Crawling and indexing
Search engines have to reach every page that matters and skip every page that does not. Robots rules, sitemaps, internal links, and orphaned URLs decide that before content ever gets a chance.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO that fixes what search engines actually see
Crawling, indexing, performance, structured data, canonicals, and redirects, audited as one system and fixed at the source. The work that has to be right before content or local SEO can do anything.
What it covers
Three layers decide whether a page can rank at all.
Every technical issue on a site falls into one of these. Most sites have problems in all three.
Performance and Core Web Vitals
Loading, interactivity, and layout stability measured on real devices, then fixed at the source: images, fonts, scripts, and render-blocking assets rather than a caching plugin bolted on top.
Structure and signals
Canonical tags, redirects, structured data, headings, and metadata that tell search engines what each page is, which version counts, and how pages relate to each other.
The SEO audit
An audit is a sequence, not a score.
Automated tools produce a number. A useful audit produces a prioritized list of specific problems with a reason and a fix for each one. This is the order it runs in.
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Crawl the site the way a search engine does
A full crawl surfaces broken links, redirect chains, duplicate titles, thin or orphaned pages, blocked resources, and inconsistent canonicals.
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Compare the crawl to what Google actually indexed
Search Console shows which pages are indexed, excluded, or discovered and ignored. The gap between the two lists is where most technical problems live.
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Measure Core Web Vitals on real templates
Field and lab data for the homepage, a service page, and a content page, so fixes target the templates that drive the whole site rather than one URL.
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Check structured data and metadata
Schema is validated against visible content. Titles, descriptions, and headings are checked for uniqueness and for whether they match the page’s search intent.
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Deliver a prioritized fix list
Each finding gets a plain-language explanation, the likely impact, and the effort involved. You can act on it yourself, hand it to a developer, or have Webbify implement it.
What gets fixed
The problems that come up most often, and get handled here
Findings are implemented directly when Webbify has access to the site, or documented for your developer when it does not.
- Indexing and crawl-budget problems, including pages Google discovers but never indexes
- Redirect mapping and chain cleanup after redesigns, migrations, or URL changes
- Canonical conflicts, duplicate content, and parameter or pagination handling
- Core Web Vitals: images, fonts, scripts, and layout shift
- Structured data that is missing, invalid, or does not match the page
- Search Console errors, manual-action reviews, and sitemap hygiene
- Heading hierarchy, title and description templates, and internal linking gaps
- Site architecture changes that consolidate overlapping pages
In practice
Technical SEO during a platform change.
The highest-stakes technical work usually happens when a site moves.
Lily Lane Aesthetics started as a Squarespace refresh and grew into a custom WordPress rebuild and migration. Every existing URL had to be mapped to its replacement, canonical and indexing settings had to be correct on the new site before launch, and staging had to stay out of Google’s index the entire time. The redesign only worked because the technical layer was planned alongside it rather than checked afterward.
Honest expectations
What technical SEO does and does not do
- A technical audit finds and fixes what blocks search engines. It does not by itself create demand for your services.
- Fixing indexing problems does not guarantee that Google will index every page or rank it anywhere in particular.
- Core Web Vitals scores are one input among many. Passing them removes a drag; it does not lift a site on its own.
- Some findings require content or architecture changes, not code. Those get flagged rather than papered over.
Where this fits
Technical SEO is the foundation the other services build on
Questions
What people ask before a technical audit.
What is a technical SEO audit, and what do I actually get?
An audit is a structured review of how search engines crawl, index, render, and interpret your site. You get a prioritized document listing each issue, why it matters, and what to do about it. Webbify can then implement the fixes or hand the list to your existing developer.
Why isn’t my site showing up in Google?
The usual causes are a noindex tag left on from staging, robots rules blocking pages, a missing or broken sitemap, canonical tags pointing to the wrong URL, or pages with no internal links. Search Console usually shows which one applies. The audit confirms it and fixes it.
Do I need technical SEO if my site is on WordPress or Squarespace?
Often, yes. Platforms handle the basics, but plugins, themes, and years of edits create duplicate pages, slow templates, broken redirects, and conflicting metadata. Technical SEO on a managed platform is mostly cleanup and configuration rather than code.
Can you fix Core Web Vitals without rebuilding the site?
Usually. Most failures come from oversized images, unoptimized fonts, third-party scripts, and layout shift from elements without explicit dimensions. Those can be fixed in place. If the theme or builder itself is the bottleneck, that gets stated plainly along with the options.
Is a technical audit the same as an SEO strategy?
No. The audit covers the technical layer. Keyword-to-page planning, content, and local relevance are covered in the broader SEO engagement, and the audit is usually the first step of it.
Not sure whether the problem is technical?
Request a site review. Webbify checks crawl, indexing, and performance first and tells you whether a technical audit is the right next step or whether the issue is somewhere else.