethorn discourage users.
- Changing the URL of a well-ranked leafage whitethorn pb to a alteration successful rankings and traffic.
The tract that had this contented was the blog of a idiosyncratic trainer. Some of his blog posts were published much than 10 years ago. He ne'er changed the default WordPress permalink settings with dates successful them.
Since his pages needed a batch of on-page SEO optimizations, we decided to alteration the URLs and instrumentality 301 redirects.
The results were precise nice. The tract gained astir 30% visibility acknowledgment to our optimizations and the alteration of URLs did not look to person immoderate antagonistic impact.
The website is disposable and indexable successful 2 instances (staging and production)
Type: technical SEO
Severity: high
I privation I saw this little often. This was a website of a model manufacturer. They had conscionable got a caller tract and I was expected to audit it and urge SEO optimizations.
The archetypal happening I discovered was that some the caller (production) URL and the staging URL were indexed successful Google.
The marque searches returned a premix of accumulation and staging URLs. Awful.
The tract blocking immoderate postulation coming from the US
Type: technical SEO
Severity: critical
The institution reached retired to maine to assistance them analyse wherefore Google was not indexing their UK-based store.
At a archetypal glance, everything looked OK. The tract did not person a no-index tag oregon did not artifact crawling successful robots.txt.
However, a deeper probe showed that the tract was redirecting anyone coming from the US to their antithetic store successful the US (on a abstracted domain).
Since Google ever crawls from the US, Googlebot was besides redirected and ne'er got a accidental of crawling and indexing the UK-based store.
Competitor’s information successful Schema
Type: method SEO
Severity: medium
This was the tract of a dentist successful a large metropolis successful the US.
During my audit, I noticed that the Organization Schema contains accusation astir a antithetic concern than the 1 the tract was about.
I googled that concern and recovered retired it was a nonstop competitor.
It turned retired that the erstwhile SEO was copying the Schema of competitors but successful a fewer instances forgot to alteration it. LOL.
All bots disallowed successful robots.txt
Type: method SEO
Severity: critical
I thought I would ne'er spot this mistake connected an existent site. I knew it from galore tutorials connected robots.txt and Google documentation.
This was a comparatively caller tract connected a customized CMS. The occupation they were facing was that Google was not crawling and indexing the site.
I didn’t adjacent person to look into GSC. I lone manually checked robots.txt and instantly knew the answer.
The tract was hardly functional connected mobile
Type: idiosyncratic experience
Severity: critical
This was a custom-designed WordPress tract of an online school. The tract looked comparatively OK connected the desktop.
However, erstwhile I opened the tract connected my phone, it did not look OK astatine all. The layout was fundamentally broken, headings were connected apical of each other, and photos were mode excessively big.
It turned retired that the decorator forgot to plan the tract for mobile and the idiosyncratic coding the tract besides did not deliberation astir however the tract would look connected mobile.
Google Tag Manager codification successful <body>
Type: technical
Severity: critical
The tract came to maine with a ailment that their GA4 implementation does not work.
It turned retired that they implemented GA4 done Google Tag Manager and the GTM codification was added to the <body> alternatively of the <head>.
The consequences of specified implementation whitethorn beryllium mode worse than GA4 oregon different tags not working.
We moved the codification to the <head> and GA4 started to work!
Type: method SEO
Severity: medium
This was really a tract of an SEO bureau that reached retired to maine for assistance with their site.
They were beardown believers successful “PageRank sculpting” and – consequently – nofollowed each interior links successful the footer and main menu.
They lone near a fewer do-follow links to cardinal pages with their connection and services connected the homepage.
The tract was wholly stuck successful presumption of integrated growth.
A fewer weeks aft we “unlocked it”, the visibility successful GSC started to spell up.
Canonical tag connected blog posts pointing to draught URLs
Type: method SEO
Severity: captious
This was decidedly a method contented connected a WordPress tract but its consequences were devastating. The bulk of well-ranked blog posts were removed from Google’s index.
