Common Technical SEO Errors That Could Harm Your Ranking.

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  • Mar 2025, 08:23 AM

Common Technical SEO Errors That Could Harm Your Ranking.

As is well known, your website's backend is where all the magic happens. Keeping the backend operating properly is one of the primary functions of technical SEO. It's a way of using non-user-facing strategies to optimize your website for Google rankings.  For example, by making sitemaps, site performance and other backend functions better. It works with everything between marketing-related (off-page SEO) and content-creation (on-page SEO).

 

What is Technical SEO

Technical SEO is making sure a website satisfies the technical specifications required by modern search engines and achieves the objective of achieving greater organic results. To remove difficulties that may prevent crawlers from correctly scanning, indexing and showing a website, technical SEO looks at things like internal linking, site architecture, security, and page load speed.

 

Especially for stronger sites, such SEO efforts sometimes require agreement between web developers and technical SEO experts. Making your website user-friendly and quick on mobile devices is one example.

 

Here are some Common Technical SEO Errors and how to stop them from damaging your site’s performance. If you want to make sure that your technical SEO is up to date, this guide should be very helpful. 

  • Duplicate Content on SEO
  • No HTTPS Security
  • Boosting Page Speed
  • Indexing Issues
  • The Impact of Broken Links
  • Lack Of Mobile SEO
  • Multiple Homepage Versions
  • Without XML Sitemaps
  • Keyword Cannibalization

Duplicate SEO Content

Duplicate Content happens when the same or similar information is found online in several locations, either on the same website or on different ones. Different content kinds, template-based pages or technological problems like format issues and URL tracking can all cause this. 

 

Duplicate content can make it difficult for search engines to decide which page to rank, which may damage a website's SEO. Lower results and less website traffic might result from duplicate objects since they can deceive search engines, reduce the impact of keywords and cause indexing issues. Successfully handling duplicate content and ensuring correct pages appear in search results involves redirects, canonical tags and content writing techniques.

 

No HTTPS Security

Search engine optimization (SEO) and user trust both depend on your website being HTTPS secure. Browsers like Google Chrome could show a "Not Secure" notice despite HTTPS, discouraging users and possibly causing them to leave the site right away.  

 

Websites without HTTPS may rank harder in search results since Google views it as a ranking part. To deal with this problem:

  • Verify the Security Status of Your Website.
  • Get a certificate for SSL/TLS
  • Make sure HTTPS is being used and install the certificate.

To avoid mixed content warnings, make sure all pages load securely regularly and replace all remaining non-secure (HTTP) content.

 

Increasing the Speed of Pages

Both a positive user experience and Google rankings depend on how quickly a website loads. A website that loads slowly may frustrate users, raise bounce rates and hurt search engine results. Users are more likely to quit a page and search elsewhere if it takes more than three seconds to load.

 

Reducing and enhancing photos to lower file sizes without loss of quality is the first step in increasing page performance. The performance of your website may also be improved by optimizing HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Many performance problems can be found and fixed with tools like Google Page Performance Information or a site audit report. Consulting a web developer for more complex changes guarantees that your website is completely optimized for speed and performance.

 

Indexing Issues

Search engines' capability to locate and show your web pages in search results is determined by indexing. Your pages will not show up in Google's search engine results pages if they are not properly indexed. Common indexing problems include canonical tags that refer to a redirected page or 404 error page

 

Using Google Search Console, you may manually submit your URL to Google to ensure that your website shows up in search results. Look for old or duplicate pages and remove those that aren't needed if Google is returning too many results. To ensure important pages are not banned or changed to NOINDEX, use the txt file and meta tags. Your pages will be correctly identified and ranked by search engines if these problems are fixed.

 

The Impact of Broken Links

Broken links, whether internal or external can have a detrimental effect on search engine results and user experience (UX). Apart from being essential for guiding visitors and search crawlers to useful material, links also help a website's domain authority (DA). Search engines become aware of the possibility of poor website maintenance due to these problems, which also interfere with the user's trip and reduce the overall quality of the material.

 

To prevent broken links from harming your website, regular site audits are essential. It's easy to find and restore broken links on your website with the aid of a variety of free tools.  External links need constant monitoring, but internal links should be examined if a page is deleted, altered or replaced. Getting in touch with webmasters to update out-of-date links for external links maintains search exposure and guarantees trustworthiness. Resolving broken links improves search engine rankings and maintains the usability of your website.

 

Lack Of Mobile SEO

A smooth mobile experience is essential for SEO performance, as the majority of Google searches now take place on mobile devices. Google uses mobile-first indexing to give preference to mobile-friendly websites thus, your site's mobile version serves as the main ranking factor. A responsive website will irritate visitors, lower its search engine rating and be more difficult to discover.

 

Use Google's URL Inspection Tool to check if your website is mobile-first indexed to improve it for mobile. Both desktop and mobile versions should have similar meta descriptions. Additionally, new mobile URLs must be used in conjunction with structured data. Getting high rankings and giving consumers the best experience possible in a mobile-first environment may be achieved by routinely reviewing your mobile site and making usability improvements.

 

Multiple Homepage Versions

It may look harmless to have different versions of your homepage, such as "edulife.agency" and "https://edulife.agency/." However, it might reduce the SEO value of your site and cause indexing problems. Google divides ranking signals across different versions of the same page as it indexes them, which lowers visibility and affects search performance.

 

Improve your website for mobile by using Google's URL Inspection Tool to see whether it is mobile-first indexed. Similar meta descriptions ought to be included for desktop and mobile versions. Structured data must also be utilized along with new mobile URLs. Reviewing your mobile site frequently and applying usability adjustments will help you get top rankings and provide customers with the greatest experience possible in a mobile-first world.

 

Without XML Sitemaps 

A sitemap is an essential tool for providing effective crawling and indexing by helping search engines like Google realize the structure of your website. For big or complicated websites, XML sitemaps serve as a roadmap that guides search spiders to key pages.  Without one, it could be difficult for search engines to locate and rank your pages, which could lower the ranking of your website in search results. 

 

You can use an XML sitemap generator to fix this, or the Yoast SEO plugin can do it for you if you're using WordPress. To guarantee correct indexation, send the sitemap to Google Search Console when it has been created. Maintaining an updated sitemap improves the overall SEO performance of your website by making it easier for search engines to crawl fresh and updated content.

 

Keyword Cannibalization

Multiple pages on your website that target the same keyword are said to be engaging in keyword cannibalization. This can negatively impact all of those pages' rankings and distract search engines like Google. Similar articles, too-similar subcategory sites, or identical content are common causes of term cannibalization. Over time, performance and visibility may suffer as a result.

 

Using tools to discover pages that are competing for the same term, you may begin fixing keyword cannibalization. If more than one page has the same function, combine them into one more powerful page and create 301 redirects from the previous pages. Make sure that every page has a distinct focus by modifying the content and headlines to focus on certain keywords or subjects. To ensure higher rankings and a more lucid site structure, enhance internal linking to direct users and search engines to the most relevant page.