A Basic (Yet Powerful) Technical SEO Audit for Beginners

[@FABCASTLE]

I'm overwhelmed with the technical issues I'm finding in unsuspected pages after this! Thank you soooo much!! Now THAT'S as spectacular inbound strategy, guys!!

[@AhrefsCom]

You're welcome!

[@ScoreXcreen]

You are very clear in explaining SEO. Keeping your tool promotion, in the end, makes me super happy watching your video.

[@AhrefsCom]

Glad it was helpful!

[@paulargueta]

Thanks for sharing. Digital marketing & SEO work. Most people don't have the patience or take the time to learn it, let alone wait for the results. It's like planting seeds and farming.

[@AhrefsCom]

You are welcome! :)

[@alexandrbelkot2896]

Hello Sam . This is amazing I just wanted to write and ask you about creating a technical SEO audit, and then "Boom!" it is already there! I am your fan! Thank you Sam, I am waiting for further episodes. "A Basic (Yet Powerful) Technical SEO Audit for - Professionals"

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks, Alexandr. Glad it came at the right time 😀

[@womom6949]

I learned a lot. I hope I can land a job in SEO soon. Thanks for your help Sam and Ahrefs.

[@AhrefsCom]

Glad you learn from your videos! Good luck with your SEO efforts! - Max

[@ItsCoachBen]

Regular audits are key so much changes without people really even noticing!

[@AhrefsCom]

👍

[@dirteeshoe4069]

SEO world is fun, everyday I read articles and do some researches to expand my knowledge, thanks for the informative video.

[@AhrefsCom]

Glad it was helpful!

[@nisaac86]

I've mentioned this before but this channel has such great content. I've been a user of SEMrush for a while now and I only wish they had good content like this. Which is so surprising because they are so big. They have a weird youtube channel, which I hardly ever watch. But this channel, I'm always watching and always wondering if I should or how I could move my clients over to Ahrefs. Excellent content as always!

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks again, Neo. Glad to see your name pop up again :)

[@maheshwaranr6255]

Thanks for value sharing. I need to learn more about how to fix all the technical seo issues

[@AhrefsCom]

Glad it was helpful!

[@basselnasief7492]

Thnx Sam for the precious info. I enjoyed every moment of the video. You've been always to the point!

[@AhrefsCom]

You're welcome!

[@roycalderon7633]

Question. If an agency is doing SEO for a website do they grant access to the agency for them to start making changes? For example, if your site is on Wix do you just give access or do they rebuild a new site with the same domain?

[@sravankumar7016]

yes we need more technical seo tips

[@AhrefsCom]

Hey, glad you liked the video. You might enjoy watching this one too - kzbin.info/www/bejne/fZCcXnShj8ibas0 - Max

[@BudionoSukses]

Thanks for fruitful sharing

[@AhrefsCom]

You're welcome!

[@thomasolson711]

I'm trying to determine if an SEO agency we hired is worth keeping around. What are the best ways for us (as an ecommerce website) to make this decision?

[@eliedaccache8438]

By far the most helpful advertisement I've ever watched!! Jk thanks a lot man

[@AhrefsCom]

Glad it helped!

[@dimaspribadi]

Thank you for the footprints Sam 😁

[@AhrefsCom]

You are welcome!

[@renishtw]

Very good video Sam. Btw how to remove the http versions of pages that are indexed in the search.

[@AhrefsCom]

It's likely indexing it because of a technical SEO issue. If you have recently done the migration with the proper redirects, then it should just a matter of time before Google recrawls your pages. There are other reasons why an HTTP address may be indexed, but this becomes very situational. For example, if another website links to your page that you don't want indexed, then you have many options (again situational). Possible solutions based on your use case: - rel="canonical" to that page - noindex the page (if not needed in Google's index) - soft 404 - 410 You will need to analyze your own website/pages and decide the best course of action or possibly something that's not listed above.

[@eatatjoe69]

@@AhrefsCom Thanks for the guide, as always [=. I see a few web pages saying we should not noindex paginated pages as google will start ignoring links to/from these pages after a while, is this important? Also is it always good to noindex these pages or are there situations where its helpful not to? Any help appreciated.

