For web designers, developers and SEOs that want to check if a website is search engine friendly.
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Title
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Required
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Meta Description
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Required
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Rel Canonical Tag
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Recommended
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Meta Content Type
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Required
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Meta Keywords
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Optional - Not used by Google
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Meta Robots
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Optional
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Meta Googlebot
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Optional
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Meta Google
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Optional
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Meta Google Site Verification
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Optional
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Rel Next/Prev
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Optional
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Rel DNS Prefetch
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Optional
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Rel Shortlink
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Optional
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Facebook Open Graph Tags
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Recommended
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Twitter Card Tags
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Optional
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Rel Alternate (RSS Feed)
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Optional
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Rel Shortcut Icon/Icon (Favicon)
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Recommended
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Meta Refresh
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Not recommended
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Google + Authorship
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No longer used by Google
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Google + Publisher
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Recommended
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Heading tags (H1, H2, H3, H4...)
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Recommended
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Paragraph tags
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Optional
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Page Anchors
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Optional
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Links
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Required
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Navigation
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Required
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Unique Content
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Required
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Address Info
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Recommended
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Rich snippets (microdata, microformats, RDFa)
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Recommended
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Strong
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Optional
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Em
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Optional
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Breadcrumbs
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Recommended
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Cookie Policy Page
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Recommended
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Contact Page
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Recommended
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Privacy Page
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Recommended
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Social Media Buttons
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Recommended
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Check for duplicate/scraped content
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Do not mix languages on a page
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Check for spelling and grammar
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Avoid hidden content
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Do not over-use keywords/phrases
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Do not over-use bold tags
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Nofollow all untrusted/UGC links
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Alt
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Required
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Search engine friendly file name
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Recommended
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Title
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Recommended
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Compress Images (eg use TingPNG)
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Recommended
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Convert Images to WebP
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Optional (Google Chrome & Opera only)
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Store on cookieless sub-domains
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Recommended
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Store on cloud hosting / CDN
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Recommended
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Search engine friendly URL
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Recommended
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No Session ID in URL
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Required
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Homepage URL is root ( '/' )
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Required
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URLs match Canonical Tags
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Required
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URLs match FB OG Site Tag
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Required
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All lowercase letters
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Recommended
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Consistent closing slash
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Required
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No spaces
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Required
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No non-permitted characters
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Required
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No duplicate URLs for same page
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Required
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XML Sitemap
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Recommended
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Static Sitemap
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Recommended
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Compressed Sitemap
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Recommended
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Video Sitemap
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Optional
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Google News Sitemap
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Optional
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RSS Feed
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Recommended
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Sitemap Index File
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Optional
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Sitemap reference in Robots.txt
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Recommended
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Robots.txt
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Recommended
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Robots.txt sitemap link
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Optional
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Robots.txt disallow rules
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Optional - be careful
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Robots.txt allow rules
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Optional
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Check in Webmaster Tools
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Recommended
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Check for broken links/error pages (4xx,5xx)
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Required
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Check for redirects (3xx)
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Required
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All website pages sending 200 success code
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Required
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Homepage should not redirect
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Required
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Homepage should send 200 success code
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Required
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Title
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Recommended
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Rel Nofollow
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Optional - Use with care
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Rel Alternate Hreflang x
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For Multi Language Sites
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Rel Next/Previous
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Optional
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Rel Tag
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Optional
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Rel Author / Me
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Optional
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Rel Bookmark
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Optional
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Check 404 page exists
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Required
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Check 404 page returns 404 status code
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Required
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Custom 404 error page
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Optional
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Add useful links, sitemap or search box to 404 page
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Optional
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W3C Markup Validation Service
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3rd Party Software Navigation Menu
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Avoid
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3rd Party Software Intro page
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Avoid
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3rd Party Software Text Content
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Avoid
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Entire Site Using Third Party Software
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Avoid
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Small Features
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Allowed
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Videos
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Allowed
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Audio elements
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Allowed
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Animations
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Allowed
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Tools
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Allowed
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Is the site user friendly?
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Could a user class the page as spammy?
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Do not over-use keywords/phrases in text, headings or meta data
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Do not create more internal links than necesssary
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Too many keyword rich links
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Poor content/too many repeated phrases
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Too many ads (eg Adsense) above the fold
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Too many ads, such that content is hard to access
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SSL/HTTPS
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Recommended
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Correct Redirects in Place
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Recommended
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Add HTTPS Domain to GWT
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Recommended
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Fetch as Googlebot
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Required
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Submit .xml Sitemap
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Required
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Submit Compressed Sitemap
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Recommended
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Submit RSS Feed
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Recommended
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Set Geographic target
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Recommended
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Set Preferred domain
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Recommended
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HTML Improvements
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Optional
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Rich Snippets Testing Tool
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Optional
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Fetch as Bingbot
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Recommended
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Submit Sitemap
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Recommended
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Submit RSS Feed
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Optional
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Submit URLs
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Optional
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Google PageSpeed Insights
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Webpagetest.org
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GTmetrix
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Pingdom Tools Full Page Test
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Yahoo! YSlow
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Whichloadsfaster.com
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Site-Perf.com
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loadImpact.com
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Screaming Frog
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Xenu
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Read, understand and follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines
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Do not place a link exchange section on your website
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Avoid automatically generated / scraped content
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Avoid cloaking
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Avoid 'sneaky redirects'
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Avoid hidden text or links
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Avoid doorway pages
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Do not abuse rich snippets
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Facebook Debugger Tool
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Google Structured Data Testing Tool
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Google Adwords Keyword Tool
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Google Suggest
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UberSuggest
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Bing Keyword Tool
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All in One SEO
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WordPress SEO by Yoast
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W3 Total Cache
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Cheat Sheet created by Colin McDermott.
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Colin McDermott: https://cm.org.uk/
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Search Candy https://www.searchcandy.uk/
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Big Thanks to Dave @ Added Bytes.
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Well done. I hope you will keep it up to date. Thanks again!
Amazing! Thanks for this! I really needed it.
found it extremely helpful, but I have a question that why do you perferr CDN network, i guess you i doesn't allow cache copies of pages which can be helpful when it comes to mobile optimization...
Hi Gaurav, There are many reasons. Helps speed for one. Try this article: http://www.searchcandy.uk/content-delivery-networks/is-using-a-cdn-content-delivery-network-good-for-seo/ Thanks Colin
Thank you. This is a great check list!
Cheatography n. The art of mapping complex subjects into clear, instantly navigable reference guides.
