Technical SEO: the foundation under your visibility.
Google and AI systems need to be able to find, load and understand your pages before your content can deliver anything at all. Technical SEO is about those conditions. Not about the words on your page, but about whether they get read.
24 checks, instant results, no registration
Three steps, and every step can break
reg. T.001Three gates in a row, and only after the third do you exist
Each step shows where it breaks in practice. The nasty part is that a break early in the chain reports itself nowhere further along: a page that does not make it past step 01 gives no error message, it simply is not there. This is our own breakdown of the chain, not a measurement.
a page that passes step 1 but not step 3 does not exist for Google
Six layers you can check one by one
reg. T.002What a crawler sends back
reg. T.003Six lines from a report, with four different flaws
A recreated report from a made-up example company, not a client file: the URLs, the counts and the notes are there to show the four types of flaw side by side. Watch the fourth column, because that is where the difference sits between a page that is slow and a page that does not exist.
Google's three thresholds, set against an example site
The thresholds of 2.5 seconds, 200 milliseconds and 0.1 are the values Google itself publishes for a good rating. The measured values next to them belong to the same made-up example company as in FIG.02, and are therefore not a client figure. The bar shows the margin to the threshold, so longer is better here.
the bar shows the margin to the threshold, so longer is better · INP replaced the old FID measurement in March 2024 · Google bases these figures on 28 days of real user data
What is in the block, and what is conspicuously missing
The same example company, now the JSON-LD of a service page. The three green labels are the types that are present; the two struck through are the types you would expect on a page like that, and which are missing. This is about the shape of the mistake, not a judgement of an existing site.
JSON-LD remains Google's preferred format for structured data
Three ways to know where you stand
reg. T.004- 24 checks covering technique, on-page, content and AI visibility
- Score per category with an explanation for each finding
- No registration, no email address needed
- Done within a few seconds
- We go through your five most important pages by hand
- Comparison with the competitors currently ranking above you
- More general than the paid audit, but still an honest picture
- You get an invitation for a thirty-minute call
- No obligation, even if you want to take it further yourself
- All six layers checked per page
- Crawl and indexing status of your entire site
- An order: what first, what it affects, how much work it is
- Ongoing support after that is available for €250 per month
all rates are also on the pricing page NL · per market we take on one client, so we never work for your competitor
What is technical SEO?
Technical SEO is everything a search engine or AI system needs to find, load and understand your pages. It is not about the words on your page, but about the conditions under which those words can be read.
Technique is a condition, not a substitute
The distinction matters because it determines the order. Content that cannot be crawled or indexed delivers nothing, no matter how well it is written. Technique is a condition, not a substitute. Once the basics are right, every euro you then put into content or advertising is worth more.
Why it weighs more heavily now than a few years ago
A second reader has joined in. Besides Googlebot, AI systems now also fetch your pages to compose answers with. Those systems have less patience with messy HTML and lean more heavily on explicit signals: structured data, clear headings, a page that reads without detours.
That makes technical SEO broader than it was. It is no longer just the question of whether Google can index you, but also whether a machine can work out exactly what your page is about and why you are a credible source.
Crawling, rendering, indexing: where it goes wrong
Most technical problems are not spectacular. They are quiet. A page set to noindex gives no error message, it just disappears. A canonical pointing to the wrong URL looks perfectly fine in the source code. That is exactly why these kinds of things sit unnoticed for months.
Crawled is not the same as indexed
This is the point where most confusion arises. Google can fetch your page and then decide not to include it. In Search Console that is called "Crawled - currently not indexed". That is usually not a technical error but a quality judgement: the page is too thin, too similar to another one, or adds nothing to what is already there.
Wasting crawl budget on clutter
Bots do not fetch an unlimited amount. If you have hundreds of URLs with filters, sorting parameters or session IDs, part of that attention goes there instead of to your service pages. Put noindex on thin archives and make sure your sitemap only contains URLs you genuinely want to win with.
