SEO Blog & Articles » seo checklist

Search Engine Optimization Checklist and SEO Cheat Sheet

Patrick Hare — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:18:46 +0000

In the search engine optimization trade, it pays to have a checklist when auditing any given website for SEO issues. You can probably find quite a few of them online, or you can build up one of your own based on your unique SEO experiences. The following list was put together in-house at Web.com Search Agency and is presented here as a public service to anyone who needs a good DIY SEO checklist or a set of points to look for when doing an SEO audit. Some of the content in this list contains industry jargon, or would be considered advanced. Also, some of what we look for is open to debate, such as W3C compliance. However, we have often found that it is better to inform a client of an issue which may have some bearing on SEO, user experience, or sales opportunities. In our field, we often find potential competitors (and “SEO Expert” friends of decision makers) doing audits of our clients’ sites, so it pays to show that an issue was noted and addressed even if it is not critical for SEO.

So, without further ado, here is a useful SEO checklist for auditing the average website:

Domain/URL Related:

Domain Name

Does the domain contain the top keyword?

Domain Age

How long has the domain been registered?

Website Age

Archive.org

URL Structure & Parameters

Are there “?” or “&” characters which may make search engines stop reading?

Session IDs

Look for Session IDs in the URL, listings on search engines

Blog on site (not subdomain)

site.com/blog works better than blog.site.com

Find Subdomains

(search site:example.com on Google with no “www”) multiple subdomains may dilute content/link strength

Does site present as http or https?

Mixed secure and non-secure pages create problems, can create duplicate content.

Look For mixed uppercase and lowercase URLs

Use All Lowercase. Mixed case may create duplicate content.

Tag Related:

Titles

Titles should contain top keywords near the beginning

Descriptions

Descriptions should contain keywords, main message in first 150 characters.

Keywords

Keywords tag not essential, but should not be stuffed.

H1, H2, H3 Tags

Are there heading tags? Only 1 H1 tag per page. Should contain topical keywords.

Keyword Blurring in Titles

Is the same keyword being used on multiple titles?

Alt text on images

Alt text should be compact, contain keywords, describe image.

Eliminate spammy tags (including alt tags)

Noscript, Noframes, and other tags should not contain excess content.

Nocache/Nofollow

Remove any nocache/nofollow metatags from site.

No metatags that restrict spider frequency

“Revisit after” tags may slow recaching.

Canonical Tags

Canonical link element prevents duplicate content.

Code Issues:

Known Shopping Cart Issues

Make sure cart is SEO friendly, readable in search engine. Do a search on the cart to find SEO issues.

Table Layout/Nesting

Tables within tables may not present content in a reliable way.

Javascript Usage

Search engines are getting better at reading JS, but it should not replace other link navigation.

Robots.txt

Make sure Robots file is not excluding good content (or all content)

Sitemap.xml (Eliminate priority, update feed)

Eliminate Priority in sitemap and ensure that it is up to date, covers all important pages.

Flash readability

Search engines don’t read Flash well. Don’t embed text in images in Flash.

SEO Friendly URL rewrites

See if shopping cart can rewrite URLs automatically.

Works with multiple browser types

Check major browsers for usability. Problems may indicate spiderability issues, other necessary repairs.

Page speed

Check for loading speed. Low speed may reduce rankings.

No Cloaking

Presenting different results to spiders may cause problems.

CSS

Does the CSS hide text?

Frames

Are there any frames?

W3C Compliance

Check site compliance.

Host Image on own website

Search engine should index images on your own site.

Descriptive filenames for images

Images contribute to SEO, get found in image search.

Internal Linking:

Canonical Links & 301

Does the non-www redirect to the www (or vice versa). Do header check for 301.

Internal Linking

See how pages link internally.

Page Navigation

Ensure that page navigation is spiderable, hierarchical.

Footers

Footer links for sitemap, any page that can’t be otherwise found.

Broken Links

Are all links to live pages on site, and off site? Use broken link checker.

Descriptive Filenames

Do files in directory (page names) describe content.

HTML Sitemap

Is the HTML sitemap organized in hierarchy, contain all major pages?

Breadcrumbs

Is there breadcrumb navigation? Can it be added?

All pages link back to homepage

Homepage should have #1 internal link count.

Alt text on images used as links – serves as anchor

Alt text on logo link, other links, should describe destination page

Absolute URLs in links

Whenever possible use whole URL with domain name.

Same anchor pointing back to homepage

Describe homepage top keyword/brand, don’t just use “home”

Absolute link to homepage domain from interior pages

Homepage link from interior pages goes to domain http://www.example.com with no “index.html” etc.

Outbound Links – Bad Neighborhood, etc.

Do any of the outbound links go to bad neighborhoods?

301 Old Domains (ensure they are 301)

Are old domain names 301 redirected?

Look out for 302 redirects

Ensure 302s not used for SEO friendly redirects.

Look for Reciprocal Links

Dated SEO Tactic. Remove Old Reciprocal Pages.

Look For Cross Linking to Other Sites

Interconnected sites can get penalized.