Most blog posts had canonical links pointing to draught URLs which to Google instrumentality 404.
The tract was custom-coded, went done an unsuccessful migration, and moved to a caller server. I wasn’t capable to decidedly accidental what caused the issue.
However, successful that case, it was capable that I spotted the existent crushed for the site’s drop.
We fixed canonical tags and the tract dilatory started to recover.
Type: security/SEO/user experience
Severity: high
WordPress for astatine slightest immoderate clip has been adding a no-follow tag to links successful comments.
However, connected older blogs (which person not been updated for a agelong time), it is not uncommon to spot spammy comments with do-follow links to spammy sites.
This was the idiosyncratic blog of a traveler who reached retired to maine for help. He heard astir thing called SEO and wanted maine to springiness him directions.
One of the archetypal things I spotted was that the bulk of his blog posts had hundreds of spammy comments with do-follow links to each sorts of sites.
There was perfectly nary worth successful these comments, truthful we deleted them all.
Featured representation covering the full above-the-fold section
Type: SEO
Severity: high
This is the contented I uncovered successful a custom-designed tract of a instrumentality firm.
The blog posts were designed successful specified a mode that a gigantic featured representation was connected apical and beneath it was the H1 and the copy.
On mobile, you had to scroll a spot to spot the existent rubric and the archetypal paragraphs of the article.
I person not done immoderate tests connected that but I americium a believer successful the above-the-fold content.
We redesigned the tract truthful that astatine archetypal came the rubric (H1), past date, category, writer name, 1 sentence, and the featured image.
The “last updated” updated day ever showing today
Type: method SEO/user experience
Severity: medium
This was an affiliate tract that had 60+ reappraisal articles that pretended to beryllium updated each day.
The tract suffered heavy aft the archetypal Google Product Reviews update.
I implemented a fig of E-A-T optimizations, 1 of them being an existent update of each articles and making definite the past updated day shows the existent day erstwhile the nonfiction was updated.
The tract afloat recovered aft the 3rd iteration of the Google Product Reviews update.
SameAs pointing to Wikipedia
Type: method SEO
Severity: high
This was a precise caller thing. I was reviewing a tract that had a manual penalty.
One of the things the tract was doing was precisely what Dixon Jones talks astir successful his article astir Schema stuffing.
The tract heavy overused SameAs and pointed to hundreds of antithetic entries successful Wikipedia and Wikihow.
Below is the screenshot from Schema.org explaining the intent of utilizing Wikipedia successful SameAs.
The tract besides stuffed keywords utilizing Schema.
Type: content
Severity: high
This was different affiliate site. It was reviewing location appliances. Some of the posts were ranking OK but generally, each posts were roundup reviews with lists of appliances.
The writer powerfully believed successful the ratio of the info to affiliate contented and uploaded 50 abbreviated and low-quality articles to the site. These articles were recipes, which had thing to bash with the taxable of this site. This was not a look site!
We removed each unrelated and bladed content. The tract recovered aft a halfway update but unluckily went down again aft the past Google Product Reviews update.
Horribly agelong URLs
Type: on-page SEO/user experience
Severity: medium
I americium not definite what happened present but this WordPress tract had horribly agelong URLs (the full sentences were URLs).
I accidental this happened due to the fact that the tract had precise agelong titles and the idiosyncratic who was publishing the articles did not truly wage attraction to the URLs that were formed.
Since this blog had nary postulation and nary visibility, we changed each URLs into shorter and friendlier ones.
Type: E-A-T
Severity: high
I judge that successful astir cases you won’t get distant with not providing astatine slightest basal accusation astir the writer of the website.
This was an e-commerce tract selling oils. Their authors did not privation to amusement their faces oregon their names and determination was nary mode of telling who is really moving the site.
This was a immense mistake successful presumption of E-A-T.
No code oregon telephone fig successful an e-commerce site
Type: E-A-T
Severity: high
This was a tiny e-commerce tract selling toys for dogs. A precise bully site! However, it did not supply the code oregon a telephone number.
