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Pillar · Topic cluster

Technical SEO war stories

What broke, why, and how I fixed it. The localhost canonical that killed my indexing. The GSC inspection that lied. The schema that validated but didn't show in search. The stuff that's hard to find on the internet because nobody publishes their scars.

What this pillar covers

technical-seocanonical-urlscanonicalindexingschemaschema-markupredirectssitemap

Companion tool

Canonical URL Checker

Paste any URL, see what canonical it serves right now. The companion to half the posts in this pillar.

6

posts

Newest first

May 28, 2026
7 min

llms.txt: what it is, how to write one, and why most SEOs are still ignoring it

llms.txt is the AI-era robots.txt — a markdown file at your site root that tells LLMs what to read and what to skip. Here's what it actually does, how to write a real one, and the parts of the spec everyone gets wrong.

ai-opsllms-txtai-searchgeoai-citation
May 22, 2026
6 min

The GSC Coverage report is the most underrated free tool in SEO

Everyone uses Search Console for queries and clicks. Almost nobody actually reads the Coverage report properly. It's the single best diagnostic in SEO and it's free. Here's what's in it, how to read it, and the bug patterns it catches.

technical-seogscgoogle-search-consoleindexingdiagnostic
May 21, 2026
6 min

ISR, SSG, SSR — which one actually helps SEO in 2026?

Three rendering strategies. Different trade-offs. Different SEO implications. Here's the honest breakdown for Next.js sites in 2026 — what Googlebot sees, what Core Web Vitals look like, and which to pick for which page type.

technical-seonextjsisrssgssr
May 20, 2026
6 min

The 5 technical SEO leaks that quietly kill indexing (and how to plug each one)

Most indexing disasters aren't dramatic. They're slow leaks — five common technical SEO bugs that bleed indexed pages over weeks. Here's each one, why it's so easy to miss, and the 10-minute fix.

technical-seoindexingcanonical-urlsschemasitemap
Why GSC URL Inspection lies about your canonical URL (and how to actually check)
May 12, 2026
5 min

Why GSC URL Inspection lies about your canonical URL (and how to actually check)

Google Search Console URL Inspection shows two canonicals. Most people only notice one. That gap is where indexing problems hide.
technical-seocanonical-urlsgoogle-search-consoleindexing
How I Fixed Canonical URLs Pointing to Localhost in Next.js
Apr 5, 2026
10 min

How I Fixed Canonical URLs Pointing to Localhost in Next.js

My portfolio site had zero indexed pages for 5 weeks. Every canonical URL pointed to localhost:3000. Here's the 13-file grep audit, the 18-line fix, and how to check your own site.
nextjsseocanonical-urlsgoogle-search-consoledebugging