Content Issues:

Page Freshness

How fresh is page content?

Keyword Theming/Silos

Do the keywords on each page copy other topics?

Page Segmentation

Where is content getting placed on page? Placement in margins/bottom may not give same value.

Content not embedded in images

Search engines can’t read content in images.

Duplicate Content

Does the content match content on other sites or the same site?

Hidden Text – No CSS Tricks

Make sure text is not presented outside the margins of the page.

Similar color of text and background

Make sure text is not hidden in background.

Tiny text

Make sure text is not so tiny a person could not easily read it.

Address & Phone Number

Any site that wants to be found in local results should include local contact info, also use LBC.

Follow Webmaster Guidelines

See Google and Bing Webmaster Guidelines

Make sure blogs are SEO friendly

Host at site.com/blog and avoid deep directory structure

Have basic Privacy Policy

Search Engines/States/Countries look for these

About Us

Opportunity to describe company, common page on trusted websites

Terms and Conditions

Terms and conditions may contain relevant keywords not normally used on other parts of site.

Tools To Use:

Spider Emulator

Find Links on page, see if pages are spiderable.

Google Webmaster Tools

Indicates many different opportunites for improvement.

Google Analytics

Shows traffic, bounce rate, rankings improvement.

Google Local Business Center

Allows brick and mortar shops to claim listings, improve local rankings.

Google Shopping

Add products to Google shopping and some SERP Results.

Off Page:

Check anchors

Make sure anchors contain top keywords, are descriptive

Check Link Quantity

Look for low quality links from bad neighborhoods.

Compare competitive Site Backlinks

Check quantity and quality of competitive links.

Varied anchor texts

Too many identical anchors can cause penalties.

No Sitewide links

Look for multiple links from a single site.

Look for nofollow links

If you’re paying for a nofollow link, stop paying.

Link diversity

Look for links from multiple sources of different types, not all from blogs or directories.

Link Age

Use archive.org to see if top links have been around for a long time.

Allinanchor Score in Google

See how Google rates link strength of site.

Look for links to pages that no longer exist (301)

Webmaster tools shows inbound links, may be seen in “not found” section.

Links from trust indicators (BBB, Hackersafe)

Links from trusted sites add value.

Yahoo Directory/Business.com/DMOZ

Is site in human edited directories?

Link Bait

Has any kind of link bait been used in the past?

Are links canonical?

Do links go to www or non-www?

Site Missing in Google? Use this Checklist!

Patrick Hare — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:22:00 +0000

In the world of SEO, there’s nothing worse than finding out that your site is no longer listed in the search engines. In many cases, you may be missing a whole site, or several pages, because of one or more simple problems that can be resolved fairly quickly. Also, if you have a new site that hasn’t gotten any search engine attention at all, you may want to look and make sure you’re telling the search engine spiders that they’re allowed to come in and take a look around.

Here’s a quick SEO checklist you can use if you find out that your site is no longer listed:

Verify that the site is up and running. A missing website will get taken out of search engine rankings.

Is the site really missing? Do a site: command to find out. Check to see if pages are cached.

Look at your Robots.txt file, if you have one. (A missing Robots file won’t derail your rankings.) If there is a line that only says “Disallow: /”) then you are telling the search engines not to read the site.

Check the source code on your pages for metatags that say “Noindex” or “nofollow,” as these tags may tell the search engine to ignore the page.

Check your root directory to make sure you don’t have an extra homepage named “home” or “index” or “default.” Also check that you don’t have an “index.htm” and an “index.html” competing with each other. A search engine (or any other browser) should only have one choice for a homepage or interior page.

Check for Broken Links by using a Spider Emulator.

Check your server traffic and logs to see if the site was down for any length of time. Every now and then, a site will be down at the same time the search engine comes to visit.

Did you change your directory structure? It may take time for search engines to see it.

Did you change from HTML to ASP, or from PHP to Cold Fusion? Essentially, you have a new site and need to tell Google that it is there.

Did anyone file a DMCA (Digitial Millenium Copyright Request) against you for duplicate content? Normally, someone gets notified when this happens, so check the email address listed on the WHOIS lookup.

Is the site content duplicated elsewhere? If so, the search engine may be listing the original content in lieu of yours.

Google Webmaster Tools also does a great job telling you if there are issues with your site, and even has a handy red flag to tell you if you’re been banned.

One of the top directives in SEO is not to panic, but it is hard not to panic if you can’t find your site on Google, Bing, or Yahoo, especially if the site had good rankings before. If you’ve been using black hat techniques, or got a lot of low value links with the same anchor text, or made a big change to your site, you can vanish from the search engines. If you still don’t know what has happened to your site, an SEO consultant may be in order, since a few hours of consulting time can uncover issues (both obvious and subtle) that can bring your site back from the search engine twilight zone.

