We’ve been in digital marketing long enough to know that SEO:
- Isn’t dead, which is contrary to what every clickbait article says.
- Shouldn’t be something you take lightly or “do.”
SEO is foundational to everything digital, shaping how your website performs, how your audience finds you, and how you differentiate yourself from competitors. Many small businesses come to this realization too late, after months of wondering why their organic traffic isn’t growing.
Maybe this is you:
- You’ve written dozens of blog posts based on gut feeling, but website traffic remains stagnant.
- Google Search Console shows a list of indexing errors that you don’t know how to fix.
- You’ve repeatedly requested indexing of key pages, but they still aren’t indexed.
- Despite your efforts, organic traffic feels like a mystery.
If this is you, the issue is always content-related, such as duplicate sites, improper redirects, low-quality content, or an unfriendly content format. Here are common SEO issues from Google Search Console (GSC) and Bing Webmaster Tools, and how to fix them:
1. Improper Redirects and Duplicate Sites
The most severe SEO issues arise from poorly configured redirects and duplicate websites. Your search rankings will suffer when crawlers don’t know which domain or page to attribute SEO to. Additionally, when redirects loop, it’s a red flag to search engines and can severely penalize your website.
The Fix:
- Enforce Proper Domain Redirects: Configure server settings to ensure all traffic is redirected to the correct domain (https://abc@xyz.com), and trace redirects to prevent loops.
- Update Configuration Files: Ensure consistent rules across your .htaccess, nginx.conf, or other server files to
- Apply 301 and 404 Redirects Correctly: For subdomains and web pages that have moved, set up permanent redirects to their correct UR and 404 redirects for deprecated pages. Note, don’t abuse 301 redirects if the content doesn’t exist (search engines don’t like that).
2. Duplicate Content
Search engines penalize websites that repeat content across multiple pages or subdomains by removing the duplicate pages. While some duplication is normal, such as product listings or blog excerpts, extensive duplication can flag your domain as spam.
For example, if your primary site is example.com but your subdomains (such as www.example.com or app.example.com) are flagged with similar content, search engines may incorrectly attribute SEO to the wrong domain.
The Fix:
- Revise On-Page Copy: For pages you want to keep, rethink your on-page copy and how you can deliver more unique content.
- Force Redirects: Use server-level configurations to redirect traffic and SEO attribution to the correct domain.
- Update Your Sitemap: Clearly define the correct URLs in your sitemap.xml.
- Update Robots.txt: On unwanted domains, use noindex or Disallow: / to tell crawlers to skip them.
- Canonical Tags: Implement them on every page to indicate which URL is the master copy/should receive SEO attribution.
3. Thin or Poor Content
Search engines want to serve users with helpful, relevant, engaging, and most importantly, unique content. You’ll see “Crawled – currently not indexed” on GSC for valid URLs. This is a tougher SEO problem; sometimes the best answer is to edit your content or remove the article entirely.
The Fix:
- Avoid AI-Generated Content: In 2025 and beyond, do not use AI-generated content (ChapGPT/Perplexity). Search engines are updating their search algorithms to detect and remove this generic/non-unique content.
- Revise On-Page Copy: Revisit your headers, metadata, and body content. Make it informative, compelling, and user-focused. Do not keyword-stuff or lean heavily on generative AI spammy content.
- Check for Repetition: Avoid duplicating content ideas that already exist elsewhere on your site or a competitor’s site. Search engines can easily pick up on this.
4. Crawlers Get Stuck
If your crawl requests spike unexpectedly or drop off despite regular content updates, something might be wrong. You can see this in the crawl stats from GSC or an equivalent dashboard. Note that larger sites are more prone to this issue, so smaller sites can probably ignore it.
Fixes:
- Audit Redirect Rules: Redirect loops can trap crawlers. Use tools like Screaming Frog or server monitoring to identify and fix them.
- Review Schema Markup: Poorly implemented schemas can confuse search engines. Use structured data validators, such as Google Rich Results Test, and follow search engine best practices.
- Review IndexNow Page Submissions: We’ve seen tens of thousands of pages submitted when only a single page should have been submitted. This can slow or even halt page indexing. Make sure to review your search console crawl stats to confirm there aren’t an excessive number of page submissions.
5. Time Delays in Indexing
Sometimes it’s nothing related to what you did. Instead, you just have to give it time for your SEO fixes to take effect.
The Fix:
- Give It Time: It may take weeks or months for updates to appear in search results.
- Use Search Console: Submit your latest sitemap.xml and request page URLs directly for indexing to speed things up.
Final Thoughts
Most SEO issues stem from a handful of technical and content issues that prevent search engines from properly crawling, indexing, and ranking your site. Fixing redirects, removing duplicate content, and improving thin pages help search engines clearly understand which URLs to index. It’s also important to monitor crawl activity and indexing behavior to catch issues like stuck crawlers or excessive crawl requests. Once your fixes are in place, give search engines time to recrawl and reindex, as SEO improvements.
If you’re dealing with the SEO headaches above and want help, our team is on standby! Contact Uplancer today to turn your SEO woes around and into organic success.
