Patrick Stox from Ahrefs shared insights from auditing over 1,000,000 websites, highlighting critical technical SEO issues such as broken links, redirects, and indexability concerns. Key findings include high percentages of 'noindex' tags, missing meta descriptions, and mixed content issues affecting site performance. The presentation underscores the significance of addressing these issues for improved SEO outcomes and user experience.

1. Panel: Technical SEO
Patrick Stox
Product Advisor,
Technical SEO, & Brand
Ambassador at Ahrefs
What I learned from
auditing over
1,000,000 websites

2. Who Is Patrick Stox?
Product Advisor & Technical SEO @ Ahrefs
Writing
•Ahrefs SEO book
•Ahrefs blog, SEL
•SEO Chapter of the Web Almanac 2021
•Technical Review Editor of the Art of SEO
4th edition
Community
•Founded a Technical SEO slack group
•/r/TechSEO moderator on Reddit
•Organize Raleigh SEO Meetup, Raleigh
SEO Conference, Beer & SEO
•Defined the role of SEO for the US
Department of Labor

6. Entire deck on Hreflang
issues with insights.
https://speakerdeck.com/pa
trickstox/hreflang-study-
and-interesting-issues-
brighton-seo-2023-patrick-

7. Full Data
http://bit.ly/ahrefs-site-audit-
study

9. Broken Pages
4XX page 44.082
404 page 40.555

11. How many hits?
How many links?

12. Redirect if you can

13. Free full-text matching
redirect script
https://colab.research.googl
e.com/drive/18lMkaRHK__e
NM6m5FpoyhGDlDAYr3a6P
?usp=sharing

14. Server Issues
● 5XX page 8.482%
● 500 page 5.001%
● Timed out 12.579%

15. Did traffic drop?
Are pages still indexed?

16. Redirects
● 3XX redirect 95.183%
● 302 redirect 25.576%
● Meta refresh redirect 1.763%

17. Meta refresh redirects are more
common than I thought.

18. Permanent Redirects
● HTTP 301
● HTTP 308
● Meta refresh 0
● HTTP refresh 0
● JavaScript location
● Crypto redirect

19. Temporary Redirects (weak signal
forward)
● HTTP 302
● HTTP 303
● HTTP 307 (server side, not the
browser cached one)
● Meta refresh >0
● HTTP refresh >0

20. Temporary Redirects (at some point)

21. Keep redirects at
least 1 year

22. Redirects
● HTTP to HTTPS redirect
88.001%
● HTTPS to HTTP redirect
6.153%

23. >6% is crazy high for people
redirecting HTTPS to HTTP

24. Redirects
● Broken redirect12.662%

25. Redirects
● Redirect chain 45.193%
● Redirect chain too long 0.114%

26. Google will follow up to 10 hops.
I don’t worry til >5 hops.

27. Redirects
● Redirect loop 2.162%

28. Wastes a lot of resources.

29. Mixed Content
● HTTPS/HTTP mixed
content 13.342%

30. Content Security Policy
(CSP)
upgrade-insecure-requests

31. In .htaccess:
<ifModule mod_headers.c>
Header always set Content-Security-
Policy "upgrade-insecure-requests;"
</IfModule>

32. Indexability
● Noindex 49.719%
Noindex in HTML and HTTP
header 5.776%

33. Intentional = fine
Unintentional = bad

34. Nofollow
● Nofollow page 26.34%
● Nofollow in HTML and
HTTP header 0.096%

35. Nofollows all links, including
internal links.
I’d rarely use this. Maybe on
UGC pages.

36. Canonicals
● Canonical from HTTP
to HTTPS 3.464%
● Canonical from HTTPS
to HTTP 2.079%

37. Canonicals
● Canonical points to
redirect 5.877%

38. These will likely get
followed.
Look at what version is
indexed.

39. Canonicals
● Canonical points to
4XX 2.598%

40. Likely ignored.

41. Canonicals
● Non-canonical page
specified as canonical
one 1.362%

42. Links (Indexable)
● Page has links to
redirect 62.719%

43. As long as they resolve, it’s
okay.
Clean up when you get a
chance, but not a big deal.

44. Links (Indexable)
● Orphan page (has no incoming
internal links) 49.905%
● Page has only one dofollow
incoming internal link
44.397%

45. These pages aren’t likely
important.
If you didn’t link to them,
how much do you really
care?

46. Links (Indexable)
● Page has links to
broken page
36.195%

47. Clean up for UX.

48. Links (Indexable)
● Page has nofollow outgoing
internal links 26.69%
● Page has nofollow incoming
internal links only 6.218%

49. Don’t nofollow internal links.

50. Links (Indexable)
● HTTPS page has internal
links to HTTP 20.536%

51. Okay-ish if they redirect.

52. Links (Indexable)
● HTTP page has internal
links to HTTPS 3.427%

53. Redirect to HTTPS.

54. Links Not Indexable
● Page has links to redirect
62.719%
● Orphan page (has no incoming
internal links) 49.905%
● +more

55. Impact is really more on UX.
Shouldn’t have any impact
on traffic or rankings.

56. Content Indexable
● Meta description tag missing
or empty 72.926%
● Title tag missing or empty
5.545%

57. Content Indexable
● Title too long 63.193%
● Meta description too short
59.242%
● Meta description too long
54.455%
● Title too short 32.758%

58. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Google will write titles and
descriptions for you.
Only worry if the pages get
lots of traffic or you think
they’re important.