[@AhrefsCom]

Hey Aaron. This seems like an "it depends" kind of question 🤐. For paginated pages in particular, in most cases, I don't think you need to noindex them, but there are varying views on this. Some people prefer to set canonicals to a "view all" page, others prefer to set it to canonical = self, and others completely ignore it :) I guess this would depend largely on the size of your site. If you're running an ecommerce store for example, I would look at how some of the larger brands are doing it or consult with a technical SEO expert.

[@protechlistsstarmerx6216]

Hi Sam So when you find URLs which shouldn't be indexed (e.g. www versions and http versions) what do you do with them? 301 redirect?

[@SamOhYT]

Based on your example above, I would choose one version and create a redirect at the site level for all of them. (ie. www.domain/pageA -> domain/pageA).

[@hiddensinger9361]

Thanks for the precious info

[@AhrefsCom]

Any time :) -Helen

[@beatrizkurashima7959]

Awesome content! Congrats!

[@AhrefsCom]

Glad you liked it!🙌 -Helen

[@jelenauroic2538]

Do you have a tutorial about what pages you do not want to be indexed? Especially for e-commerce - I have been searching for example what to mark as noindex/nofollow but I can't find clear answers and explanation WHY. Would love you help on this topic! (I love your videos btw and they are super helpful)

[@AhrefsCom]

Here you go: ahrefs.com/blog/meta-robots/ - SQ

[@jelenauroic2538]

@@AhrefsCom Thank you!

[@davidsebastian1030]

Wow. Thank you Sam!

[@AhrefsCom]

You're welcome!

[@chukwuebukanwana3536]

Thank Sam Oh for sharing. This was really helpful

[@AhrefsCom]

You're very welcome :)

[@gavreleric3493]

Amazing tuto. quick question, what do you do if you have [site:xxxx inurl:www] that shows pages in Google ? Thx

[@AhrefsCom]

Not exactly sure what you mean by that? Do you mean for that particular search operator? - SQ

[@gavreleric3493]

@@AhrefsCom At 2:13, you show that the request [site:centralparktutors.com inurl:www] doesn't return any pages. And you say "and everything looks good here". So I did the same with my website and I have 3 pages returned by Google. These 3 pages are my 3 blog posts. The other pages of my website are indexed but not returned with [inurl:www]. So is this ok ? Thx

[@angelagayehorn6362]

Do you have a tutorial on how to fix the http/https redirect issue please? :)

[@AhrefsCom]

Here you go: ahrefs.com/blog/what-is-https/ - SQ

[@angelagayehorn6362]

@@AhrefsCom Thank you!

[@toufikforu]

Wow! really very nice this tutorials for SEO... Thanks Sam!

[@AhrefsCom]

You're welcome! Glad you enjoyed the video 😀

[@niteshsingh4415]

Most informative ❤️

[@AhrefsCom]

Glad it was helpful!

[@gingergarlic7476]

Congratulations we found technical errors on your website 😂

[@lukeh8377]

Great video! I wanted to ask if you had any videos on JavaScript & SEO? Couldn't find any whilst looking through the channel. I have read quite a few articles about it recently and would like to know your stance on how to test/audit for JavaScript. Thanks!

[@AhrefsCom]

We don't have any content on this specific topic. Not sure I quite understand your question as a "stance" can be quite broad. If you're referring to the tools to test/audit JS related items, you can do that in Ahrefs' Site Audit tool by setting the "execute javascript" option on. This is available on the Advanced and Agency plans.

[@lukeh8377]

@@AhrefsCom Sorry so what i meant was how would you tackle this topic. Will check out those options when I get a chance and cheers for the info!

[@AhrefsCom]

It's tough to say (still a bit too broad), and it seems very situational. For example, if your website is built on React, then you would need a crawler that can provide the information you need on this. I do think that it's important to monitor this from a technical SEO standpoint.

[@dieudangphan2871]

Hi Ahrefs, I am currently a university student who interest in how you edit the video. Here is my question: How can I create an excellent video presentation like this? Can you recommend tools you have used to create and edit this video? Thank you!

[@AhrefsCom]

We have excellent animators and video editors who use Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects. - SQ

[@bankauctionpropertie]

Great idea! I will practice this hack. Thanks for sharing such a valuable information

[@AhrefsCom]

You're welcome! Hope you're able to find and fix some technical SEO issues using the tips here.

