Audit crawlability of alternative pages to ensure search engines can access them.
- Audit crawlability of alternative pages to ensure search engines can access them2 cited sources1 category
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Why this matters
Ensuring crawlability guarantees that search engines can discover and rank alternative pages, which is foundational for organic visibility.
Hypothetical standard operating procedure
Adapt this example to your site, access, tools, and change process. It is our suggested procedure, informed by the sources below.
- Fetch and review robots.txt to confirm no Disallow rules block alternative page paths.
- Use a crawler like Screaming Frog to crawl the alternatives section and verify all pages return status 200.
- Inspect URL parameters to confirm no duplicate parameter crawling of filtered alternative pages.
- Ensure that no accidental noindex meta tags or headers exist on alternative pages.
- Document crawl issues and resolve any blocking to allow search engine access.
Watch for
Blocking alternative pages via robots.txt or noindex tags can prevent them from being indexed and ranked.
Definition of done
Verified that all key alternative pages are reachable by crawlers without blocking directives.
Sources & attribution
Original checklist wording and example SOP by Best SEO Checklist, using source-grounded AI assistance. Editorial contact: Ted Kubaitis, @tedkubaitis on Teams. Check current source guidance before implementation.