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Fix the plumbing before you write anything.

Technical SEO is the work that decides whether Google can reach your pages, read them and trust them enough to rank them. It is boring, it is unglamorous, and on most sites we audit it is where the first jump in rankings comes from. Here is the list we run, in the order we run it.

24
Checks in
the list
4
Stages, run
in order
<2s
Load target
on 4G

Order Matters

Why this list runs in sequence

A page that Google cannot crawl will never be indexed, so crawling is checked first. A page that is indexed but returns the wrong canonical will have its ranking credited elsewhere, so canonicals come second. Speed and structured data only matter once the first two are correct. Running these out of order is how audits produce a hundred findings and no ranking change.

Stage 1

Can Google reach the page?

The last one catches more sites than people expect. A page with no internal links pointing at it is an orphan, and Google treats orphans as unimportant even when they sit in the sitemap.

Stage 2

Does Google know which URL to rank?

That last check is the one people skip. Two pages chasing the same keyword split their own ranking signals, and the usual fix is to merge them rather than to optimise both harder.

Stage 3

Is the page fast enough on a real phone?

Test on a mid-range Android phone on a real 4G connection, not on your laptop on office wifi. Most Indian traffic arrives on hardware two or three generations behind whatever you are reading this on.

Stage 4

Can Google understand what the page is?

Structured data that describes content the user cannot see is a manual-action risk, not a shortcut. If the FAQ schema lists six questions, six questions must be on the page.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should I run a technical SEO audit?

Once properly, then a short version monthly and a full pass after any redesign, migration or CMS change. Most technical problems are introduced by a change rather than appearing on their own, so the audit is worth most immediately after you ship something.

What is the difference between technical SEO and on-page SEO?

Technical SEO is about whether Google can crawl, index and render the page at all. On-page SEO is about whether the content answers the query well once it can. Technical work has a ceiling, since fixing crawling on a page nobody wants to read changes nothing. It just removes the reasons a good page cannot rank.

How long before technical fixes show up in rankings?

Indexing fixes can move within days once Google recrawls. Speed and structural work usually take four to eight weeks to show clearly in Search Console, because Core Web Vitals are reported on a rolling 28-day window of real user data.

Do I need a developer for this?

For the crawling and canonical checks, usually not. Search Console and a crawler will tell you most of it. For speed work and structured data you generally do, because the fixes live in templates and build configuration rather than in the CMS.

Is Core Web Vitals actually a ranking factor?

Yes, but a small one compared to relevance and links. Its real value is commercial rather than algorithmic. A site that loads in two seconds instead of eight converts more of the traffic it already has, which usually matters more than the ranking nudge.

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