Trakis

Which technical SEO issues are most important?

Listed page by page, the audit of our 42-page demo shop runs to 247 rows. Counted once each, they are 24 problems, and only a few of them are worth this week. The order below is how to get from the long list to those few, on any site, with the demo’s own report as the worked example.

1. First, what Google requires

Google’s Search Essentials name three technical requirements for a page to be eligible for indexing (Google):

  • Googlebot isn’t blocked: not behind a login, not kept out by robots.txt.
  • The page works: Google gets a 200 status code. Pages that answer with a client or server error are not indexed.
  • The page has indexable content: text in a format Google supports, within its spam policies.

Anything that breaks one of these on a page you want found goes to the top, whatever else the list says. In the demo, that is a link in the footer of every page to a returns page that answers 404 (LINK-004, CRAWL-002). Nothing else in its list stops Google from reading a page.

The same test, asked of AI search: the demo’s robots.txt shuts out ChatGPT search along with the training bot it meant to block (AI-005). That is not a Google requirement, and it is the next thing to look at for a site that wants to be cited in answers.

2. Count templates, not pages

Most sites are built from a few templates, and a problem in a template is on every page made from it. Audit tools such as Semrush already group findings by check, with a count of pages; the step that changes the order is grouping those pages by the template they come from. In the demo, four problems sit in one place, the product template:

ProblemPages
Images without alt text (CONTENT-002)30
One meta description shared by every product (CONTENT-006)30
No canonical (INDEX-003)30
Product data with no price (STRUCT-004)30

That is 120 rows of a page-by-page list, and one file to edit. Sorted by page count, they look like the biggest problems on the site; sorted by work, they are one file. The category template is the same story at a smaller scale: no H1, a title too long, the filter’s data written into the page (ONPAGE-006, ONPAGE-002, CONTENT-004), 3 pages, one file.

It holds on real sites too. On 12 October 2026 we ran the same count on an open-source documentation site of 150 pages, which we leave unnamed, with version 0.18.0 of our engine: 900 rows, 15 problems.

3. Take out what you meant to do

Some findings describe a choice. The demo’s search page asks not to be indexed (INDEX-001), and that is right for a search page. Mark findings like that as intended, with the reason, so they stop coming back and stop taking room from the ones that are mistakes. The same search page also sits in the sitemap, which contradicts the noindex (CRAWL-010): the choice is fine, listing it is the mistake.

4. Then reach, effort and traffic

  • Reach. How many pages one fix covers. A template change for thirty products beats a one-page fix of the same weight.
  • Effort. Whether it is a line in a template, a server setting, or a rewrite of every page’s text. Thin content on 40 pages (CONTENT-001) is real, and it is writing, not a template edit: it gets planned, not squeezed in.
  • Traffic. With Search Console connected, the pages that get impressions decide the order: the same problem on a page people find matters more than on a page nobody sees.

5. What can wait

8 of the demo’s 24 problems are notices: a breadcrumb missing from structured data (STRUCT-007), pages with a single link in (LINK-007), a low text-to-HTML ratio. They are worth doing when you are in the template anyway. A list where everything is urgent has no order; leaving the notices for last is what makes the rest of it one.

The demo shop, in order

  • The footer link to a page that does not exist. One fix, every page.
  • robots.txt: keep blocking AI training if that is the intent, and let ChatGPT search back in.
  • The product template: canonical, alt text, a description per product, and the price in the product data. One file, thirty pages.
  • The category template: an H1, a shorter title, the filter’s data loaded when it is used.
  • The loose ends: an old address two redirects from its page (CRAWL-003), a campaign page nothing links to (LINK-005), the search page out of the sitemap.
  • Then the writing: product descriptions long enough to say something, planned as content work.

The full report, with every problem and the pages it covers, is on the example page. To keep your own list in this order, there is a free report template and tracker.

Sort your own site

The Trakis audit does the counting above for you: each problem once, with the pages and the template it covers, in order of what matters and what it takes. Create a free account and add your site, or see what the free audit reads.

Sources

Read on 15 October 2026.

Last changed 15 October 2026.