Users were complaining that they cannot get successful interaction with the proprietor successful immoderate different mode than e-mail.
If radical bargain from you, they should beryllium capable to telephone you oregon cognize wherever your concern is located.
Grammatical and spelling mistakes
Type: E-A-T
Severity: high
This was a idiosyncratic blog astir exertion tally by a idiosyncratic who is not a autochthonal talker of English.
This was a classical lawsuit wherever the proprietor thinks his tract is ace high-quality but erstwhile different radical spot the tract they person a antithetic opinion.
The biggest occupation present was that the substance was afloat of grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and punctuation errors.
Google states intelligibly successful its station astir the prime that you should wage attraction to grammar and spelling.
Type: E-A-T
Severity: high
This was an affiliate tract reviewing health-related products, truthful it was heavy YMYL.
As is often the lawsuit with affiliate sites, the names of authors were fake and their photos were generated by AI.
However, the idiosyncratic down the tract was really an adept successful those products but conscionable did not privation to disclose himself.
What we did alternatively was to prosecute 2 doctors who were comfy with showing their faces and names connected the tract and hired journalists who specialized successful that country and wanted to writer the articles.
Canonical links pointing to HTTTP
Type: method SEO
Severity: critical
This was the mistake I noticed aft crawling the site. The tract was utilizing HTTPS but someway each canonical links pointed to HTTP versions.
It looked similar a leftover from the HTTP mentation of the tract from galore years ago.
This was fortunately a speedy fix.
An indexed URL blocked successful robots.txt
Type: method SEO
Severity: high/critical
This tract wanted to region a clump of URLs – mostly PPC run URLs – from Google’s index.
These URLs were blocked successful robots.txt and had no-index tags.
This prevented Google from crawling the URLs and adjacent seeing the no-index tag.
The result: Not lone did Google support those URLs successful its scale but besides displayed them horribly successful SERPs.
Type: method SEO
Severity: high
The paginated pages successful the bid are not duplicated truthful determination is nary request to canonicalize them to the archetypal page.
The tract with this contented was e-commerce with a batch of products and extended paginated merchandise categories.
Unfortunately, each paginated pages were canonicalized to the archetypal page. As a result, Google wasn’t crawling the paginated pages overmuch and a batch of products were not indexed.
A no-index connected paginated pages
Type: method SEO
Severity: high
This SEO mistake was adjacent uglier.
This was a fiscal blog with a batch of articles and paginated class pages. Unfortunately, lone the archetypal leafage successful the pagination was indexable.
The effect was casual to predict. A batch of the URLs successful the paginated pages were not adjacent indexed.
Articles displayed from oldest to newest
Type: method SEO
Severity: high/critical
This blog had issues with indexation and I wasn’t truly surprised.
The blog did not person immoderate class pages. It lone had the main blog leafage with galore paginated pages.
The main blog contained a nexus to the 2nd paginated page. The 2nd leafage contained the nexus to the 3rd page, and truthful on.
Unfortunately, the freshest contented was astatine the extremity of the pagination (page 20).
The result? The freshest contented was 20+ clicks distant from the homepage.
Redirect loops connected immoderate blog posts
Type: method SEO
Severity: critical
On this website, immoderate of the blog posts stopped moving and had a redirect loop. My occupation was to analyse the contented and hole it.
It turned retired that this tract was utilizing Rank Math and had the automatic redirection enactment turned on.
The writer changed the URLs of immoderate pages (which created a redirect to a caller URL) and past changed these caller URLs backmost to aged ones (which created different redirection from the caller to aged URL).
The effect was a redirect loop and deindexation of these pages. Fortunately, rapidly aft fixing the pages were indexed again and their rankings were restored.
Out-of-stock products with a no-index tag
Type: method SEO
Severity: high
There is simply a statement successful the SEO assemblage astir what to bash with products that are temporarily retired of stock.
I judge that adding a no-index tag to them is not a bully option.
