Understanding technical SEO: Key Components for Website Success

How does Google see your page?

Google and other search engines are constantly crawling the internet through their robots, whose job is to come to a page, map its content, and send this information to the main database. Google uses its database centre called the ‘index’ to do this, where all the search queries then come in and results are generated. This ongoing process can be called many things and is often referred to as indexing, crawling, or the indexing mechanism.

To make this entire process as fast and accurate as possible, it is necessary to understand and apply technical SEO, which starts with a detailed SEO audit and is designed to find and resolve any problems that are causing the page to be slow and incorrectly indexed. Let’s take a look together at the most important factors that can hinder proper indexing.

Key components of technical SEO

Speed and availability

One of the main characteristics of a good website is speed. If a page takes too long to load, the user will lose interest and leave  to the competition.

That’s why it’s important to optimize image size, use fast hosting, and eliminate unnecessary scripts. Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool can help by analyzing page performance and providing recommendations for improvement.

Tips to improve speed:

• Use modern image formats such as WebP, Avif
• Optimize JavaScript and CSS files
• Minimize HTTP requests.
• Activate caching for static files.

Mobile responsiveness

According to Statcounter, more than 62% of all users use mobile devices to search the internet. If your site is not mobile responsive, you risk ranking lower in search results. You can test mobile optimization using Lighthouse or directly on your mobile device.

Indexing, robots.txt and sitemap.xml

For your site to be properly indexed, it is crucial that search engines find it and understand its content. Google Search Console is the perfect tool to help you identify indexing issues.

Google Search Console categorizes all pages with indexing issues into different groups based on the reasons for their non-indexing. Non-indexing problems can vary and need special attention.

Key elements of search engine optimization include robots.txt and sitemap.xml files. Robots.txt is used to guide search robots on which pages they should or should not access, helping to optimize web crawling.

🌐A sitemap (XML sitemap) is a file that provides search engines with a list of URLs on the web, making it easier for them to discover them and increasing the chances of indexing important pages more quickly. Both elements serve as helpful tools for Google bots.

What can prevent indexing?

• An incorrectly set robots.txt may contain rules that prohibit search engines from indexing certain pages
• The sitemap.xml file is missing or not updated.
• Using the “noindex” meta tag in the header of an HTML page tells search engines not to index the page
• Bad or no canonization
• The structure of web pages and the slow loading speed hinder indexing.
• Duplicate content issue and poor-quality article content can affect indexing
• Page unavailability—if a page is temporarily unavailable (e.g., due to a server crash), search engines cannot index it
• Poor or insufficient internal links can limit the indexation of content on a page

Structured data and hreflang

Structured data helps search engines better understand the content of your page. By implementing Schema.org tags, you can get richer search results, for example, with reviews, ratings, or FAQs.

Tips for implementing structured data:

• Use tools like Google Rich Results Test to verify the accuracy of tags
• Add relevant information (e.g., product reviews, recipes, events)
• Validate the code using the Schema Markup Validator

The hreflang attribute is necessary for sites with multilingual content. It helps Google to display the correct language version of the page to users according to their preferred language.

Important rules for hreflang:

• Define a hreflang for each language version
• Use it in HTML headers, XML sitemaps or HTTP headers
• Ensure that the language versions are cross-referenced

URL structure and redirects

Sites should have a clear, logical, and understandable URL structure that helps search engines and users easily understand the content of the site. Short, descriptive, and keyword-rich URLs are better for SEO because they make indexing easier and increase the likelihood of a click in search results.

Good URL: www.myweb.com/chocolate-cake
Bad URL: www.myweb.com/?p=12345

 

Tips for proper URLs:

• Use short and concise URLs
• Avoid unnecessary parameters in the URL
• Ensure that keywords are used in the URL

If the URL of the page changes, it is important to use a 301 redirect to preserve SEO value and direct visitors to the new version of the page without losing search engine rankings. Properly set up redirects help prevent 404 errors and improve user experience.

However, with internal redirects, you need to be careful about how much they can slow down page load times and unnecessarily spend Google’s crawl budget.

Therefore, they should be used as little as possible or avoided in favour of modifying the prelink to a page that has a 200 status code. 

404 errors and their resolution

A 404 (Not Found) error means that the requested page does not exist, which can occur when you delete it or change the URL incorrectly. If you’re experiencing it on your site, it’s important to address it properly to reduce the negative impact on SEO and user experience.

