Technical SEO for Clean Architecture and Faster Indexing
When it comes to search engine optimization, technical SEO is often the hidden force behind top-ranking websites. While content and backlinks are vital, none of it matters if Google can't properly crawl, index, or interpret your website.
Clean site architecture and efficient internal linking are essential for ensuring your content is discoverable—and for providing a user experience that keeps visitors engaged.
In this article, we explore how a tech news site improved its search visibility by focusing on technical SEO. By using tools like Ahrefs and Screaming Frog, they fixed messy URLs and optimized internal linking, leading to faster indexing and reduced bounce rates.
The Problem: Fast Content, Slow Indexing
As a news outlet focused on tech and digital trends, the site published 5–10 articles daily. However, many of these posts were:
-Not indexed quickly
-Ranking inconsistently, even with strong keywords
-Suffering from high bounce rates
Upon technical review, the site showed signs of:
Disorganized URL structures (e.g., multiple URL versions for the same article)
-Deep content buried without internal links
-Broken navigation paths
-Duplicate or thin category pages
Despite quality content and a solid publishing rhythm, the site’s technical foundation was undermining performance.
Step 1: Crawl and Audit with Screaming Frog
The team started by running a comprehensive crawl using Screaming Frog SEO Spider—a tool that mimics how search engines crawl websites.
Key findings included:
-Duplicate URLs caused by improper use of trailing slashes and capital letters
-Dozens of 404 errors from outdated internal links
-Redirect chains that slowed down crawl speed
-Inconsistent use of canonical tags across blog archives
They exported reports and mapped every critical issue, starting with URL parameters and broken links.
Step 2: Analyzing Indexation with Ahrefs
Next, they used Ahrefs’ Site Audit and Site Explorer tools to assess how Google was indexing their content.
Insights included:
Pages that were crawled but not indexed, especially news stories older than 30 days
-Important articles with no external or internal backlinks
-Crawl depth reports showing key pages were buried 4+ clicks deep
-Low-authority pages cannibalizing better-performing ones due to lack of consolidation
-Ahrefs helped them prioritize content that had potential but lacked structural support.
Step 3: Fixing URL Structure
Clean, logical URLs are crucial for both SEO and usability.
Before:
/Article?id=345§ion=Tech
/tech-news/April-2024/Highlights
After:
/tech/apple-vision-pro-launch
/security/data-breach-march-2024
The team implemented:
-Short, lowercase, hyphenated URLs based on keywords
-Permanent 301 redirects for all legacy URLs
-Canonical tags pointing to the preferred version of each page
They also standardized URL formats across news, category, and tag pages—eliminating duplication and confusion.