Cheatography
https://cheatography.com
For web designers, developers and SEOs that want to check if a website is search engine friendly.
Meta Tag / Head Area Checklist
Title |
Required |
Meta Description |
Required |
Rel Canonical Tag |
Recommended |
Meta Content Type |
Required |
Meta Keywords |
Optional - Not used by Google |
Meta Robots |
Optional |
Meta Googlebot |
Optional |
Meta Google |
Optional |
Meta Google Site Verification |
Optional |
Rel Next/Prev |
Optional |
Rel DNS Prefetch |
Optional |
Rel Shortlink |
Optional |
Facebook Open Graph Tags |
Recommended |
Twitter Card Tags |
Optional |
Rel Alternate (RSS Feed) |
Optional |
Rel Shortcut Icon/Icon (Favicon) |
Recommended |
Meta Refresh |
Not recommended |
Google + Authorship |
No longer used by Google |
Google + Publisher |
Recommended |
Body
Heading tags (H1, H2, H3, H4...) |
Recommended |
Paragraph tags |
Optional |
Page Anchors |
Optional |
Links |
Required |
Navigation |
Required |
Unique Content |
Required |
Address Info |
Recommended |
Rich snippets (microdata, microformats, RDFa) |
Recommended |
Strong |
Optional |
Em |
Optional |
Breadcrumbs |
Recommended |
Cookie Policy Page |
Recommended |
Contact Page |
Recommended |
Privacy Page |
Recommended |
Social Media Buttons |
Recommended |
Content
Check for duplicate/scraped content |
Do not mix languages on a page |
Check for spelling and grammar |
Avoid hidden content |
Do not over-use keywords/phrases |
Do not over-use bold tags |
Nofollow all untrusted/UGC links |
Image Optimisation
Alt |
Required |
Search engine friendly file name |
Recommended |
Title |
Recommended |
Compress Images (eg use TingPNG) |
Recommended |
Convert Images to WebP |
Optional (Google Chrome & Opera only) |
Store on cookieless sub-domains |
Recommended |
Store on cloud hosting / CDN |
Recommended |
URL
Search engine friendly URL |
Recommended |
No Session ID in URL |
Required |
Homepage URL is root ( '/' ) |
Required |
URLs match Canonical Tags |
Required |
URLs match FB OG Site Tag |
Required |
All lowercase letters |
Recommended |
Consistent closing slash |
Required |
No spaces |
Required |
No non-permitted characters |
Required |
No duplicate URLs for same page |
Required |
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|
Sitemaps
XML Sitemap |
Recommended |
Static Sitemap |
Recommended |
Compressed Sitemap |
Recommended |
Video Sitemap |
Optional |
Google News Sitemap |
Optional |
RSS Feed |
Recommended |
Sitemap Index File |
Optional |
Sitemap reference in Robots.txt |
Recommended |
Robots.txt
Robots.txt |
Recommended |
Robots.txt sitemap link |
Optional |
Robots.txt disallow rules |
Optional - be careful |
Robots.txt allow rules |
Optional |
Check in Webmaster Tools |
Recommended |
Broken Links / Redirects
Check for broken links/error pages (4xx,5xx) |
Required |
Check for redirects (3xx) |
Required |
All website pages sending 200 success code |
Required |
Homepage should not redirect |
Required |
Homepage should send 200 success code |
Required |
Links
Title |
Recommended |
Rel Nofollow |
Optional - Use with care |
Rel Alternate Hreflang x |
For Multi Language Sites |
Rel Next/Previous |
Optional |
Rel Tag |
Optional |
Rel Author / Me |
Optional |
Rel Bookmark |
Optional |
404 Error Page
Check 404 page exists |
Required |
Check 404 page returns 404 status code |
Required |
Custom 404 error page |
Optional |
Add useful links, sitemap or search box to 404 page |
Optional |
HTML Validation
W3C Markup Validation Service |
3rd Party Software: Flash/Silverlight/Java/PDF etc
3rd Party Software Navigation Menu |
Avoid |
3rd Party Software Intro page |
Avoid |
3rd Party Software Text Content |
Avoid |
Entire Site Using Third Party Software |
Avoid |
Small Features |
Allowed |
Videos |
Allowed |
Audio elements |
Allowed |
Animations |
Allowed |
Tools |
Allowed |
Over Optimisation
Is the site user friendly? |
Could a user class the page as spammy? |
Do not over-use keywords/phrases in text, headings or meta data |
Do not create more internal links than necesssary |
Too many keyword rich links |
Poor content/too many repeated phrases |
Too many ads (eg Adsense) above the fold |
Too many ads, such that content is hard to access |
SSL/HTTPS
SSL/HTTPS |
Recommended |
Correct Redirects in Place |
Recommended |
Add HTTPS Domain to GWT |
Recommended |
|
|
Google Webmaster Tools
Fetch as Googlebot |
Required |
Submit .xml Sitemap |
Required |
Submit Compressed Sitemap |
Recommended |
Submit RSS Feed |
Recommended |
Set Geographic target |
Recommended |
Set Preferred domain |
Recommended |
HTML Improvements |
Optional |
Rich Snippets Testing Tool |
Optional |
Bing Webmaster Tools
Fetch as Bingbot |
Recommended |
Submit Sitemap |
Recommended |
Submit RSS Feed |
Optional |
Submit URLs |
Optional |
Website Speed Tools (Online)
Google PageSpeed Insights |
Webpagetest.org |
GTmetrix |
Pingdom Tools Full Page Test |
Yahoo! YSlow |
Whichloadsfaster.com |
Site-Perf.com |
loadImpact.com |
Google Webmaster Guidelines
Read, understand and follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines |
Do not place a link exchange section on your website |
Avoid automatically generated / scraped content |
Avoid cloaking |
Avoid 'sneaky redirects' |
Avoid hidden text or links |
Avoid doorway pages |
Do not abuse rich snippets |
Facebook
Facebook Debugger Tool |
Google Structured Data Testing Tool |
Keyword Research
Google Adwords Keyword Tool |
Google Suggest |
UberSuggest |
Bing Keyword Tool |
WordPress
All in One SEO |
WordPress SEO by Yoast |
W3 Total Cache |
Credits
Cheat Sheet created by Colin McDermott. |
|
|
Big Thanks to Dave @ Added Bytes. |
|
Created By
www.searchcandy.uk
Metadata
Favourited By
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Comments
Thank you. This is a great check list!
Thanks Cardoza! You are welcome. Let me know how you use it.
found it extremely helpful, but I have a question that why do you perferr CDN network, i guess you i doesn't allow cache copies of pages which can be helpful when it comes to mobile optimization...
Hi Gaurav,
There are many reasons. Helps speed for one. Try this article: http://www.searchcandy.uk/content-delivery-networks/is-using-a-cdn-content-delivery-network-good-for-seo/
Thanks
Colin
This is still excellent!
Thanks Josh!
Amazing! Thanks for this! I really needed it.
Well done. I hope you will keep it up to date. Thanks again!
Awesome!
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