Technical optimization
Search Engine Land is your source for technical SEO news and content. You’ll find a variety of up-to-date and authoritative resources, including the latest news, tactic-rich tutorials, and the latest data to help you work smarter and make better decisions.
What you read here is written by our experienced in-house team, and subject matter experts from leading brands and agencies.
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Why SEOs are going to miss the Structured Data Testing Tool
Google’s decision to deprecate the testing tool in favor of the Rich Results Testing Tool isn’t sad because of nostalgia, but because this feels like a downgrade masked as an improvement.
Guide to Core Web Vitals for SEOs and Developers
What you need to know about Google’s latest set of key user experience metrics for Web Developers.
Technical SEO for Shopify: A guide to optimizing your store for search engines
How to address the technical limitations in Shopify to improve your store’s search visibility.
Core Web Vitals report replaces Speed report in Google Search Console: What you need to know
If you are looking for the speed report in Google Search Console, it is no longer named that.
SMX Overtime: Schema and structured data — hidden gold for SEOs
Technical SEO Chris Long discusses the benefits of schema, MREIDs and markup for e-commerce category pages and more.
A deep dive into the fact check structured data: Who is it right for?
If you want to position yourself as an authority in your space, learn how to use Fact Check structured data.
New official Google advice on generating structured data with JavaScript
Do you use Google Tag Manager or custom JavaScript with structured data? You will want to read this.
Google ends support for data-vocabulary.org structured data in rich results
A last reminder to switch to schema.org markup before April 6 to maintain rich result eligibility.
Pro Tip: 3 important XML sitemap checks to improve your SEO
Evaluate what important URLs are missing, what needs to be removed and asses how Google indexes your XML sitemap URLs.
Bing adopts SpecialAnnouncement structured data for COVID-19
The SpecialAnnouncement markup can be applied to coronavirus-related business, travel, health agency and testing center updates.
Video: Max Prin on technical SEO tools and PWAs
Did you know that sometimes when you build SEO tools it helps you learn more about how search works?
Video: Martha van Berkel talks about structured data
Does adding schema help improve your search rankings? Google says no but...
Schema.org adds coronavirus-related structured data types in version 7.0
“SpecialAnnouncement” and “eventAttendanceMode” can help businesses provide event updates in the search results.
Hiring an SEO? Why a technical SEO audit shouldn’t be part of the proposal process
Experienced SEOs share what to expect from an initial audit and why Google’s hiring video misses the mark.
TechTarget cites technical SEO issues as reason for 25% decline in Google traffic
In TechTarget's recent earnings report, the company said unpaid traffic represented 94% of overall traffic in the quarter.
Video: Josef Sperzel talks technical SEO and using Python to pull data
Sperzel says he's most excited about using Python to do data visualization and streamline the processes behind technical SEO.
Google will drop support for data-vocabulary.org structured data on April 6
Site owners will have to switch to schema.org markup to be eligible for rich results.
Google Search Console unparsable structured data report data issue
No need to panic, the errors you may be seeing in Google Search Console might be related to a bug with Google and not an issue with your web site.
Video: William Álvarez on the importance of structured data and Google search
He also likes to give back to the SEO community by mentoring less experienced SEOs.
A framework for SEO success with structured data
Aleyda Solis and Chris Long share their approaches to using Schema to increase organic search visibility.
Google: Stick to structured data guidelines if you want the rich result
“Even without the structured data leading to rich results, our systems profit by understanding the pages better when they use structured data,” Mueller said.
Catching SEO errors during development using automated tests
Avoid the high cost of catching SEO issues in the production phase by using automated testing techniques during development.
Breadcrumb structured data reports now available in Google Search Console
The new report can help you debug issues with breadcrumbs displaying in the search results.
Yes, you can add JSON structured data to the body of your pages
Head or body, Mueller explains that Google can read both just fine.
Video: Catalyst’s Paul Shapiro on going beyond technical SEO
Natural language processing, SEO testing, technical SEO audits and more were all discussed in this vlog.
Yoast SEO 11.6 updates how-to structured data block, following Google’s changes
The latest update also includes more UX changes and bug fixes.
Using structured data to create a semantically enhanced web
At SMX Advanced, speakers Cata Milos and Max Prin highlight the rise of structured data for Bing and Google – and the work being done to expand its practical use.
SMX® - Search Marketing Expo & Conference series
How to spin a bad site migration into higher traffic and conversions
A look at Merkle's Search Engine Land Award-winning campaign to help a new client remedy replatforming problems, regain rankings and revenue.
Yoast SEO 11.4 adds FAQ structured data, UX improvements
The new FAQ structured data only works with the WordPress block editor.
Yoast, Google devs propose XML Sitemaps for WordPress Core
The proposal also includes an API for further customization.
How to run Screaming Frog SEO Spider in the cloud in 2019
By utilizing the power of a cloud provider with an open source operating system along with a crawl analysis tool we can create new solutions and take our SEO to the next level.
Yoast SEO 11.3 lets you add an image of a person to its structured data graph
In its update notes, Yoast reminds us that sites below WordPress 5.2 may no longer be supported.
How crawl budget has changed in the last 2 years
Here's what you need to know about crawl budget and what it all means for your optimization efforts now.
Evergreen Googlebot with Chromium rendering engine: What technical SEOs need to know
Googlebot now supports many more features and will make it easier for developers to ensure their sites work with Googlebot.
Google Search adds support for FAQ and How-to structured data
Google now supports more structured data and adds two new enhancement reports within Google Search Console.
Sitelinks searchbox, logo enhancement and unparsable structured data report added to GSC
Check out these three new reporting goodies Google just added to Search Console.
Google confirms AJAX (i.e. XHR) calls consume crawl budget
One more thing to look at if you need to optimize your crawl budget for the most efficient Googlebot crawl of your pages.
SEOs frustrated by Google’s belated pagination announcement
Apparently, people don’t like being kept in the dark.
Google Search Console adds new actions to sitemap report
Google is proving that it is continuing to port old features from the old Search Console to the new one.
Using JavaScript to publish content? Here are 6 ways to view rendered HTML via desktop and mobile
Always test your pages using Google’s own tools and third-party resources to view the rendered HTML to make sure all your content is showing up.