Guides
What a problem means, how to confirm it on your own site, how to fix it and how to check that the fix worked.
AI search
- How to block or allow AI crawlers in robots.txtAI search crawlers vs training crawlers, the user agents that matter (GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot) and robots.txt rules.
- How to appear in ChatGPT search resultsWhat decides if ChatGPT search cites your site: crawler access, indexing, content without JavaScript, clear answers and trust.
- llms.txt: what it is, an example, and whether you need onellms.txt is a Markdown map of your site for AI tools. The format, a complete example, what to include, what it does not do, and how to check yours.
Mobile layout and QA
- How to find broken links on your websiteFree ways to find broken links, broken images and links to redirects across a whole site, and how to fix them at the source.
- How to fix horizontal scroll on mobileFind the element wider than the screen in a minute, then fix it: 100vw, fixed widths, tables, long words. Not overflow-x: hidden.
- How to test a website before launchA practical order for testing a site by hand: content, links, phones, forms, speed, SEO and accessibility, and how to log bugs.
- How to test a website on different screen sizesFree ways to check a site at phone, tablet and desktop widths: browser device mode, which widths, what to look for.
- The viewport meta tag: the right value and the common mistakesWhat the viewport meta tag does, the one value most sites need, why disabling zoom hurts accessibility, and how to check it on your site.
- Website looks different on mobile: why it happens and how to fix itTiny text, squeezed layout, broken menu? Why sites look different on phones (WordPress, Wix, custom) and how to fix each cause.
Speed
- How to fix Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)Find what moves while your page loads and stop it: images without size, ads, embeds, web fonts, late banners. With how to measure.
- How to fix Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)Find the LCP element and the slow part of the load (server, discovery, download, render), then apply the fix that matches.
- Images missing width and height attributes: why it matters and how to fix itWhy images need width and height even in responsive layouts, and how to add them in HTML, WordPress and Next.js without stretching.
- Why is my website slow? Ten common causes and how to find yoursMeasure first, then match symptom to cause: slow hosting, heavy images, too much JavaScript, third-party scripts, no caching.
Search Console indexing
- Google Search Console page indexing issues, explained one by oneEvery reason in the Search Console Pages report: what it means, whether to act, and the fix guide for each. Start here.
- “Alternate page with proper canonical tag”: do you need to fix it?Usually nothing to fix: Google follows your canonical. How to check the right pages are listed, and when it is a real problem.
- “Blocked due to access forbidden (403)”: why Google is refused and how to fix itYour server or firewall refused Googlebot with 403. Common causes (WAF, CDN bot rules, geo-blocks) and how to let Google in.
- “Blocked by robots.txt” and “Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt”: how to fix bothWhat the two robots.txt reasons in Search Console mean, how to find the rule that blocks a URL, and when to unblock it or use noindex instead.
- “Crawled – currently not indexed”: what it means and how to fix itGoogle crawled the page and chose not to index it. How to find out why and fix it: quality, duplicates, internal links.
- “Discovered – currently not indexed”: why Google has not crawled the page yetGoogle knows the URL but has not crawled it. The usual causes (slow server, weak links, too many URLs) and how to fix them.
- “Duplicate without user-selected canonical”: how to fix itGoogle found duplicates with no canonical and chose the main page itself. How to find them and set canonicals Google follows.
- “Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag”: how to find where the noindex comes fromFind where a noindex comes from (meta tag, X-Robots-Tag, plugin, staging leftover), remove it where wrong, get the page indexed.
- “Not found (404)” in Search Console: which ones to fix and which to ignore404s in Search Console are often fine. How to sort them, when to redirect, and how to fix internal links to missing pages.
- “Page with redirect” in Search Console: when it is fine and when to fix itRedirected URLs are not indexed, and that is usually right. When to act: links to redirects, chains, loops, redirect errors.
- Server error (5xx) in Search Console: find out if it is real, then fix itGoogle got a 500, 502, 503 or 504. How to tell a lasting failure from a passing one, find the cause, fix it and validate.
- Soft 404: what it means and how to fix itA soft 404 says “not found” or looks empty but answers 200. How to find them and fix missing and thin pages the right way.
- Website not showing on Google: nine causes and how to check each oneYour site is not in Google search? Check indexing first, then nine common causes, from a leftover noindex to a brand-new domain.