How to resolve 404 errors?

Use Google Search Console or Screaming Frog to see which pages are returning a 404 status code. If there are any, use a 301 redirect. If there is a relevant page with similar content, use a 301 redirect to redirect the old URL so that both users and Google can find the correct alternative.

Another solution, is to create a custom 404 error page where you add useful links, navigation, or search so that visitors don’t get lost and can continue on to other pages.

Monitor errors in Google Search Console—Regularly monitor the indexing report to know which pages are returning 404s so you can fix or redirect them.

Not every 404 is a problem! If it’s a page that no longer has relevant content, a redirect may not be necessary. The important thing is to remove 404 errors from important or frequently visited pages.

Security and HTTPS

Google puts a lot of emphasis on security. Sites that do not use the secure HTTPS protocol may be penalised. If you’re not sure if your site is secure, just look at your browser’s address bar—if you see a ‘lock’ there, all is well. There are also several online tools that check if the protocol is secure.

💡Something from practice

When a website is lost from search

One day, a gentleman (now a client) called me to see if I could take a look at his site because it was dropping out of his Google searches. One time it’s there and one time it’s not, and he’s probably losing potential customers. We agreed that Google’s indexing was a mess and this was the place for a technical audit.

And the reason for the problem? Few people realise that a domain always has four variants ( copies ), namely,

http://domain.com, http://www.domain.com, https://domain.com, https://www.domain.com. 

All these variants must be redirected so that the resulting domain is the only one with https://—with the so-called security certificate.

The website in question did not have the correct redirection set up (from http://), and for Google, it was a duplicate site and without a security certificate. Google first indexed both versions and later flagged the unsecured one (http://) as defective and stopped displaying the whole page.

After implementing a proper redirect and re-indexing, the situation was rectified and the site returned to search.

When a technical audit reveals a hidden problem: The case of a search spam attack

Technical SEO audits are often like 🔎detective work—the deeper you delve into the data, the more hidden problems you can uncover. One interesting case I tackled recently was proof that not all 404 errors are harmless.

It all started with a routine—I was going through Google Search Console and noticed an increased number of 404 errors. At first glance, nothing unusual, but when I delved deeper, the “pattern” was clear. Most of these errors were associated with URLs that looked like web search results. What was even more suspicious – the text in the URL was in Chinese.

I set about analysing it and it quickly became apparent that this was not normal user behaviour. Some spam bot was regularly sending automated search requests, generating non-existent pages which were then logged as 404 errors in GSC.

The goal was clear – to flood the web with fake requests, which could lead to increased server load, wasted Google crawl budget, and degraded site performance. Since the site was running on an Apache server, the solution to this problem was to retrofit the .htaccess file.

This case convinced me once again that the components of SEO audit are not only about search engine optimization, but also about protecting your website from unwanted threats. Even a small spam attack can cause serious problems—from unnecessary load on the server to lowering the site’s ranking in Google.

Technical SEO is not a one-time thing but an ongoing process that helps to detect errors not only on new sites but also on established sites that are gradually losing visibility. Whether it’s changes in search engine algorithms, new technical requirements, or rising user expectations, a regular technical SEO audit is essential.

Technical SEO Optimization: SEO checklist for site audit

• Verify proper use of meta robots (index, follow/noindex, nofollow)
• Check the indexing of the page in Google Search Console
• Verify that robots.txt is not blocking search engines and has the path to sitemap.xml set
• Ensure that sitemap.xml is up to date and correctly sent to GSC
• Measure page speed using Google PageSpeed Insights and GTMatrix
• Check responsive design (Google Mobile-Friendly Test)
• Check if the site is secured using HTTPS
• Check for 404 errors and fix redirects
• Check for 404 errors and redirect (301) if necessary to eliminate duplicate URLs (canonical tags)
• Verify status codes (200, 301, 302, 404, 500) via Screaming Frog
• Implement structured data (Schema.org) for better visibility
• Set proper hreflang attributes for multilingual sites
• Check internal linking and page hierarchy. Are your most important pages on the site the fastest to track?
• Make sure that the URLs are SEO-friendly (short and descriptive)

Following this checklist will give you better control over the technical aspects of your website and ensure that it is not only visible to search engines, but also effective for users. Regular auditing and technical SEO optimization are key to the long-term success of a site.

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