[@shefaliagarwal3282]

Hello sir, thanks for this information I just wanna know that how can we audit any website through its content and not by using any tool if we do not have access to these tools by the point of view of an employee. Hope you understand!! Thanks 😊

[@AhrefsCom]

I am not sure I understand your intent. You may audit website manually by checking source code for each page, I guess that is what you refer to. - Max

[@shefaliagarwal3282]

@@AhrefsCom what kind of Data I should check in the source code of that particular website can you please tell.

[@AhrefsCom]

I am sorry but it depends on what type of information you look for and what is your goal that you want to achieve. - Max

[@johnjosephwong]

Love it. Thank you.

[@AhrefsCom]

You're welcome!

[@codesolutionsmsahils1149]

that's great work for people thanks. bro

[@AhrefsCom]

Our pleasure! -Helen

[@prodotagamers3227]

Awesome video!! Thumbs up

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks!

[@hannanbaig7888]

Great video.

[@AhrefsCom]

Thank you!

[@VDGMedia]

Thank for Your Sharing!

[@AhrefsCom]

You're welcome!

[@6My6sT6]

Can you explain what is an audit engineer in finance department?

[@AhrefsCom]

Not sure if there's anything to do with SEO or digital marketing there? - SQ

[@deanlargaespada2579]

Extremely useful man thank you!

[@AhrefsCom]

You're welcome!

[@takingiteasydaisy]

I have 2,150 indexed pages for my site but all are spam apart from the first result. What problems can this cause and how would you fix it?

[@AhrefsCom]

What do you mean by saying that your website's pages are spam, could you pls elaborate? -Helen

[@Bigramyoutubeseosemesmowebrd]

Very helpful

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks!

[@amrabdelmonen8569]

Thank you Sam I use cloud flare for ssl and cashing both my http/https +my domain name work fine but when I try (www.mywebsite.net) it gives me 522 error any advice,please?

[@AhrefsCom]

Just reach out to CDN service provider you are using (assuming CloudFlare) asking them for a solution. There are numerous reasons that can stand behind this error. - Max

[@BDinsightNews]

Thanks Sam Can you make a 2nd video for Technical SEO like (status code - 301, 200) or how to move all backlink old to new site. I will wait for your response Thanks

[@AhrefsCom]

Perhaps, but we don't have that planned for the near future.

[@sheikhosamaazhar260]

hello please do you have complete seo audit report video ?

[@AhrefsCom]

Hi! Maybe this demo would help: ahrefs.com/site-audit -Helen

[@bostjantanko691]

How do you set up to noindex this pagination "/page/30/?cat=-1" Thanks.

[@AhrefsCom]

That's a bit more technically involved and would likely need some code. If you're using a popular CMS, then try looking to plugins as that may be a better option.

[@myjobswebmaster5801]

hi sam , i like your video , can u make a video on how to email backlink of the competatiors step by step, as not technical guru. thanks much helpful for backlinks

[@AhrefsCom]

We have a video about outreach: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pHKsiHpubZ1mq9E

[@ultimohub9365]

Hello Sam, thanks for such a great explanation. I have a query, please can you help me? Based on your video, when I tried doing the same audit to me site with "site:ultimohub.com", I get 177 google pages in search result. When I do the same with "site:ultimohub.com inurl:www", I get 189 in google pages in search result. Is this okay? or something wrong? Is there any duplicates happening?

[@anillrao1547]

I see 125 Vs 185 results on Google search, and also images were also showing up with inurl:www search term

[@AhrefsCom]

I wouldn't worry about this. The numbers that Google shows are notoriously known to be 'estimates.' Instead, I would look at the indexed pages and decided whether everything looks good there.

[@ultimohub9365]

@@anillrao1547 Thanks, I see the no. are changing frequently.

[@ultimohub9365]

@@AhrefsCom Thanks. Please can you elaborate a little more so that I can dig deeper into it related to my indexed pages? Or may be a upcoming video on how to do a Technical seo related to indexed pages.

[@vijaybhandari2724]

Thank you, Sam!

[@AhrefsCom]

You are welcome!

[@murtazakhan6736]

Nice one

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks, Murtaza!

