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All lessons in Technical SEO Auditing Lesson 6.1 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

Missing and Duplicate Title Tags

This lesson covers

  • Why title tags matter in a technical audit
  • The five title tag issues to check
  • How to trace duplicate titles to templates
  • How Google rewrites titles and what that signals

Short answer

A title tag audit checks every indexable page for a title that exists, is unique, fits roughly 50 to 60 characters, and appears only once in the HTML. Filter your crawl for missing, duplicate, over-length, and multiple titles, group duplicates by template, and fix the pattern that generates them instead of editing pages one by one.

In the SEO for Beginners course, you learned to write a good title. This lesson is different. You are checking thousands of titles at once, looking for patterns that break them.

The five checks

  1. Missing: no <title> or an empty one.
  2. Duplicate: the same title on two or more indexable pages.
  3. Too long: over about 60 characters or 600 pixels.
  4. Too short: under about 30 characters, often just a brand name.
  5. Multiple: more than one <title> in the head.

Finding them

Open the Page Titles tab in your crawl and use each filter. Then sort duplicates by title text. Most duplicate groups come from one of these:

  • A template that only prints the brand: “Albay Inn | Home”
  • Category filters and pagination using the parent title
  • Location pages with the same title and a different URL
  • Parameter URLs (often fixed by canonicals, Module 5)

Filter to indexable URLs only. Duplicates on canonicalized or noindexed URLs are lower priority.

Check what Google shows

Search site:example.ph/rooms/ and compare displayed headlines with your titles. Many rewrites point to titles that are too long, repetitive, or mismatched with the H1.

Practice: what is the issue?

Sort each item into the right group.

  • 200 product pages titled 'Shop | Example'

  • 92-character title stuffed with keywords

  • Empty <title></title>

  • Two <title> tags from theme and plugin

  • Title is only 'Home'

  • Every branch page titled 'Our Locations'

Common mistakes

  • Fixing titles one by one when a template is the cause.
  • Counting duplicates on non-indexable URLs as high priority.
  • Ignoring multiple title tags. Your edits may not be the ones Google reads.
1. 500 pages share one title. What should you check first?
2. Roughly how long before titles truncate?
3. Which duplicates matter most?

Your action

Next, you will audit meta descriptions.

Key terms

Title tag
The <title> element in the HTML head, used by Google as the main source for the clickable headline in results.
Title pixel width
How wide a title displays in results. Google truncates around 600 pixels, roughly 50 to 60 characters.
Title template
A CMS rule that builds titles automatically, such as {Product Name} | {Brand}.
Title rewrite
When Google shows a different headline than your title tag, often using the H1 or anchor text.

Questions beginners ask

Are duplicate titles a ranking problem?

They make it harder for Google to tell pages apart and can signal duplicate content. They also hurt click-through when results look identical.

Should paginated pages have unique titles?

Adding 'Page 2' is enough. It avoids duplicate flags without extra work.

Why does Google rewrite my titles?

Common reasons are titles that are too long, stuffed with keywords, identical across pages, or not matching the page content.

What if a page has two title tags?

Usually a theme plus an SEO plugin. Google picks one, often not the one you edited. Remove the duplicate source.

Related lessons

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