Do you have questions about technical SEO? You’re not alone. Many business owners and marketers have questions about things like 301 redirects, canonical tags, and robots.txt files. In this blog post, we will answer some of the most common questions about technical SEO.
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What are 301 redirects?
A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect from one URL to another. This is often used when a website has moved to a new domain or has changed its URL structure. By adding a redirect, you are telling search engines that the old URL has been permanently moved to the new one. This ensures that any link equity or traffic from the old URL is passed to the new URL.
How do I set up a 301 redirect?
There are many ways to set up a 301 redirect, but the most common method is to edit your .htaccess file; this file is located in the root directory of your website. To set up a 301 redirect, you will need to add a line of code to your .htaccess file that looks like this:
Redirect 301 /old-url/new-url
How do canonical tags work?
A canonical tag is an HTML element that helps tell search engines which version of a piece of content is the original, or “canonical.” This is important because sometimes there can be multiple versions of the same piece of content on a website (for example, if it’s been republished on another site), and you don’t want search engines to get confused and think that there’s duplicate content.
What are robots.txt files?
Robots.txt files are text files that tell search engine crawlers which pages on your website they should and shouldn’t index. They’re a good way to control which parts of your site are visible to search engines, and can be helpful if you have pages that you don’t want people to see.
What is the biggest technical SEO mistake?
The biggest technical SEO mistake is not properly configuring your website to be indexed by search engines. If you don’t set up your robots.txt file correctly, or you have pages that are blocked by robots.txt, search engines may not be able to find and index your content. This is a problem because it can prevent your content from being ranked in search results, and it can also make it difficult for people to find your website.
How do I know if a page is indexed?
The easiest way to check if a page is indexed is to search the URL of the page on a major search engine like Google, Bing, or Yahoo. If the page appears in the search results, it is most likely indexed. However, just because a page is indexed does not mean that it will rank well in search results.
What is a sitemap?
A sitemap is an XML file that contains a list of all the pages on your website. Sitemaps are used by search engines to index websites, and they can also be used to provide information about the structure of your website to search engines. With a working sitemap, you can help search engines find and index all the pages on your website.
How do I get started with technical SEO?
Whether you perform technical SEO yourself or with SEM SEO specialists, the first step is normally to crawl your website using a tool like Screaming Frog to find any broken pages, 404 errors, or other technical issues. Once you have a list of all the technical issues on your website, you can start fixing them one by one.