10 SEO Errors Your Website Probably Has Right Now

We've audited thousands of websites. The same mistakes show up again and again. Most aren't intentional—they're just oversights that accumulate as sites grow and change over time.

The good news: once you identify these errors, they're usually quick to fix. This guide walks you through the 10 most common SEO errors we see, shows you how to find them on your site, and tells you exactly how to fix each one.

• Broken Internal Links

• Missing Canonical Tags

• Slow Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

• Noindex on Important Pages

• Missing Image Alt Text

• Duplicate Meta Descriptions

• Missing Hreflang Tags (Multi-language Sites)

• Orphaned Pages with No Internal Links

Checking for all 10 errors manually takes hours. RankyPulse finds all of them in minutes and shows you exactly which pages need fixing.

A broken internal link happens when you link to a page on your own website that no longer exists or has been moved. When users click the link, they get a 404 error page instead of the content they expected.

• Wastes crawl budget on non-existent pages

• Damages user experience (people hit dead ends)

• Breaks the flow of link authority through your site

• Can indicate a poorly maintained website to Google

Use RankyPulse to scan your site. The report will show every broken link, including:

• Which page contains the broken link

• What URL it points to

• How many pages have broken links

Or check your Google Search Console → Coverage report for pages returning 404 errors.

Option 1: Update the link - If the page was renamed/moved, update the link to point to the new URL.

Option 2: Add a 301 redirect - If the old URL is linked from external sites too, set up a 301 redirect from the old page to the new page (in your .htaccess or through your CMS).

Option 3: Delete the link - If the content no longer exists, just remove the link.

A canonical tag (rel="canonical") tells Google which version of a page is the "main" version when you have multiple versions of the same content. Without it, Google treats each version as a separate page, splitting your ranking authority.

• Duplicate content dilutes ranking authority

• Google wastes crawl budget on duplicate pages

• Your preferred version might not be the one ranking

• Common from URL parameters (e.g., ?utm_source=email, ?color=red, ?sort=price)

Check a few product pages, category pages, or blog posts. Open the page source (Ctrl+U on Windows, Cmd+U on Mac) and search for "canonical". You should see:

If it's missing, that's an error. If you have multiple versions of pages (like with filters or parameters), canonical is critical.

Add a self-referencing canonical to every page:

For pages with URL parameters, the canonical should point to the version without parameters (usually):

If your CMS supports it, enable automatic canonical tag generation. Most modern platforms (WordPress, Shopify, etc.) have this built-in.

LCP measures how fast your main content loads. If it takes over 2.5 seconds, you have a ranking problem. This is one of Google's Core Web Vitals—a direct ranking factor.

• Direct ranking factor (confirmed by Google)

• Affects mobile more than desktop

• Even 1-2 second slowdowns hurt rankings on competitive keywords

• Signals poor user experience to Google

Go to Google PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev), enter your URL, and look for the LCP score. The metric should be under 2.5 seconds . Check mobile first—that's the priority.

• Optimize images - Compress images, use WebP format, serve different sizes to different devices

• Enable lazy loading - Defer off-screen images until they're needed

• Minify CSS - Remove unused CSS that delays page rendering

• Defer JavaScript - Load non-critical JS asynchronously

• Use a CDN - Serve content from servers closer to your users

• Improve server response time - Upgrade hosting or optimize your database queries

The noindex meta tag tells Google not to add a page to its index. Accidentally adding this to important pages means Google won't rank them, even if they're high quality.

• Pages literally won't show up in Google search results

• This error is completely avoidable but happens surprisingly often

• Common on staging sites that accidentally go live with noindex

Open your page source and search for "noindex":

This shouldn't appear on your main content pages. It's only appropriate for:

• Staging/development sites

• Duplicate content pages

You can also check Google Search Console → Coverage report. Pages with "Excluded" status and reason "Noindex" are being blocked.

Remove the noindex tag from important pages. If you intentionally used it (like on a staging site), remove it before going live. The fix is simple—just delete the line.

If it was set in a CMS setting, check your publishing settings and make sure "Crawlable" or "Indexable" is enabled.

Alt text describes an image and helps both Google and visually impaired users understand what the image shows. Missing alt text means Google can't interpret the image content.

• Google can't understand what your images are about

• You miss out on Google Images search traffic

• Affects accessibility (legal requirement in some jurisdictions)

• Keywords in alt text can help with on-page SEO

Scan with RankyPulse to find all images missing alt text. Or manually check:

• Open a page in your browser

• Right-click an image and select "Inspect"

• Look for the alt attribute in the img tag

Add descriptive alt text to every image:

• Describes what the image shows

• Includes relevant keywords naturally (don't stuff)

Bad alt text: "image", "photo", "pic" (not descriptive)

Thin content is short, shallow pages that don't thoroughly answer the user's question. Most competitive keywords are dominated by in-depth, comprehensive content.

• Thin content rarely ranks for competitive keywords

• Google sees it as low-effort, low-value

• Users immediately bounce (high bounce rate signals

• Doesn't satisfy search intent

Check your analytics or use RankyPulse. Look for pages with:

• Under 300 words of content

• High bounce rate but few external links

• No obvious search intent alignment

Expand the content. Look at what top-ranking pages cover and match or exceed that depth.

• More detailed explanations of concepts

• Real examples and case studies

• Data, statistics, and research

• Comparison tables or frameworks

• Visuals (diagrams, infographics, videos)

• Common questions and answers

Aim for 1,500+ words for competitive topics. For less competitive topics, 700-1,000 words often suffices.

A redirect chain happens when a URL redirects to another URL, which redirects to yet another URL. Google prefers direct redirects (one hop, not multiple).

• Wastes crawl budget following multiple redirects

• Slightly slower page load (each redirect takes milliseconds)

• Can pass less link authority to the final page

• Makes debugging more difficult

RankyPulse will flag redirect chains. Or check manually:

• Use a redirect checker tool (redirectionchecker.com)

• Enter old URLs and see how many hops it takes to reach the final URL

Update all redirects to point directly to the final destination:

This requires editing your .htaccess file, server configuration, or CMS redirect settings. If you have many redirects, your developer can audit and consolidate them systematically.

**Duplicate or Mis

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