The SEO Blog
Notes on search
Essays and field notes on technical SEO, web performance, and the quiet mechanics of ranking. Written from audits, not opinion.
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A practical guide to log file analysis for SEO
How to get server logs, verify Googlebot and AI crawlers, and find the crawl problems that matter, with a workflow you can rerun every month.
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XML sitemaps that help discovery and diagnosis
Sitemaps do not force indexing, but an accurate, segmented one speeds discovery and shows which templates Google skips. Rules, limits, upkeep.
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Duplicate content and canonical tags, how Google picks one URL
Duplicate URLs don't earn a penalty, but they split signals. How Google picks a canonical, when it overrides yours, and how to check what it chose.
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What robots.txt controls and when to use noindex instead
robots.txt manages crawling, noindex manages indexing, nofollow qualifies links. A decision table, the syntax rules that bite, and AI crawler groups.
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Why is Google rewriting my title tags?
Welcome to the title tag tug-of-war. You write the perfect headline. It’s witty, keyword-rich, brand-friendly. And then Google shows up,...
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JavaScript SEO: What breaks, how to catch it, and what to do about it
JavaScript is everywhere. Frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue dominate modern web development. But when it comes to SEO, JS is still...
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How long does SEO take? The answer no one wants to hear
“OK, but how long until we rank #1?” If you’ve ever said this, or had it said to you - you already know the uncomfortable truth: SEO is a...
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Has Google set web standards too high? An SEO perspective
Every year, SEO gets harder. Not because search is fundamentally broken - but because Google keeps raising the bar. Want to rank...
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