Things /
Visualising SEO
A collection of illustrations explaining SEO concepts: canonicals, redirects, site structure, SERPs. The original Figma file is MIT-licensed and free to remix.
Canonicals
Tells Google which version of a duplicate set should collect the ranking signals. Set it on the page you want indexed; the rest defer.
Hreflang
Use it when the same page exists in multiple languages or regions. Google then routes users to the variant that matches their language and country.
GTM Installation
First snippet goes high in
<head>, after thedataLayerdeclaration. Second snippet sits at the top of<body>. Both placements matter. Out of order, the data layer fires too late.
301 redirects
A
301says the page moved permanently. Search engines transfer signals to the new URL; browsers cache the redirect.
302 redirects
A
302says the page is temporarily somewhere else and the original will be back. Use it for A/B tests and short-lived redirects, never for permanent moves.
Redirect chains
More than one hop between URL A and the final destination. Every hop adds latency and burns crawl budget, so flatten chains: each redirect should point straight at the end of the chain.
Redirect loops
URL A redirects to B, B redirects back to A. Browsers give up after a few hops; crawlers drop the URL entirely. Always a misconfiguration, never intentional.
Flat site structure
Most pages sit a click or two from the home page. Internal
PageRankdistributes evenly, and important pages aren’t buried. Usually the right default for ecommerce.
Deep site structure
Pages live four or five clicks deep. Authority dilutes at each level, so the leaves end up under-powered. Worth flattening unless the depth carries genuine taxonomic meaning.
Pagination canonicals
Each paginated page should canonicalise to itself, not back to page one. The old
rel=prev/nextis gone, so self-referential canonicals are now the cleanest signal.
Pagination view all page setup
If a single view-all page exists and loads acceptably, point every paginated variant’s canonical at it. Otherwise stick with self-referential canonicals on each page.
Topic clusters
One pillar page covering the broad topic, surrounded by cluster pages targeting long-tail variants. The pillar collects authority; the clusters get internal links from the pillar.
Multi-level topic clusters
Clusters can themselves act as pillars for sub-clusters. Cross-linking between siblings keeps signal flowing laterally, which helps when a topic has three or more levels of natural hierarchy.
rel="nofollow"
A hint that Google shouldn't pass authority to the linked URL or use it for discovery. Treat it as advisory:
rel="nofollow"no longer hard-blocks crawling the way it used to.
Noindex
Tells Google to drop the page from search results. Set it via a
<meta>tag in<head>or anX-Robots-TagHTTP header. Don’t combine it with aDisallowinrobots.txt, or Google never sees the directive.
Robots.txt
Blocks crawlers from fetching specific URLs. Useful for keeping infinite filter combinations and admin paths out of the crawl, but never use it to deindex. For that, use
noindex.
Meta description
A
<meta name="description">tag in<head>that suggests the snippet shown under the title in search results. Google rewrites it often, but a tight one still wins more often than not.
PageRank
Google’s link-based ranking algorithm. Pages accumulate authority from inbound links and pass a share of it onward, so internal linking is PageRank sculpting whether you mean it to be or not.
Dynamic serving
Same URL, different HTML per device: the server detects user-agent and switches. Works, but the user-agent matching is fragile, which is why Google recommends responsive design instead.
Responsive design
One HTML payload, one URL, the layout adapts via
@mediaqueries. Google’s recommended approach, and the easiest to maintain.
Title tag
The
<title>in<head>. It’s the headline in search results and the label on the browser tab: the single highest-leverage on-page string for both clickthrough and ranking.
Separate mobile URLs
Mobile gets its own URLs, often on an
m.subdomain. Doubles the maintenance surface for canonicals, redirects and analytics. Avoid unless the mobile experience genuinely diverges.
People also ask
The expandable Q&A block on the SERP, surfacing related queries. Each answer slot is a separate ranking opportunity, and an early signal of what Google thinks the query is about.