Stop 03 · Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Topics · 4/12

Technical SEO Basics

In short

Great content can still be invisible if Google can't crawl it, finds three copies of it, or hits broken links. Technical SEO keeps the roads to your content open.

The behind-the-scenes factors that determine whether search engines can crawl and index your site properly — robots.txt, XML sitemaps, canonical tags, and crawl errors.

The blob on a scooter follows clear arrow signs through a neat housing society.

Think of it like this

Road signs for the delivery boy

A delivery rider finds your flat easily if the society has clear gate signs, building numbers and no dead-end lanes. Confusing roads mean late or missed deliveries. Technical SEO puts up clear signs for Googlebot.

Watch it happen

Googlebot visiting your site

Googlebot

Your site

GET /robots.txt

1/6First, it checks the rules: which paths can I crawl?

The big ideas

What you need to know

XML sitemap

A list of your important URLs. Submit it in Google Search Console.

Redirects

Use 301 redirects when a page moves permanently, so visitors and Google land on the new one.

Duplicate content

Canonical tags tell Google which version of similar pages is the main one.

HTTPS and clean errors

Serve every page over HTTPS and fix broken links that return 404 errors.

See it in code

Walk through the code

xml

1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>2<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">3  <url>4    <loc>https://chaibox.in/</loc>5    <lastmod>2026-10-01</lastmod>6  </url>7  <url>8    <loc>https://chaibox.in/blog/masala-chai-recipe</loc>9  </url>10</urlset>

1/3The urlset wraps every page you want crawled.

A tiny XML sitemap. Most CMS tools and plugins generate this automatically, but you should know what's inside.

Save yourself the pain

Common mistakes

Oops

Deleting old pages and letting them show 404.

Do this instead

If there's a matching new page, 301 redirect the old URL to it.

Oops

Leaving a site-wide noindex tag on after launch.

Do this instead

Developers often add noindex on staging sites. Check it's removed when the real site goes live.

Your mission

Run a free technical check

~30 min

Quick check

You moved /summer-sale to /sale permanently. What should /summer-sale do?

Go deeper

1Check a website's robots.txt file and XML sitemap for basic correctness.
2Learn what a canonical tag does and why duplicate content can hurt rankings.
3Use a free tool to run a basic technical SEO crawl on a sample site.