[@matthewmorales114]

How do you delete pages that are indexed and no longer want to be indexed? To just completely delete them..

[@AhrefsCom]

Add noindex tag and remove from sitemap. Additionally you may disavow crawling of these pages using robots.txt, but this is not necessary. Eventually your page will be removed from index. - Max

[@matthewmorales114]

@@AhrefsCom any tutorials on how to do this? Thank you Max

[@AhrefsCom]

We do not offer any sort of tutorials like that, as the process differ from case to case. Noindexing should be done with your CMS or within the source code of your site. Then you can generate a sitemap using some free sitemap generators online. You may also look for some most common cases on how to use robots.txt files online too - Max

[@ArifulIslam-er6cj]

Thank you bro!!!

[@AhrefsCom]

You're welcome!

[@harisinamKing6]

how can we resolve pagination issue in wordpress?

[@AhrefsCom]

We have an article on this: ahrefs.com/blog/rel-prev-next-pagination/ - SQ

[@RobertWardDavidson]

I think if you slowed it down in all your videos it would be much easier to follow along with you and make your videos better. Thank you

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks for your feedback. This video is quite old and we heard similar feedback from subscribers / viewers. We've slowed down our videos quite a bit in our more recent tutorials. For the older ones, you can always switch it up to 0.75% speed if that helps. -Sam

[@DersimLondon]

In your scan what is 300 and 400 errors

[@AhrefsCom]

You can find out more about HTTP status codes here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes

[@ashnaiku3861]

Yes

[@AhrefsCom]

:)

[@newmobilecover37]

nice video i am indian. i want to get traffick from us , u.k etc . how can i get this .

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks. I suggest watching the videos in this playlist: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o6uTf3qnn9Crbbs

[@lalitsoni8034]

bro, how to remove that brand name in every title of all wordpress posts?

[@AdamJamaludin]

You can install Yoast SEO Plug In From there u can edit the title z customized it according to your keyword

[@lalitsoni8034]

@@AdamJamaludin bro i did it. but still its showing in Google..

[@AdamJamaludin]

Give it time crawling.

[@sjoe]

Could also go to search console and try to reindex the page you want to have changed, doesn't always do the trick but could speed it up.

[@ArjunRaj-mm5uh]

Need more technical seo update

[@AhrefsCom]

Perhaps in the future :)

[@peterjordan6874]

This guy loves his flannels haha :D

[@AhrefsCom]

😂

[@stanimirmihov]

Very good video, greatly appreciated. I have question: I wrote site:stanimirmihov.com inurl:tag (I knew I'm ranking tags) - some of them are just 1-2 articles in single tag and others are single page, created from single image from Wordpress. I think such results increase my bounce rate a lot and make people that visit my site overall unhappy. What is the best way to deal with this situation? P.S. KZbin SEO Advice from me: Have 1 pinned comment with top keyword and call to action in each video

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks again. That's entirely up to you. If your tag pages are generating traffic, not sure why you'd want to remove them. If it's an issue with thin content, you can consider canonicalizing the tags page to your category page or something different. This is very situational, so unfortunately, there isn't a "cookie cutter" answer for this. Thanks for the KZbin tip :)

[@stanimirmihov]

@@AhrefsCom thanks for taking time to answer. The problem I see is then with the images that have their own page. For instance: site:stanimirmihov.com inurl:image and some of the results: stanimirmihov.com/psihologiq-motivaciq-sport/word-image-73/ I can't see searcher being happy finding such page.

[@AhrefsCom]

Yup! You'll have to make some decisions as to which pages you decide to trim (some easy, other more difficulty) 😀

[@anik1tube]

Great!

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks!

[@arianbagheri7137]

Mate , you are the end, thanks for this great video (i don't get it i see 6 dislikes |: )

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks :) Glad you enjoyed the video, even though 6 people did not 😀

[@mike2010143]

You talk really fast man I know there is an option to slow down video speed but still it's fast seriously fast while teaching stuff

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks for the feedback 🙂 - SQ

[@myjobswebmaster5801]

u speak bit faster , hard to catch up as we are still learning, hope u understand other listeners not technical savy as you

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks for the feedback :) We'll see what we can do.