This e-commerce tract mislaid a batch of visibility aft no-indexing its out-of-stock products. It took the tract astir a twelvemonth to reconstruct the rankings for these products.
Robots.txt returning 5xx
Type: method SEO
Severity: high/critical
Robots.txt is the archetypal spot a crawler visits erstwhile crawling the site. If robots.txt returns presumption codification 5xx, past Google volition temporarily construe that arsenic if the tract was afloat disallowed.
Depending connected the gravity of this issue, it whitethorn pb to superior problems, and Google wholly stopping crawling the site.
I did not person entree to GSC to cheque this contented successful the Google Search Console Crawl Stats report. I uncovered this contented with the assistance of Sitebulb.
100 videos connected 1 page
Type: idiosyncratic experience/SEO
Severity: high
This is simply a precise disfigured SEO contented for a assortment of reasons. This was a website of a dietician who recorded 100 (sic!) videos with antithetic types of FAQs connected value loss, diets, and wellness successful general.
This was ace utile and high-quality content. Unfortunately, each these videos were added to 1 azygous page. Their thumbnails were precise small. No caching oregon lazy loading was successful spot truthful the leafage took everlastingly to load.
We divided this leafage into 100 abstracted video pages each focusing connected 1 question (something akin to what I americium doing with SEO FAQs). The results were awesome.
ALT substance stuffed with aggregate keywords
Type: method SEO
Severity: high
This tract truly wanted to fertile for definite commercialized keywords and stuffed them similar brainsick successful the ALT substance of images.
In addition, the tract utilized lone banal images, truthful the visibility of those images successful Google Image Search was adjacent to zero.
Abuse of anchor substance successful interior links
Type: method SEO
Severity: high
It is much than recommended to usage keywords successful the anchor substance of your interior links. However, this tract decidedly went overboard.
This was a tract of a instrumentality steadfast that desperately wanted to fertile for “lawyer adjacent me”.
In the sidebar, they had a database of antithetic types of lawyers + “near me”. I deliberation the sidebar had astir 50 links to antithetic types of “near me” lawyers.
Keywords successful URLs successful a antithetic language
Type: method SEO/user experience
Severity: medium
This was a tiny Polish website that lone had 1 connection – Polish. However, each URLs were successful English.
The operation and contented of URL addresses are not a ranking origin but this was simply misleading to users.
The tract had small to nary visibility, truthful we translated the words successful URLs into Polish and implemented 301 redirects.
A batch of pages returning presumption codification 500
Type: technical
Severity: critical
This tract intelligibly had superior server issues. It was hard to browse it without coming crossed a 5xx page.
I crawled the tract and checked the reports successful GSC. For the crawler, 50% of pages returned 5xx. In GSC determination were a batch of 5xx pages reported arsenic well.
The tract was utilizing precise mediocre shared hosting. We moved it to Cloud Ways and the contented resolved itself. What a relief.
Three antithetic SEO plugins
Type: method SEO
Severity: high/critical
SEO plugins, specified arsenic RankMath oregon Yoast SEO tin beryllium ace adjuvant for SEO.
This site, however, went overboard. It had 3 antithetic types of SEO plugins actively used. Some of the settings were overriding 1 different oregon were successful conflict.
This was a tiny tract truthful we managed to cleanable this up rapidly with nary casualties.
Five antithetic caching plugins
Type: method SEO/user experience
Severity: high
This is simply a precise akin story.
I was expected to audit the tract successful presumption of speed, show & Core Web Vitals. The proprietor of the tract said they had done everything and the tract was inactive successful the reddish country successful PSI and could not walk Core Web Vitals.
It was capable for maine to log successful to the tract and I instantly knew the answer.
The tract was utilizing 5 antithetic and often conflicting caching plugins connected apical of the server caching provided by the hosting company.
I removed each these plugins and installed (and correctly configured) WP Rocket. The tract went into the precocious eighties. After 28 days it really started to walk Core Web Vitals (check my database of Core Web Vitals tools).
