Technical SEO | PublishRank Documentation

1. Choose one canonical identity

Every indexable article should have a deliberate production URL. Use a consistent HTTPS host and permalink policy. Check that the canonical URL points to the intended live page, not a staging hostname, an unrelated story, or a URL that redirects repeatedly.

When tracking parameters or alternate paths expose substantially duplicate content, evaluate a canonical policy rather than creating multiple competing article identities. Canonicals are signals, not guaranteed search-engine instructions.

2. Separate crawling from indexing

robots.txt controls crawler access. A robots meta tag or HTTP X-Robots-Tag can control indexing when the crawler can access the response. Blocking a URL in robots.txt is not a reliable way to remove that URL from search results.

Before changing archive, author, search, or taxonomy policies, examine the role those pages play for readers. Keep sitemap inclusion consistent with your intended canonical and indexing policies.

3. Preserve URLs when stories move

Prefer stable article URLs. When a permanent move is necessary, redirect the previous URL to its most relevant replacement, update internal links, and submit the new canonical URL through the ordinary sitemap. Avoid sending every deleted article to the homepage.

Test for loops and long redirect chains. Keep an export or record of important redirects before plugin changes. Removing a plugin that owns redirects can change live URL behavior even if article content is unchanged.

4. Review metadata as a package

Titles should be specific to the story and understandable outside the site.
Descriptions should accurately summarize the content without unsupported claims.
Open Graph and social-card images should be reachable public assets.
Social URLs should agree with the production canonical identity.
Language and alternate-language annotations should only describe real equivalents.

Metadata preview tools can retain cached information. Confirm the live source before repeatedly changing a correct configuration.

5. Use reproducible diagnostics

These are general HTTP checks, not PublishRank-specific commands. Replace the example URL with your own public page.

curl -I https://example.com/news/story/
curl -I https://example.com/robots.txt
curl -L --max-redirs 5 -I https://example.com/old-story/

Inspect redirects, response status, and indexing headers. Use page source for canonical and metadata checks and Search Console for the search engine’s observed state. Keep changes documented so regressions can be reproduced.

Reference: Google canonical guidance · Blocking indexing