| name | seo |
| description | Technical SEO strategy for rhino-inquisitor.com — URL preservation, redirect architecture, canonical signals, structured data, sitemap/robots policy, and Search Console workflow. Use when making decisions about URL disposition (keep/merge/retire), redirect implementation, canonical tags, sitemap/robots.txt policy, JSON-LD schema, or Google Search Console actions. |
| license | Forward Proprietary |
| compatibility | Hugo, GitHub Pages, Google Search Console |
Technical SEO
Authoritative guidance for preserving and improving search equity for rhino-inquisitor.com. Covers URL strategy, redirect architecture, canonical signals, structured data, sitemap/robots policy, and Search Console workflow.
When to Use This Skill
- Assigning URL disposition (
keep, merge, retire) to any discovered URL
- Deciding how to implement a redirect on GitHub Pages static hosting
- Writing or reviewing canonical tag, sitemap, or robots.txt logic
- Authoring JSON-LD structured data for article, site, or breadcrumb templates
- Planning or executing Search Console actions (sitemap submission, URL inspection)
- Evaluating whether edge/CDN redirect infrastructure is required
- Assessing SEO impact of any content, template, or routing change
- Not for: Hugo template syntax (use
hugo-development)
Core Risk Model
URL preservation is the primary goal for any route change — treat existing URLs as durable and never issue a Change of Address for an in-place site.
| Risk | Severity | Mitigation |
|---|
| URL loss on existing routes | Critical | Explicit url front matter on every page |
| Redirect quality (meta-refresh vs 301) | High | Preserve URLs; use edge layer if >5% change |
| Canonical signal misalignment | High | Align canonical tag, sitemap URL, internal links |
| Soft-404 from irrelevant redirects | High | Map to nearest relevant destination or explicit 404 |
| Duplicate indexable variants (www/apex, slash/no-slash) | High | DNS + Pages settings enforce single canonical host |
| Staging site accidentally indexed | Medium | noindex meta tag on staging — never rely on robots.txt alone |
| Structured data loss across templates | Medium | Template-driven JSON-LD enforced in CI smoke checks |
| Search Console verification disruption | Medium | Verify continuity method before DNS cutover |
URL Disposition Decision Rules
Every URL in url-data/url-manifest.json must have exactly one disposition:
| Disposition | Meaning | Required output |
|---|
keep | Path preserved exactly | Hugo page with url matching existing path |
merge | Content consolidated | Hugo aliases on target page pointing to this path |
retire | No equivalent content | 404 (default) or 410 (edge layer only) |
Approval gates:
merge requires written rationale + SEO owner approval.retire with redirect to homepage is not allowed for content with organic traffic.- Pagination
keep requires ≥ 100 clicks (90d) or ≥ 10 referring domains.
Redirect Architecture Hierarchy
Priority 1 (strongest signal): HTTP 301/308 — origin or edge/CDN layer
Priority 2 (acceptable fallback): Hugo alias — HTML meta-refresh + rel=canonical
Priority 3 (emergency only): JavaScript redirect — weakest signal, avoid
GitHub Pages constraint: Pages is static hosting with no origin-level HTTP status control.
Hugo aliases produce meta-refresh HTML — Google follows these but they are slower to process.
Edge redirect threshold: If > 5% of indexed URLs change path, activate edge/CDN redirect infrastructure before shipping the change.
Rules:
- Never redirect to homepage as a catch-all for missing URLs.
- No redirect chains — every source URL must resolve in a single hop.
- Keep redirects active for minimum 12 months; longer preferred.
- Alias pages must be excluded from sitemap (verify Hugo default holds).
Canonical Signal Alignment (All Three Must Agree)
rel=canonical tag → https://rhino-inquisitor.com/path/
sitemap.xml entry → https://rhino-inquisitor.com/path/
Internal links → /path/ (relative, resolves to apex canonical)
Violation patterns to catch in CI:
- Canonical points to a different path than the page's own URL.
- Sitemap contains alias/redirect pages.