Falsely claiming the articles were written by a celebrated doctor
Type: E-A-T
Severity: high
This was an affiliate tract reviewing antithetic types of supplements, which makes it a YMYL site.
My task was to bash an E-A-T audit of the site.
The tract suffered aft the archetypal Google Product Reviews update and introduced a clump of prime optimizations.
One of those optimizations was to assertion that each nonfiction has been medically reviewed by a precise well-known doctor. This doctor, of course, has ne'er reviewed the tract oregon agreed to enactment his sanction there.
Whether oregon not Google knew the truth, my proposal was to region each these fake proofs of quality.
The tract recovered aft a ton of enactment and lone aft the 3rd iteration of the Product Reviews Update.
Minute featured images
Type: on-page SEO
Severity: high
This was the blog of a fiscal company. The tract wanted to beryllium displayed successful Google Discover.
The tract had a batch of E-A-T improvements to make. However, 1 of the archetypal things I noticed was that blog posts had nary images but for tiny featured images (200x150px).
My proposal (in enactment with Google Discover documentation) was to marque definite that each nonfiction had a featured representation of astatine slightest 1200px successful width.
It took galore months but the tract yet started to get postulation from Google Discover.
Implementing important substance arsenic images
Type: SEO
Severity: high
This was a fiscal blog that had precise high-quality contented successful the signifier of agelong guides and how-tos.
Unfortunately, each the slug points, summaries, excerpts, oregon listings were implemented successful the signifier of images (with nary ALT text).
I judge it prevented the tract from realizing its afloat SEO potential. We changed that and saw precise bully improvements successful practically each the articles.
Lack of immoderate contextual linking betwixt blog posts
Type: on-page SEO
Severity: high
I spot it excessively often. This was a immense e-commerce website with an extended blog with assorted guides, tutorials, and tips.
Blog articles linked to merchandise pages but they ne'er linked to different articles.
This was a immense SEO accidental missed due to the fact that these topics were perfect for siloing.
We did adhd contextual links and created virtual silos. The effects were truly nice.
URL parameters not influencing the contented displayed
Type: method SEO
Severity: medium
I spot this mistake little and little often but it inactive happens successful the lawsuit of older sites.
This was an e-commerce site. You were capable to use antithetic types of filters and sorting.
Some filters did not truly alteration the products displayed, truthful successful immoderate cases, you could person 30 antithetic URLs for the aforesaid acceptable of products.
Google successful astir cases has nary issues with this benignant of “technical duplication”. This did not origin immoderate indexing oregon crawling problems for this tract either.
But to beryllium connected the harmless side, we added a canonical nexus constituent pointing to the URL without parameters.
Homepage ULRs with redirect chains
Type: method SEO
Severity: medium
This tract has unnecessarily analyzable redirect paths for antithetic versions of the homepage. In immoderate cases, determination were adjacent 5-6 hops alternatively of one.
I did immoderate cleaning up successful .htaccess and we could hide astir that issue.
Category pages with nary unsocial text
Type: on-page SEO
Severity: medium
In e-commerce websites especially, it is important to person astatine slightest immoderate substance connected class pages. This tract had lone an H1 and a listing of products. As a result, its class pages did not fertile for anything.
We added comparatively abbreviated descriptions, immoderate headings, and an image, and successful 4-6 weeks categories started to really rank.
Broken interior and outer links
Type: method SEO
Severity: medium
Every tract that is astatine slightest a fewer years aged volition person immoderate breached interior and outer links.
This website, however, had a ton of them successful assorted places, specified arsenic lists of resources, citations, oregon links to different articles connected the aforesaid site.
This was atrocious some for users and Google due to the fact that immoderate of those404 pages really had a batch of high-authority backlinks.
Entire sentences marked arsenic headings
Type: on-page SEO
Severity: medium
This tract oregon – alternatively -its decorator crossed the line.
H2 tags were utilized arsenic a mode to stress 1-2 sentences successful each paragraph oregon conception of the article. As a result, the articles often had 10-15 ace agelong H2 tags.
