probeo

What does probeo check in technical SEO?

Probeo reads every page’s HTML for the elements search engines rely on to name, describe and place it: the title, the meta description, the canonical, the main heading, the language, the viewport, the character encoding and the amount of text. Each one fails quietly. The page still loads, and the cost shows up as a worse search result, the wrong URL ranking, or a page that reads badly on a phone.

What probeo checks

  • CanonicalA canonical link tells search engines which URL is the primary version of a page. How to add canonical tags to clear up ambiguity between duplicate pages.
  • CharsetThe page lacks a UTF-8 charset declaration or declares a different encoding. This creates risk of character rendering errors and misinterpretation of content.
  • H1A page needs exactly one H1. Without one, the page loses its main heading signal; with several, the heading hierarchy blurs and its priority becomes unclear.
  • Lang attributeThe lang attribute on the html element declares the main language of a page. How to format language codes correctly, and why declaring the language matters.
  • DescriptionWithout a meta description, search engines build the snippet from whatever text they find. Why writing your own description puts you back in control of it.
  • Robots canonical conflictA self-referencing canonical on a noindex page sends search engines conflicting signals. What the conflict is, how crawlers resolve it, and the right fix.
  • Thin contentThe page has too little substantive text. Search engines struggle to work out what the page is about, and whether it deserves to rank for anything at all.
  • TitleTitle tags must be unique, concise, and descriptive. This page explains the structural and content requirements for effective title elements in HTML documents.
  • ViewportThe viewport meta tag controls how pages scale and display on mobile devices. This page explains correct viewport configuration for responsive design.
  • X robots tagRobots directives can live in a meta tag or the X-Robots-Tag HTTP header. When to move them from the HTML into the header, and how to do it for every file type.

How probeo checks it

Each page’s HTML is parsed and checked on its own. Errors are things a page shouldn’t ship with; warnings are worth a look.

  • Title. A missing <title> is an error. One under 30 or over 60 characters is a warning, as is a title identical to the page’s first <h1>.
  • Meta description. A missing description is a warning, as is one under 50 or over 160 characters.
  • H1. No <h1> with text, more than one, or an empty <h1> is an error.
  • Language. An <html> element without lang or xml:lang is an error.
  • Canonical. A missing <link rel="canonical"> is a warning. One that is relative, not https, fragment-only, on another domain or not a valid URL is an error.
  • Viewport. A missing <meta name="viewport"> is an error.
  • Charset. A missing or non-UTF-8 <meta charset> is a warning.
  • Robots. A <meta name="x-robots-tag"> in the HTML is a warning, since that directive belongs in an HTTP header or a robots meta tag.
  • Text. A page with fewer than 150 words of body text, not counting scripts and styles, is a warning.

Probeo also records the page’s robots directives, hreflang links and internal and external link counts. Where the title, <h1> or canonical suggests a utility page, such as privacy, terms or login, it suggests noindex, follow.

What this does not cover

These checks read the page’s HTML. A directive or encoding sent only in an HTTP header isn’t read by them. They check each page’s own elements, not whether the page ranks, and not Google’s choices about which title or snippet to show.

Common questions

Why are these split into errors and warnings?

An error is something the page shouldn’t ship with, such as no title or no <h1>. A warning, such as a long description or a short page, depends on the page, and is worth a look rather than an automatic fix.

Are the length limits search engine rules?

No. Search engines don’t publish character limits; long titles and descriptions are cut off by display width. The ranges probeo uses, 30 to 60 characters for titles and 50 to 160 for descriptions, are practical bounds for a result that reads whole.

Why check every page rather than a sample?

Most of these problems come from templates, and a template can be right on one page and wrong on another depending on what fills it. Checking every page finds the instances a sample misses.

Which product this is part of

Technical SEO is part of Site Clarity.