SEO Checklist If You Can’t Find Your Site Google or Other Search Engines

Patrick Hare — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:44:00 +0000

“Why can’t I find my site in Google” is obviously a very common question in the world of search engine optimization. In most cases there is a stock answer involving the age of the site, the number of backlinks, or the lack of content on the site. The title of the web page may not match up with the overall context of the page, or it may be “index.html” or “Welcome” instead of something descriptive. If the site isn’t being found at all on the search engines, here is a list of what to look for:

Robots.txt file exclusion – Every once in awhile a webmaster will create a development site and use the command “Disallow: /” in the robots.txt file, which can usually be found at: http://www.[yoursitehere].com/robots.txt . If you don’t have a robots file, that won’t stop you from getting found. Sometimes, webmasters and amateurs put the same wrong command in the file, and the result is a quick vanishing act in the search engines. (Note: If you use Google Webmaster Tools, it will tell you about robots.txt commands like this one, by saying that Google is not being allowed to index your site.)

Metatag exclusions – On your source code, which you find by going to your website and selecting “View” and “Source” in the menu bar, you should look for a line that says something like “meta name=”ROBOTS” content=”NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW“ in the code on the page. If this command is there, and you want your site to be found, this should be removed.

Duplicate On-Site Content – Do the pages on your site have the same content on multiple pages? Are the titles all the same? If so, the search engines may not know which page deserves the most attention. All content on your site should be unique, unless you need to have a standard piece of boilerplate on some pages. Even so, there should be plenty of content built around the boilerplate.

Duplicate Websites – A few years ago, our customers would independently come to an amazing revelation. Since our SEO worked on one website, they figured that they could copy the entire site onto a .net or .org domain name and hold down more than one spot in Google’s top 10. Unfortunately, this did not work because duplicate websites essentially get ignored in Google. If you are substantially copying the content off someone else’s website, or just scraping and pasting it, you are also unlikely to see results.

Content embedded in images, Flash, and JavaScript. Search engines have done a better job reading Flash files over the past few years, but there are still drawbacks. For one thing, lots of Flash designers embedded text in images, which can’t be easily read by search engines. In the same way, we have seen websites that looked like they had text, but were actually one big image. Search engines prefer text that is easy to read. When JavaScript is used, the search engines may be able to read it, but may not know what to do with the information or how to index it. In the same way, AJAX code is difficult for search engines to classify, or even find since it is delivered dynamically from a database.

Use of frames. There are still a few sites built in frames, and they still get the same poor results. Normally all the search engine sees is a homepage with a header, which is often just a picture. In this case the search engine doesn’t have anything to read other than a page title.

Copyright Violation (DMCA) – If you have been accused of copying someone else’s online or offline content, they can file a DMCA Removal Request with search engines. Normally these engines will attempt to contact you, but simultaneously they may remove your site content from their indexes. Most of the time you will get a letter in the mail from a law firm when this happens, but if your contact information is difficult to find due to private domain registration, then you may not get notified that way.

Bad neighborhood – What kind of content is on your site, and how do the search engines see it? Most of our clients would be considered “good neighborhood” sites, since we do not do SEO for adult, gambling, or offshore pharmaceutical clients. However, your content may have a keyword profile that is too similar to something that would not be found in safe search results. You may be linking to bad sites and not know it. In some cases we have had customers who had been hacked, and were hosting links to very bad domains, phishing sites, and the like. Once again, Google Webmaster Tools makes it easy to see how Google sees you, and by extension you can get a sense of how Bing and Yahoo are seeing your site.

Sending Malware and Viruses – Usually this is the result of having had your site hacked, but you may also be hosting software that does this type of thing on purpose. For some time, sites like Yahoo would take you out of their listings for a year if you were passing viruses, even unintentionally. Malware usually comes with “free” screensaver and chat programs, and normally you get a warning in Webmaster Tools, and a red notice on the search engine results saying “this site may harm your computer.” Experience with one client (hacked by sql injection http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_injection) shows that the red notice cut off 90% of natural SEO traffic while the warning was up. Search engines have the choice of showing a warning or taking your site out of the index, and a new site is more likely to be removed.

Penalty/Filter – If your site is new, it may be seeing the “sandbox” filter, or it may not have been indexed yet. If you bought a domain name from someone else, it may have been banned for bad behavior. Lots of sites and domains for sale online are being sold because they tripped a spamming filter in Google, and no longer generate revenue.

If you believe that you have been penalized in Google, or Webmaster Tools has told you that you are, then you can always file a reinclusion request in Google, and Yahoo, but MSN’s reinclusion link is apparently guiding visitors to a search page with no information.

Most of the time, it is not difficult to get found in the search engines, but it is necessary to be patient. To see if you have been cached in Google, all you have to do is paste your domain name into the search box and see if your site is listed, or type in cache:example.com to see when your site was visited. Choose the “cached text” feature to see what Google can read.

Getting found by the search engines is the first step on the long road to rankings domination, but it is still the most important. Almost every other search engine optimization initiative regarding your site is going to be judged against how the web pages classified by search engine spiders. Advanced link building, content writing, pagerank sculpting, image optimization, and W3C compliance all take a back seat to being properly cached by the engines and placed somewhere among the billions of pages on the World Wide Web.