61. Content Indexable
● Page and SERP titles
do not match
68.537%

62. Script to see which titles
were the most changed.
https://colab.research.googl
e.com/drive/1mg3DTWVkgX
0KHD3Hx2Y3WyMAUDjdm3
cB?usp=sharing

63. Content Indexable
● H1 tag missing or empty59.503%

64. Usually a quick fix so I’d do
it, but not that important.
Text size is likely more
important.

65. Content Indexable
● Multiple H1 tags 51.254%

66. Allowed in HTML5.

67. Content Indexable
● Low word count 18.208%

68. Who is the president of
Bulgaria?
You don’t need 1500 words
to answer that!

69. Content Indexable
● Multiple meta description tags
3.562%
● Multiple title tags 3.036%

70. Combined into 1 for
indexing in Google.

71. Content Not
Indexable
● Meta description tag missing
or empty 72.926%
● Title too long 63.193%
● +More

72. It’s not indexable, don’t
worry about it.

73. Duplicates
● Duplicate pages without
canonical 15.698%

75. Google is pretty good at
figuring this out.

76. Performance
● Pages with poor CLS
0.292%
● Pages with poor LCP
0.249%
● Pages with poor FID 0.018%

77. Add PageSpeed Insights to
your audits to get CWV (field
data) and Lighthouse (lab
data) at scale

79. Images
● Missing alt text80.401%

80. Accessibility issue.
Potential legal issue.
Alt text counts as normal
text on the page.

81. Images
● Image file size too large
27.25%

82. Compress your images.

83. Images
● Image broken 15.42%
● Page has broken image
15.42%

84. Fix broken ones on
important pages.

85. Images
● Page has redirected image
9.142%
● Image redirects 8.961%

86. Low priority as long as they
work.

87. Images
● HTTPS page links to
HTTP image
12.328%

88. Content Security Policy
(CSP)
upgrade-insecure-requests

89. JavaScript
● JavaScript broken 4.823%
● Page has broken JavaScript
4.822%

90. Potential UX and
functionality issues.
It may even prevent your
content from being seen.

91. JavaScript
● Page has redirected JavaScript
2.644%
● JavaScript redirects2.626%

92. Fine as long as it still works.
Clean up if you can, but I
wouldn’t prioritize this.

93. JavaScript
● HTTPS page links to HTTP
JavaScript 1.663%

94. Content Security Policy
(CSP)
upgrade-insecure-requests

95. CSS
● CSS broken 4.25%
● Page has broken CSS 4.25%

96. Potential UX issues.

97. CSS
● CSS redirects 1.276%

98. CSS
● HTTPS page links to
HTTP CSS 1.063%

99. Content Security Policy
(CSP)
upgrade-insecure-requests

100. Sitemaps
● 3XX redirect in sitemap
22.838%
● Non-canonical page in sitemap
12.107%
● Noindex page in sitemap
11.602%

101. Pages in sitemaps are a
canonicalization signal.
They should all be 200s and
the canonical.

102. Automate your sitemaps.
If manual, I don’t bother.

103. Sitemaps
Sitemap larger 50MB #N/A
Sitemap with over 50K URLs
#N/A
Sitemap in the wrong format
#N/A

104. These can keep your
sitemap from being
processed.

105. IndexNow is better imo.
● Faster
● More than just 200s
● Data protection
● <lastmod> is unreliable
● Broader distribution

106. Real-time monitoring
coming to Ahrefs, w/
IndexNow

107. External Pages
● External 3XX redirect
17.252%

108. Helping another site. I
wouldn’t prioritize this.

109. External Pages
● External 4XX 9.2%
● External 5XX 4.988%
● External time out 3.688%

110. Potential UX issue.

111. Other
● Double slash in URL11.078%

112. Lots more sites than
expected.
Ignored by browsers and
search engines.

113. Other
● More than three parameters
in URL8.067%

114. May indicate bloat.

115. Other
● Non-canonical page receives
organic traffic 6.55%
● 3XX page receives organic
traffic 6.139%

116. One page or the other will
rank.
Don’t worry about it unless
you have a specific
preference.

117. Other
● 4XX page receives
organic traffic 2.141%
● Noindex page receives
organic traffic 0.636%

118. Recent?
Blocked by robots.txt?

119. Do Care About
● Not indexed but should be
● Redirect 404 pages w/ links
● Internal linking
● Anything else that’s important
but not working

120. Thank You!
Try Ahrefs Site Auditor Free
ahrefs.com/awt