What I learned from auditing over 1,000,000 websites - SERP Conf 2024 Patrick Stox
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Patrick Stox from Ahrefs shared insights from auditing over 1,000,000 websites, highlighting critical technical SEO issues such as broken links, redirects, and indexability concerns. Key findings include high percentages of 'noindex' tags, missing meta descriptions, and mixed content issues affecting site performance. The presentation underscores the significance of addressing these issues for improved SEO outcomes and user experience.
What I learned from auditing over 1,000,000 websites - SERP Conf 2024 Patrick Stox
- 1. Panel: Technical SEO Patrick Stox Product Advisor, Technical SEO, & Brand Ambassador at Ahrefs What I learned from auditing over 1,000,000 websites
- 2. Who Is Patrick Stox? Product Advisor & Technical SEO @ Ahrefs Writing â˘Ahrefs SEO book â˘Ahrefs blog, SEL â˘SEO Chapter of the Web Almanac 2021 â˘Technical Review Editor of the Art of SEO 4th edition Community â˘Founded a Technical SEO slack group â˘/r/TechSEO moderator on Reddit â˘Organize Raleigh SEO Meetup, Raleigh SEO Conference, Beer & SEO â˘Defined the role of SEO for the US Department of Labor
- 6. Entire deck on Hreflang issues with insights. https://speakerdeck.com/pa trickstox/hreflang-study- and-interesting-issues- brighton-seo-2023-patrick-
- 9. Broken Pages 4XX page 44.082 404 page 40.555
- 11. How many hits? How many links?
- 12. Redirect if you can
- 13. Free full-text matching redirect script https://colab.research.googl e.com/drive/18lMkaRHK__e NM6m5FpoyhGDlDAYr3a6P ?usp=sharing
- 14. Server Issues â 5XX page 8.482% â 500 page 5.001% â Timed out 12.579%
- 15. Did traffic drop? Are pages still indexed?
- 16. Redirects â 3XX redirect 95.183% â 302 redirect 25.576% â Meta refresh redirect 1.763%
- 17. Meta refresh redirects are more common than I thought.
- 18. Permanent Redirects â HTTP 301 â HTTP 308 â Meta refresh 0 â HTTP refresh 0 â JavaScript location â Crypto redirect
- 19. Temporary Redirects (weak signal forward) â HTTP 302 â HTTP 303 â HTTP 307 (server side, not the browser cached one) â Meta refresh >0 â HTTP refresh >0
- 20. Temporary Redirects (at some point)
- 21. Keep redirects at least 1 year
- 22. Redirects â HTTP to HTTPS redirect 88.001% â HTTPS to HTTP redirect 6.153%
- 23. >6% is crazy high for people redirecting HTTPS to HTTP
- 25. Redirects â Redirect chain 45.193% â Redirect chain too long 0.114%
- 26. Google will follow up to 10 hops. I donât worry til >5 hops.
- 27. Redirects â Redirect loop 2.162%
- 28. Wastes a lot of resources.
- 29. Mixed Content â HTTPS/HTTP mixed content 13.342%
- 31. In .htaccess: <ifModule mod_headers.c> Header always set Content-Security- Policy "upgrade-insecure-requests;" </IfModule>
- 32. Indexability â Noindex 49.719% Noindex in HTML and HTTP header 5.776%
- 33. Intentional = fine Unintentional = bad
- 34. Nofollow â Nofollow page 26.34% â Nofollow in HTML and HTTP header 0.096%
- 35. Nofollows all links, including internal links. Iâd rarely use this. Maybe on UGC pages.
- 36. Canonicals â Canonical from HTTP to HTTPS 3.464% â Canonical from HTTPS to HTTP 2.079%
- 37. Canonicals â Canonical points to redirect 5.877%
- 38. These will likely get followed. Look at what version is indexed.
- 39. Canonicals â Canonical points to 4XX 2.598%
- 40. Likely ignored.
- 41. Canonicals â Non-canonical page specified as canonical one 1.362%
- 42. Links (Indexable) â Page has links to redirect 62.719%
- 43. As long as they resolve, itâs okay. Clean up when you get a chance, but not a big deal.
- 44. Links (Indexable) â Orphan page (has no incoming internal links) 49.905% â Page has only one dofollow incoming internal link 44.397%
- 45. These pages arenât likely important. If you didnât link to them, how much do you really care?
- 46. Links (Indexable) â Page has links to broken page 36.195%
- 47. Clean up for UX.
- 48. Links (Indexable) â Page has nofollow outgoing internal links 26.69% â Page has nofollow incoming internal links only 6.218%
- 49. Donât nofollow internal links.
- 50. Links (Indexable) â HTTPS page has internal links to HTTP 20.536%
- 51. Okay-ish if they redirect.
