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Posted on • Originally published at prateeksha.com

10 Technical SEO Issues Silently Killing Your Traffic (and How to Fix Them)

Hook — why this matters to engineers and founders

You ship great features and publish useful content — but organic traffic isn’t growing. Often the culprit isn’t your marketing copy; it’s technical SEO problems that stop search engines from crawling, indexing, or trusting your site. Fixing those issues is high ROI work for dev teams and indie founders.

The context: technical SEO in one line

Technical SEO is about making your site discoverable, fast, and trustworthy to search engines and users. Think of it as server- and build-system hygiene for search — if the foundation is broken, content and links won’t help.

The 10 silent killers (quick diagnosis + fix)

Below are the most common issues I see in audits, with practical fixes you can implement in a sprint.

  1. Broken links and crawl errors

    Problem: 404s and bad redirects waste crawl budget and create poor UX.

    Fix: Crawl the site (Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, or Search Console) and map 404s. Implement 301 redirects for moved pages or restore content. For external broken links, update or remove them.

  2. Slow website speed

    Problem: Slow pages increase bounce rate and hurt Core Web Vitals.

    Fix: Compress images (WebP), lazy-load offscreen images, minify assets, enable Brotli/Gzip, and use a CDN. Measure with PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse.

  3. Mobile usability issues

    Problem: Mobile-first indexing means a poor mobile site can tank rankings.

    Fix: Use responsive design, check tap targets, and test with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Prioritize critical content and defer nonessential scripts.

  4. Duplicate content

    Problem: Multiple URLs with the same content split ranking signals.

    Fix: Add canonical tags, consolidate similar pages, and avoid query-string duplicates. Use rel=canonical and 301s where appropriate.

  5. Poor XML sitemap structure

    Problem: An incorrect sitemap can hide important pages from crawlers.

    Fix: Include only indexable pages, keep it up to date after releases, and submit it in Google Search Console.

  6. Misconfigured robots.txt

    Problem: Over-aggressive disallows can block CSS/JS or entire sections.

    Fix: Audit robots.txt (Search Console tester). Don’t block resources needed for rendering and remove accidental sitewide disallows.

  7. Missing or broken structured data (schema)

    Problem: Without schema your pages miss rich result opportunities. Incorrect schema can cause warnings or disqualify pages.

    Fix: Add JSON-LD schema relevant to page type (Article, Product, FAQ). Validate with Google’s Rich Results Test.

  8. No HTTPS or mixed content

    Problem: HTTP pages are marked “Not secure” and may rank lower. Mixed content breaks rendering.

    Fix: Install an SSL cert, redirect all HTTP to HTTPS (301), and update internal links/assets to HTTPS.

  9. Orphan pages (no internal links)

    Problem: Pages not linked internally are hard for crawlers to discover.

    Fix: Add contextual internal links, include them in a sitemap, or surface them in navigation if they’re important.

  10. Improper use of noindex tags

    Problem: Accidentally applied noindex prevents pages from being indexed.

    Fix: Crawl for noindex directives (Screaming Frog/Sitebulb), remove on pages that should rank, then request indexing in Search Console.

Tools and diagnostics — what to run this week

  • Google Search Console — coverage, performance, and robots testing.
  • Lighthouse / PageSpeed Insights — Core Web Vitals and performance audits.
  • Screaming Frog or Sitebulb — deep crawl for links, tags, and indexability.
  • Rich Results Test / Schema Markup Validator — structured data checks.
  • Server logs — see how bots crawl and spot 4xx/5xx hotspots.

Quick tip: automate a weekly Lighthouse run in CI and fail builds on regressions for LCP/CLS metrics.

Implementation tips for engineers

  • Treat redirects and sitemap updates as part of deploys; include them in release checklists.
  • Keep schema in JSON-LD in templates so it’s rendered for bots without client-side JS.
  • Prefer server-side redirects (301) or CDN rules over client-side JS redirects.
  • Use cache headers and a CDN for static assets; measure improvements using synthetic and real-user (RUM) data.
  • Track Core Web Vitals in production via a RUM library to catch regressions early.

Where to go for a checklist or deeper guide

If you want a full checklist and remediation guide, see the longer walkthrough at https://prateeksha.com/blog/technical-seo-issues-killing-traffic-fixes. For broader resources or case studies check https://prateeksha.com/blog and company services at https://prateeksha.com.

Conclusion — make technical SEO routine

Technical SEO isn’t a one-time project. Add a short audit to your sprint cadence, automate performance checks in CI, and treat SEO issues like reliability bugs. Small fixes (redirects, a sitemap update, or fixing a noindex) often unlock immediate traffic gains. Start with the high-impact items listed above and iterate — your content and product will be able to perform the way they deserve.

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