- Internal links use the
www host instead of the canonical apex domain.
- Canonical uses HTTP instead of HTTPS.
Structured Data Requirements
BlogPosting (article pages)
Required fields: headline, datePublished, dateModified, url, author, publisher
Recommended: image, description, mainEntityOfPage
WebSite (all pages via base template)
Required fields: name, url
Recommended: description, potentialAction (SearchAction if search exists)
BreadcrumbList (section/article pages)
Required fields: itemListElement array with @type: ListItem, position, name, item
Validation: Test with Google Rich Results Test and Search Console Rich Results report.
Sitemap Policy
sitemap.xml is generated by Hugo from build output only — never hand-authored.- Must exclude:
draft: true pages, alias redirect pages, noindex pages.
- Must include: all indexable posts, pages, category term pages, video pages.
- Submit to Search Console after any domain change; keep the previous sitemap reference during transition.
- Verify sitemap URL count matches expected inventory from
url-data/url-manifest.json keep items.
robots.txt Rules
User-agent: *
Content-Signal: ai-train=yes, search=yes, ai-input=yes
Allow: /
Disallow: /wp-json/ # Retire — system endpoint
Disallow: /xmlrpc.php
Disallow: /author/ # Retire — system endpoint
Sitemap: https://rhino-inquisitor.com/sitemap.xml
Critical distinctions:
Disallow controls crawling, not indexing. Use noindex meta tag to prevent indexing.- Never use
robots.txt as the sole protection for staging environments.
noindex in robots.txt is not standard and may not be respected; use <meta name="robots" content="noindex">.Content-Signal (contentsignals.org) declares AI/search usage preferences (ai-train, search, ai-input — each yes/no) inside a User-agent block; it does not replace Allow/Disallow crawl control and crawlers may ignore it.
Core Web Vitals Thresholds (Blocking Gate)
| Metric | Good (target) | Needs Improvement | Poor (blocking) |
|---|
| LCP | ≤ 2.5s | 2.5–4.0s | > 4.0s |
| INP | ≤ 200ms | 200–500ms | > 500ms |
| CLS | ≤ 0.1 | 0.1–0.25 | > 0.25 |
Measure at 75th percentile of field data where available; lab data (Lighthouse) as proxy during development.
Search Console Workflow
Before a route-affecting change
- Confirm both Domain property and
https://www. URL-prefix property are verified.
- Export: top organic pages (90d), top linked pages from Links report.
- Capture indexing baseline: Page Indexing report, Sitemap status.
- Lower DNS TTL ≥ 1 week before cutover.
At a domain or host change
- Deploy Hugo build to GitHub Pages.
- Update DNS records; verify HTTPS issuance (can take hours).
- Submit new sitemap URL (
https://rhino-inquisitor.com/sitemap.xml).
- Use URL Inspection to request indexing of homepage and top 10 URLs.
- Do NOT use "Change of Address" — this applies only to domain-level moves (e.g., example.com → newdomain.com), not in-place host or path changes.
Post-change monitoring (weeks 1–6)
- Daily: Page Indexing report for anomalies, 404/soft-404 spikes.
- Weekly: Coverage trend, sitemap processing status, CWV field report.
- Priority URL Inspection sample for top 20 organic landing pages.
- Watch for canonical drift, soft-404 clusters, unexpected de-indexing.
Quick Reference: SEO Anti-Patterns
| ❌ Anti-pattern | ✅ Correct approach |
|---|
| Redirect all missing pages to homepage | Map to nearest relevant content or serve 404 |
Use robots.txt Disallow to block staging | Use <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> |
| Set canonical to a different host variant | Canonical must match the rendered apex URL |
| Submit Change of Address for hosting move | No CoA needed; just update DNS and sitemap |
| Remove old sitemaps from Search Console immediately | Keep old sitemap during transition window |
Use 410 Gone on Pages-only hosting | Pages cannot emit 410; use edge layer or accept 404 |
| Trust alias redirect pages as full 301 equivalents | Preserve URLs wherever possible |
References