- 52. Links (Indexable) â HTTP page has internal links to HTTPS 3.427%
- 54. Links Not Indexable â Page has links to redirect 62.719% â Orphan page (has no incoming internal links) 49.905% â +more
- 55. Impact is really more on UX. Shouldnât have any impact on traffic or rankings.
- 56. Content Indexable â Meta description tag missing or empty 72.926% â Title tag missing or empty 5.545%
- 57. Content Indexable â Title too long 63.193% â Meta description too short 59.242% â Meta description too long 54.455% â Title too short 32.758%
- 58. ÂŻ_(ă)_/ÂŻ Google will write titles and descriptions for you. Only worry if the pages get lots of traffic or you think theyâre important.
- 61. Content Indexable â Page and SERP titles do not match 68.537%
- 62. Script to see which titles were the most changed. https://colab.research.googl e.com/drive/1mg3DTWVkgX 0KHD3Hx2Y3WyMAUDjdm3 cB?usp=sharing
- 63. Content Indexable â H1 tag missing or empty59.503%
- 64. Usually a quick fix so Iâd do it, but not that important. Text size is likely more important.
- 65. Content Indexable â Multiple H1 tags 51.254%
- 67. Content Indexable â Low word count 18.208%
- 68. Who is the president of Bulgaria? You donât need 1500 words to answer that!
- 69. Content Indexable â Multiple meta description tags 3.562% â Multiple title tags 3.036%
- 70. Combined into 1 for indexing in Google.
- 71. Content Not Indexable â Meta description tag missing or empty 72.926% â Title too long 63.193% â +More
- 72. Itâs not indexable, donât worry about it.
- 73. Duplicates â Duplicate pages without canonical 15.698%
- 75. Google is pretty good at figuring this out.
- 76. Performance â Pages with poor CLS 0.292% â Pages with poor LCP 0.249% â Pages with poor FID 0.018%
- 77. Add PageSpeed Insights to your audits to get CWV (field data) and Lighthouse (lab data) at scale
- 79. Images â Missing alt text80.401%
- 80. Accessibility issue. Potential legal issue. Alt text counts as normal text on the page.
- 81. Images â Image file size too large 27.25%
- 83. Images â Image broken 15.42% â Page has broken image 15.42%
- 84. Fix broken ones on important pages.
- 85. Images â Page has redirected image 9.142% â Image redirects 8.961%
- 86. Low priority as long as they work.
- 87. Images â HTTPS page links to HTTP image 12.328%
- 89. JavaScript â JavaScript broken 4.823% â Page has broken JavaScript 4.822%
- 90. Potential UX and functionality issues. It may even prevent your content from being seen.
- 91. JavaScript â Page has redirected JavaScript 2.644% â JavaScript redirects2.626%
- 92. Fine as long as it still works. Clean up if you can, but I wouldnât prioritize this.
- 93. JavaScript â HTTPS page links to HTTP JavaScript 1.663%
- 95. CSS â CSS broken 4.25% â Page has broken CSS 4.25%
- 97. CSS â CSS redirects 1.276%
- 98. CSS â HTTPS page links to HTTP CSS 1.063%
- 100. Sitemaps â 3XX redirect in sitemap 22.838% â Non-canonical page in sitemap 12.107% â Noindex page in sitemap 11.602%
- 101. Pages in sitemaps are a canonicalization signal. They should all be 200s and the canonical.
- 102. Automate your sitemaps. If manual, I donât bother.
- 103. Sitemaps Sitemap larger 50MB #N/A Sitemap with over 50K URLs #N/A Sitemap in the wrong format #N/A
- 104. These can keep your sitemap from being processed.
- 105. IndexNow is better imo. â Faster â More than just 200s â Data protection â <lastmod> is unreliable â Broader distribution
- 106. Real-time monitoring coming to Ahrefs, w/ IndexNow
- 107. External Pages â External 3XX redirect 17.252%
- 108. Helping another site. I wouldnât prioritize this.
- 109. External Pages â External 4XX 9.2% â External 5XX 4.988% â External time out 3.688%
- 110. Potential UX issue.
- 111. Other â Double slash in URL11.078%
- 112. Lots more sites than expected. Ignored by browsers and search engines.
- 113. Other â More than three parameters in URL8.067%
- 114. May indicate bloat.
- 115. Other â Non-canonical page receives organic traffic 6.55% â 3XX page receives organic traffic 6.139%
- 116. One page or the other will rank. Donât worry about it unless you have a specific preference.
- 117. Other â 4XX page receives organic traffic 2.141% â Noindex page receives organic traffic 0.636%
- 119. Do Care About â Not indexed but should be â Redirect 404 pages w/ links â Internal linking â Anything else thatâs important but not working
- 120. Thank You! Try Ahrefs Site Auditor Free ahrefs.com/awt