The SEO Loop blog

Practical SEO, explained

Practical technical SEO: how search engines crawl, index and rank pages, and how to fix what is in the way.

Latest

Core Web Vitals explained: LCP, INP, CLS

What LCP, INP and CLS measure, the thresholds that count as good, lab vs real-user data, and the fixes that usually move the numbers.

Technical SEO · · 2 min read
Technical SEO · 2 min read

How to check a sitemap: find, read, validate

Find any site's XML sitemap, check it follows the rules, and fix the problems that stop Google using it, from wrong URLs to size limits.

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Technical SEO · 3 min read

How to check a canonical tag (3 ways)

Three quick ways to see which canonical URL a page declares, what Google actually chose, and the canonical mistakes that quietly split your rankings.

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Technical SEO · 2 min read

How to check if a page is noindex

Three places a noindex directive hides (HTML, HTTP headers and JavaScript), how to find it fast, and why pages go noindex by accident after launch.

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Technical SEO · 3 min read

How to check robots.txt and test a URL

Find a site's robots.txt, read the rules correctly, test whether a URL is blocked, and fix the mistakes that hide whole sections from Google.

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Technical SEO · 2 min read

How to check schema markup on any page

See which structured data a page declares, validate it with free tools, and fix the missing properties that stop a page earning rich results.

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SEO Audits · 3 min read

How to do an SEO audit: a 10-step checklist

A practical 10-step SEO audit you can run on any site in an afternoon, from crawlability and indexing to speed, structured data and security, with free tools.

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On-page SEO · 2 min read

Meta descriptions: do they affect rankings?

Meta descriptions are not a ranking factor, but they shape clicks. How to write one that earns the click, how long it should be, and why Google swaps it.

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Technical SEO · 2 min read

301 vs 302 redirects and redirect chains

When to use a 301 or a 302, why redirect chains and loops quietly hurt crawling and speed, and how to trace a redirect path from the command line.

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Technical SEO · 3 min read

robots.txt vs noindex vs canonical

robots.txt, noindex and canonical all seem to hide a page, but do very different things. When to use each, and the mistake that makes noindex fail.

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