We removed H2 tags and utilized <b> to marque the substance basal retired a bit.
Type: on-page SEO
Severity: medium
It is hard to judge however galore sites person headings wrong.
This tract lone utilized H1 tags. In immoderate articles, determination were arsenic galore arsenic 20 H1 tags. We fixed these headings and improved the operation of those articles.
This was much of a champion signifier happening to do. The rankings did not truly alteration aft that.
Important merchandise pages orphaned
Type: method SEO
Severity: high
This was a immense e-commerce tract selling clothes. It had millions of pages. The institution hired maine to analyse wherefore their products are not getting indexed.
The crushed was precise simple. Around 100K merchandise pages were orphaned. After improving the interior linking operation of this site, 99% of products were indexed.
No XML sitemap
Type: method SEO
Severity: high
This was different immense tract selling electronics. The tract was utilizing a non-standard CMS.
The tract had 500K pages but astir fractional of them were not indexed. The tract had a spot excessively analyzable an interior operation and immoderate products were 5-6 clicks distant from the homepage.
The contented present was that the tract did not person an XML sitemap (check how to find the sitemap of a website). After generating the XML sitemap and submitting it to GSC, astir of the products were successfully indexed.
Important resources blocked successful robots.txt
Type: method SEO
Severity: critical
This was a classical JS – SEO mistake.
The robots.txt record was blocking important resources (images, JS, and CSS files) and arsenic a result, Google was not capable to render the tract correctly and spot each of its content.
The contented was rapidly resolved aft removing the disallow directives from robots.txt.
All outer links with a no-follow tag
Type: method SEO
Severity: high
This tract was no-following each outer links successful bid to debar “PageRank leakage”.
Fortunately, I managed to person the website proprietor that this is not the champion thought successful presumption of SEO.
A breached XML sitemap URL successful robots.txt
Type: method SEO
Severity: high
This was not a captious contented due to the fact that the tract successful question was a tiny 1 (100+ pages) but if this had been a immense tract with millions of pages, the consequences would person been serious.
I fixed the sitemap nexus arsenic a champion SEO practice. This, of course, did not alteration thing successful presumption of SEO due to the fact that each pages of the tract were indexed.
Check: How to entree robots.txt successful WordPress
Extremely agelong rubric elements
Type: on-page SEO
Severity: high
This tract was utilizing highly agelong titles which were often longer than 200 characters.
Using specified agelong titles is similar asking Google to rewrite them. This was what the tract proprietor came to maine with.
He wanted to forestall Google from overwriting these titles.
We shortened titles large clip and Google stopped rewriting them oregon was rewriting them lone slightly.
One leafage targeting aggregate cities
Type: SEO
Severity: high
This was a transgression lawyer website. This lawyer had his instrumentality offices successful 5 antithetic cities and wanted to fertile successful each of them.
However, determination was lone 1 metropolis leafage targeting each these 5 cities. The effect was casual to predict. The tract ranked for nary of these cities.
We created 5 antithetic metropolis hubs, each focusing connected 1 metropolis and having aggregate subpages relating to this 1 main city.
After six months, his instrumentality steadfast started to look for section searches successful each these 5 cities.
Extremely outdated content
Type: content/user experience
Severity: medium
This tract displayed some dates and past modification dates.
Unfortunately, the freshest portion of contented was from 5 years agone and the bulk was astatine slightest 10 years old.
The tract started to simply get aged and suffer visibility.
We did contented pruning and contented update. The tract started to regain mislaid postulation and visibility aft astir 2 months.
Final words connected SEO mistakes
This database could beryllium mode longer but erstwhile I started to deed the 10K-word people I decided to stop! Now it’s clip for you to stock your apical SEO mistakes.
If you request assistance with SEO, cheque my SEO services which include, among others, SEO auditing, SEO consulting, and SEO monthly services. I would beryllium blessed to assistance your tract succeed.
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