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All lessons in Technical SEO Auditing Lesson 6.7 of 84

Module 1: Introduction to Technical SEO Auditing

  1. 1.1What Is a Technical SEO Audit?
  2. 1.2Technical SEO Audit vs. General SEO Audit
  3. 1.3When Should You Audit a Website?
  4. 1.4Types of Technical SEO Issues
  5. 1.5Defining Audit Scope and Objectives

Module 2: Website Crawling and URL Discovery

  1. 2.1How SEO Crawlers Discover URLs
  2. 2.2Configuring a Website Crawl
  3. 2.3Crawl Scope, Limits, and Exclusions
  4. 2.4Internal Links and Crawl Depth
  5. 2.5Orphan Pages and URL Discovery
  6. 2.6Crawl Data vs. Search Engine Data
  7. 2.7Identifying Crawl Coverage Gaps

Module 3: HTTP Status Codes and Redirect Auditing

  1. 3.1Understanding HTTP Status Codes
  2. 3.2Finding 4xx Errors and Broken Links
  3. 3.3Identifying 5xx Server Errors
  4. 3.4Redirect Chains and Redirect Loops
  5. 3.5Internal Links to Redirected URLs
  6. 3.6301 vs. 302 Redirects
  7. 3.7Auditing 404 Pages and Soft 404s

Module 4: Crawlability and Indexability Auditing

  1. 4.1Crawling vs. Indexing
  2. 4.2Robots.txt Audit
  3. 4.3Meta Robots and X-Robots-Tag
  4. 4.4Noindex and Canonical Conflicts
  5. 4.5XML Sitemap Validation
  6. 4.6Canonical URL Auditing
  7. 4.7Identifying Indexability Conflicts
  8. 4.8Comparing Crawl Data with Google Search Console

Module 5: URL Structure and Duplicate Content Issues

  1. 5.1URL Structure and Normalization
  2. 5.2Duplicate URLs and Duplicate Pages
  3. 5.3HTTP vs. HTTPS and Hostname Variations
  4. 5.4Trailing Slashes and URL Parameters
  5. 5.5Pagination and Faceted Navigation
  6. 5.6Canonicalization Strategies
  7. 5.7Internal Linking to Preferred URLs

Module 6: Technical On-Page Auditing

  1. 6.1Missing and Duplicate Title Tags
  2. 6.2Missing and Duplicate Meta Descriptions
  3. 6.3Missing, Duplicate, and Multiple H1 Headings
  4. 6.4Heading Hierarchy and HTML Structure
  5. 6.5Missing Image Alt Attributes
  6. 6.6Internal Link and Anchor Text Issues
  7. 6.7Empty, Thin, and Near-Duplicate Pages
  8. 6.8Auditing HTML Metadata at Scale

Module 7: Website Performance and Core Web Vitals

  1. 7.1Core Web Vitals: LCP, INP, and CLS
  2. 7.2Lab Data vs. Field Data
  3. 7.3Identifying Slow Pages
  4. 7.4Image and Resource Optimization Opportunities
  5. 7.5JavaScript and CSS Performance
  6. 7.6Mobile Usability and Responsive Rendering
  7. 7.7Prioritizing Performance Fixes

Module 8: JavaScript SEO and Rendering

  1. 8.1How Search Engines Process JavaScript
  2. 8.2HTML Source vs. Rendered HTML
  3. 8.3Client-Side vs. Server-Side Rendering
  4. 8.4JavaScript-Generated Content and Links
  5. 8.5Rendering Failures and Missing Content
  6. 8.6Lazy Loading and Crawl Accessibility
  7. 8.7Diagnosing JavaScript SEO Problems

Module 9: Structured Data and Schema Auditing

  1. 9.1Structured Data and Schema.org Basics
  2. 9.2JSON-LD and Structured Data Formats
  3. 9.3Finding Structured Data Across a Website
  4. 9.4Detecting Invalid or Incomplete Markup
  5. 9.5Schema Validation and Rich Result Eligibility
  6. 9.6Conflicting or Duplicate Structured Data
  7. 9.7Prioritizing Schema Fixes

