Technical SEO

Crawling, indexing, rendering, Core Web Vitals, structured data and log files.

24 articles

On-page vs off-page SEO: which one is actually holding you back?
On-page and off-page SEO compared on cost, control, speed and risk — plus a diagnostic for working out which of the two is genuinely your constraint.
4 min read
Technical SEO vs content SEO: which one is worth your next month?
Technical and content SEO compared on effort, ceiling and return — with a decision rule for which to prioritise and a list of the technical problems that genuinely block everything else.
4 min read
Backlinks vs content quality: the argument that never ends
Whether links or content matter more for rankings, why the question is usually asked backwards, and how to tell which is actually limiting your site.
4 min read
Dofollow vs nofollow links: what the attribute actually does
What rel="nofollow", sponsored and ugc actually signal, when to use each, and why nofollow links are worth more than the SEO folklore suggests.
4 min read
Domain Authority vs actual rankings: what the score is and is not
Domain Authority is a third-party prediction, not a Google metric. What it is useful for, where it misleads, and what to look at instead when the decision matters.
4 min read
Internal links vs external links: one you control, one you earn
What internal linking does that external links cannot, why it is the most under-used lever in SEO, and how to structure it without overthinking it.
4 min read
Guest posting vs digital PR: two very different link strategies
Guest posting and digital PR compared on cost, risk, scalability and durability — including where guest posting crosses into territory Google explicitly targets.
4 min read
Screaming Frog vs Sitebulb: raw control against readable output
Screaming Frog and Sitebulb compared on price, crawl control, reporting quality and who each one actually suits — with an honest note on the pricing Sitebulb does not publish.
4 min read
Screaming Frog vs the Semrush site audit: dedicated crawler or bundled module?
Whether a dedicated crawler is worth buying when your SEO suite already audits your site — what the bundled module misses, and when it is genuinely enough.
3 min read
Screaming Frog vs the Ahrefs site audit: credits, control and coverage
How the Ahrefs site audit compares to a dedicated desktop crawler — crawl credits, configurability, and whether the bundled module covers what you need.
4 min read
The best SEO crawlers, and which one your situation calls for
Every SEO crawler worth considering compared on price, crawl limits, configurability and output quality — including the free options that cover most small sites.
4 min read
Log files vs crawl data: what bots actually did against what they could do
Server logs record what search engine crawlers really did on your site; a crawl simulates what they could do. When the difference matters and how to use both.
3 min read
Crawl budget vs index bloat: two problems people keep confusing
What crawl budget actually means, what index bloat is, why most sites have neither problem, and how to tell if yours genuinely does.
4 min read
robots.txt vs noindex: the distinction that causes the most damage
What robots.txt does, what noindex does, why they are not interchangeable, and the specific mistake that leaves unwanted pages permanently stuck in the index.
4 min read
Structured data testing tools compared: which validator tells you what
The Rich Results Test, the Schema Markup Validator and Search Console enhancement reports do different jobs. Which to use when, and why markup that "looks fine" often is not.
4 min read
Lighthouse vs PageSpeed Insights: same engine, different data
Why Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights give different numbers for the same page, which one reflects what Google actually measures, and when to use each.
4 min read
Core Web Vitals: field data vs lab data, and which one counts
What field and lab data measure, why only one of them affects your rankings, and how to use both without chasing a score that does not matter.
4 min read
Server-side vs client-side rendering for SEO
Why rendering strategy is one of the few technical decisions that can make content invisible, how to check what search engines actually see, and what to do about it.
3 min read
Mobile-first vs desktop SEO: the desktop version is not the one being judged
What mobile-first indexing actually means for your site, the specific ways mobile and desktop versions diverge, and what to check.
4 min read
301 vs 302 redirects: permanent, temporary, and which to use
The practical difference between permanent and temporary redirects, what each signals, and the redirect mistakes that cost sites the most traffic.
3 min read
XML sitemap vs internal linking: two ways to be found, one that matters more
What an XML sitemap actually does, why internal linking does more for discovery and ranking, and how to use both correctly.
3 min read
Subdomain vs subdirectory: the argument that will not die
Whether blog.example.com or example.com/blog is better for SEO, what search engines have actually said, and why the practical answer is clearer than the theory.
3 min read
International SEO: hreflang, subdirectories, subdomains and ccTLDs
How to structure a multi-language or multi-region site, what hreflang actually does, and the implementation mistakes that make international SEO fail.
3 min read
White hat vs black hat SEO: where the line actually is
What actually separates legitimate SEO from tactics that breach search engine policies, why the grey area is smaller than people claim, and how to judge a borderline case.
4 min read

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