10 Technical SEO Issues That Hurt Your Rankings
Even great content can fail to rank if technical problems prevent search engines from properly crawling, indexing, or understanding your site.
Technical SEO forms the foundation of your website's search visibility. While content and backlinks often get more attention, technical issues can completely undermine your SEO efforts by preventing search engines from accessing and understanding your pages.
In this guide, we'll cover the 10 most common technical SEO problems we see affecting websites, along with practical solutions to fix each one. Addressing these issues can lead to significant ranking improvements.
Slow Page Speed
Page speed is a confirmed ranking factor, and it directly impacts user experience. Google's Core Web Vitals now measure specific aspects of loading performance that affect rankings.
Impact
Pages that take more than 3 seconds to load lose 53% of mobile visitors. Slow sites rank lower and convert worse.
How to Fix It
- Optimize images (compress, use WebP format, lazy loading)
- Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML
- Enable browser caching and use a CDN
- Reduce server response time (upgrade hosting if needed)
Mobile Usability Problems
With Google's mobile-first indexing, the mobile version of your site is what gets indexed and ranked. Poor mobile experience means poor rankings.
Common Mobile Issues
Viewport not configured
Page doesn't adapt to screen size
Text too small
Users need to zoom to read content
Touch targets too close
Buttons and links hard to tap
Content wider than screen
Horizontal scrolling required
How to Fix It
- Use responsive design with proper viewport meta tag
- Ensure font size is at least 16px for body text
- Make tap targets at least 48x48 pixels
- Test with Google's Mobile-Friendly Test tool
Crawl Errors and Blocked Resources
If search engines can't crawl your pages, they can't index them. Crawl errors can occur from broken links, server issues, or misconfigured robots.txt files.
Check Your Robots.txt
A single line in robots.txt can accidentally block entire sections of your site. Always verify after making changes.
How to Fix It
- Regularly check Google Search Console for crawl errors
- Audit your robots.txt file for unintended blocks
- Fix or redirect broken internal links
- Ensure critical CSS and JS files aren't blocked
Duplicate Content Issues
Duplicate content confuses search engines about which version to index and can dilute your ranking potential across multiple URLs.
Common Causes
URL parameters
Same page accessible via ?sort=price, ?ref=homepage, etc.
WWW vs non-WWW
Site accessible at both www.site.com and site.com
HTTP vs HTTPS
Both secure and insecure versions accessible
Trailing slashes
/page and /page/ both resolve to content
How to Fix It
- Implement canonical tags on all pages
- Set up 301 redirects for duplicate URLs
- Use parameter handling in Google Search Console
- Choose one URL format and stick to it consistently
Missing or Poor Meta Tags
Title tags and meta descriptions are your first impression in search results. Missing, duplicate, or poorly optimized tags hurt both rankings and click-through rates.
| Element | Best Practice |
|---|---|
| Title Tag | 50-60 characters, unique per page, include target keyword |
| Meta Description | 150-160 characters, compelling, include call-to-action |
| H1 Tag | One per page, matches search intent, includes keyword |
How to Fix It
- Audit all pages for missing or duplicate titles
- Write unique, keyword-optimized titles for each page
- Create compelling meta descriptions that encourage clicks
Broken Links (404 Errors)
Broken links create a poor user experience and waste crawl budget. They also prevent link equity from flowing to intended destination pages.
How to Fix It
- Run regular site audits to identify broken links
- Set up 301 redirects for deleted or moved pages
- Update or remove links pointing to 404 pages
- Create a helpful custom 404 page with navigation options
Missing HTTPS / SSL Issues
HTTPS is a confirmed ranking signal, and browsers now display warnings for non-secure sites. This affects both rankings and user trust.
Security Warning
Chrome and other browsers display "Not Secure" warnings for HTTP sites, especially those with forms. This significantly impacts conversion rates.
How to Fix It
- Install SSL certificate (free with Let's Encrypt)
- Redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS
- Fix mixed content issues (HTTP resources on HTTPS pages)
- Update internal links to use HTTPS
Poor URL Structure
Clean, descriptive URLs help both users and search engines understand page content. Poor URL structure can hurt rankings and user experience.
Bad URLs
/page?id=12345&cat=3
/p/2025-01-29-article-v2-final
Good URLs
/blogs/keyword-ranking-guide
/products/seo-tool
How to Fix It
- Use descriptive, keyword-rich URLs
- Keep URLs short and readable (under 75 characters)
- Use hyphens to separate words, not underscores
- Avoid unnecessary parameters and dynamic URLs
Missing or Invalid Structured Data
Structured data (schema markup) helps search engines understand your content and can enable rich snippets in search results, improving visibility and click-through rates.
Important Schema Types
Article
Blog posts, news
Product
E-commerce items
FAQPage
Q&A content
Organization
Company info
BreadcrumbList
Navigation path
Review
Ratings, reviews
How to Fix It
- Add relevant schema markup to all pages
- Validate with Google's Rich Results Test
- Keep schema data accurate and up-to-date
- Monitor for errors in Search Console
XML Sitemap Problems
Your XML sitemap helps search engines discover and index your pages. Issues with your sitemap can delay indexing or cause important pages to be missed.
Common Sitemap Issues
- ✗ Including non-canonical URLs
- ✗ Listing pages blocked by robots.txt
- ✗ Including redirected or 404 URLs
- ✗ Not updating after content changes
- ✗ Exceeding 50,000 URL limit per file
How to Fix It
- Only include canonical, indexable URLs
- Set up automatic sitemap generation
- Submit sitemap to Google Search Console
- Use sitemap index for large sites
Monitor Your Technical SEO Health
Fixing these technical issues is just the first step. Ongoing monitoring ensures problems don't resurface and new issues are caught early. RankMetrics helps you track your SEO performance and identify technical issues before they impact your rankings.
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