Module 10: Analyzing Audit Data and Prioritizing Issues

  1. 10.1Reading Crawl Reports and Exports
  2. 10.2Grouping URLs by Issue Type
  3. 10.3Identifying Root Causes vs. Symptoms
  4. 10.4Evaluating Severity, Impact, and Effort
  5. 10.5Separating Sitewide and Isolated Issues
  6. 10.6Identifying False Positives
  7. 10.7Building an Actionable Issue Register

Module 11: Technical SEO Audit Reporting

  1. 11.1Structuring a Technical SEO Audit Report
  2. 11.2Documenting Evidence and Affected URLs
  3. 11.3Writing Developer-Ready Recommendations
  4. 11.4Mapping Issues to Business and Search Impact
  5. 11.5Creating a Prioritized Remediation Roadmap
  6. 11.6Presenting Findings to Stakeholders
  7. 11.7Tracking Fixes and Ownership

Module 12: Fix Verification and Technical QA

  1. 12.1Re-Crawling After Fixes
  2. 12.2Comparing Before-and-After Crawl Results
  3. 12.3Verifying Redirects, Canonicals, and Indexability
  4. 12.4Detecting Regressions and Newly Introduced Issues
  5. 12.5Testing Website Changes Before Deployment
  6. 12.6Confirming Fixes with Search Console and Other Evidence
  7. 12.7Closing Audit Findings and Recording Results

Empty, Thin, and Near-Duplicate Pages

This lesson covers

  • How crawlers measure thin and near-duplicate content
  • Where thin pages usually come from
  • How to judge thin pages using traffic and purpose
  • The four actions for low-value pages

Short answer

Thin pages have little unique main content, empty pages have almost none, and near duplicates share most of their text with other pages. Find them by sorting indexable URLs by word count and running near-duplicate analysis, then check traffic and purpose before choosing to improve, merge, noindex, or remove each page group.

A Batangas real estate site had 1,800 listing pages. Half of them were sold properties with one photo and a single line: “This property is no longer available.” Search Console filled with “Crawled, currently not indexed,” and Google crawled the useful listings less often.

Set up the crawl correctly

Configure content area settings so your crawler ignores <nav>, <header>, and <footer>. Otherwise every page carries hundreds of menu words and looks similar to every other page.

Finding the pages

  1. Low word count: sort indexable 200 URLs by word count. Review the bottom 5%.
  2. Empty pages: look for zero-result categories, placeholder pages, and “coming soon” pages.
  3. Near duplicates: use the near-duplicate report at 90% (Lesson 5.2).
  4. Cross-check Search Console: “Crawled, currently not indexed” often overlaps with these.

Judge before acting

For each group, check:

  • Purpose: does the page serve a real user need?
  • Traffic: impressions and clicks in Search Console
  • Links: backlinks and internal links

The four actions

  • Improve: add useful, unique content (pages with purpose and demand).
  • Merge: combine near duplicates into one stronger page and 301 the rest.
  • Noindex: keep for users but out of results (tag archives, utility pages).
  • Remove: 404 or 410 pages with no purpose, traffic, or links.

Practice: what action fits?

Sort each item into the right group.

  • Service page with impressions but only 80 words

  • Three nearly identical 'condo for rent Makati' pages

  • Tag archive with one post

  • Placeholder 'Coming soon' page from 2022

  • Location page with search demand and thin content

Common mistakes

  • Using word count without content area settings.
  • Deleting pages with backlinks or traffic.
  • Applying a fixed word minimum to every page.
1. Why exclude menus and footers from word count?
2. A thin service page gets steady impressions. Best action?
3. Is a 60-word contact page thin content?

Your action

Next, you will learn to audit all HTML metadata at scale.

Key terms

Thin content
Pages with little original, useful main content relative to their purpose.
Word count (main content)
The number of words in a page's main content area, excluding menus and footers when configured.
Content area settings
Crawler settings that exclude navigation, headers, and footers so word count and similarity reflect real content.
Low-value page
A page with little unique content, no search traffic, and no clear user purpose.

Questions beginners ask

Is there a minimum word count?

No. A contact page can be short and fine. Judge content against the page's purpose and the searches it targets.

Why configure content areas?

Without it, menus and footers inflate word count and make every page look similar, hiding true thin or duplicate pages.

Should I delete thin pages?

Only those with no traffic, links, or purpose. Many thin pages are better improved or merged.

Are tag pages thin content?

Often. Tag archives with one or two posts are common thin pages. Noindex or consolidate them.

Related lessons

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