| name | zolinga-seo-technical-requirements |
| description | Google Search technical requirements, spam policies, structured data, canonical URLs, and violations to avoid. Use when reviewing technical SEO health or setting up new pages. |
| argument-hint | [page or site] |
SEO Technical Requirements and Policies
Use When
- Setting up a new site or page technically
- Reviewing technical SEO health
- Checking for spam policy violations
- Implementing structured data
- Configuring canonical URLs and redirects
- Reviewing robots.txt and noindex usage
Technical Requirements
The technical requirements cover the bare minimum Google needs to show a page in search results. Most sites pass these without realizing it.
Key requirements:
- Google must be able to crawl the page.
- The page must not block indexing (unless intentionally).
- The page must return a 200 OK status (not 4xx or 5xx).
- Content must be accessible without requiring login or special permissions (unless intended).
Sources: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/technical
Spam Policies
Behaviors and tactics that can lead to lower ranking or complete omission from Google Search:
- Cloaking: Showing different content to users and search engines.
- Doorway pages: Pages created to rank for specific search queries with little unique value.
- Hacked content: Content placed on your site without permission due to security vulnerabilities.
- Hidden text and links: Content visible to search engines but not to users.
- Keyword stuffing: Filling pages with keywords in an unnatural way.
- Link spam: Buying or selling links, excessive link exchanges, using automated programs to create links.
- Malware and phishing: Hosting malicious software or deceptive pages.
- Misleading functionality: Services or pages that trick users into thinking they can access something they cannot.
- Scraped content: Copying content from other sites without adding original value.
- Spammy automatically-generated content: Content generated programmatically without producing anything original or adding sufficient value.
- Thin affiliate pages: Pages with copied product descriptions and reviews that add no additional value.
- User-generated spam: Spammy content posted by users on forums, comments, etc.
Sources: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies
Key Best Practices (Search Essentials)
- Create helpful, reliable, people-first content.
- Use words people would search for in prominent locations: title, main heading, alt text, link text.
- Make links crawlable so Google can find other pages on your site.
- Tell people about your site. Be active in communities.
- Follow best practices for images, videos, structured data, and JavaScript.
- Enhance how your site appears in search with structured data and other features.
- Use appropriate methods to control how your content appears in search.
Sources: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials
Structured Data
- Valid structured data makes pages eligible for special features in search results: review stars, carousels, rich snippets, etc.
- Use JSON-LD format in
<script type="application/ld+json"> tags in the page <head>.
- Common types: SoftwareApplication, FAQPage, Organization, Product, Article, BreadcrumbList.
- Test structured data with the Rich Results Test tool.
Sources: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/intro-structured-data
Canonical URLs and Duplicate Content
- Search engines choose one canonical URL per piece of content.
- Having duplicate content is not a spam violation, but it wastes crawl resources.
- Prefer 301 redirects from duplicate URLs to the canonical URL.
- Use
<link rel="canonical"> when redirects are not possible.
- If you do nothing, Google will attempt to canonicalize automatically.
Sources: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/consolidate-duplicate-urls
robots.txt and noindex
- robots.txt: Prevents crawling but may not prevent indexing if Google finds the page through external links.
- noindex meta tag: Prevents indexing. Use this when you want a page excluded from search results.
- Password protection: Also prevents indexing.
Sources: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/control-what-you-share
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