Content that only appears after JavaScript
If your text is not in the HTML the server sends back, but only gets loaded in by JavaScript, your visibility depends on whether that step succeeds. Often it goes fine, sometimes it does not. You see it reflected in Search Console as a screenshot with content missing. Server-side rendering removes that uncertainty.
Speed: the server first, then the experience
Speed is often discussed as one thing, but it is actually two. Server response time is how quickly your server starts responding at all. Core Web Vitals measure what the visitor experiences after that. You cannot fix the second if the first is not right.
Server response time is the starting point
Google counts a server response time under 800 milliseconds as good. That is the first number to look at, because it literally slows down everything that comes after it: your LCP can never be faster than the moment your server starts responding.
Note the difference. The response time itself is not a ranking factor, but it does determine the values that are. If you are above a second here, a plugin is rarely the fix, and you should look at your hosting instead.
The three Core Web Vitals
LCP measures how fast the largest visible element loads, with a threshold of 2.5 seconds. INP measures how quickly your site responds to interaction and replaced the old FID measurement in March 2024, with a threshold of 200 milliseconds. CLS measures unexpected shifts during loading, and must stay under 0.1.
Two things are important to know here. Google bases these values on 28 days of real user data, so an improvement you make today is only fully visible in the figures four weeks later. And Google assesses these values per page, at the 75th percentile of that user data. Search Console does group pages with a similar experience together, though, and gives the whole group the same status, so one slow template page drags the rest of its group down in the report.
More on this is in the article about Core Web Vitals and how Google assesses your site. If you are scoring low without knowing why, take a look at why you score low on PageSpeed.
Structured data and AI visibility
Structured data is the layer where you make explicit what a machine would otherwise have to guess. You are not just saying there is text on the page, but what that text represents: this is a company, this is a service, this is a frequently asked question with an answer.
What Google does with that markup
Google uses that markup to determine which information is reliable and relevant enough to show. JSON-LD remains the preferred format here. For most sites, the basics are enough: Organization, WebPage and FAQPage on the pages where you actually answer questions.
What AI systems do differently from Google
An AI answer is put together live from sources. Whether you are included depends on whether the system can work out quickly what your page is about and why you are credible. Clear headings help more here than beautiful sentences: one H1 that sums up the topic, H2s that mark out the subtopics.
The free SEO scan explicitly checks this part: whether Schema.org markup is present, whether FAQ markup is included, whether your Open Graph tags and Twitter Card are complete, and whether your headings and word count give enough to go on to recognise your topic. If you would rather dig deeper into this subject, getting found in AI Overviews and ChatGPT NL is the logical next step.
The checklist you can run through tonight
You do not need expensive software to check the most important things. This is the order in which it pays to look, from most to least drastic.
First, the catastrophic
Is there a noindex somewhere it should not be? Does your robots.txt block the whole site with a Disallow rule under the wildcard? Does everything run on HTTPS? These are the mistakes where a single line of code can wipe out your entire visibility, and they can be checked in five minutes.Then, the structural
Does every page have one clear H1? Google allows more than one, but a single heading that sums up the topic makes it easier for both readers and machines. Does your canonical point to the version you actually want to win? Does your sitemap exist, is it listed in your robots.txt, and does it only contain URLs you want indexed? Do your most important pages get enough internal links?Then, the refining
Is your title short enough not to get cut off, and does your main keyword come first? Google states no character limit and truncates by width, so count on roughly 60 characters and roughly 155 for the description. Does that description convince someone to click? Do your images have alt text? Is there structured data on your most important pages?If you would rather not do this by hand, the scanner runs through these points automatically for one page. For your whole site, manual work is needed, since a scanner only reads one page at a time. If you work with Claude or Codex, the AI Website Check skill NL puts the heading and link structure, the loading behaviour and the next step of one page in order of importance.
When technique is not your problem
It is tempting to look straight at the technique when figures are dropping, because that is something you can act on. But not every visibility problem is technical, and a perfect technical score guarantees nothing.
Dropping impressions at the same positions: then it is not technique
If your impressions drop while your positions stay the same, something is changing in how often your result gets shown at all, not in how Google reads your site. If you get fewer clicks at the same impressions, that is more likely a matter of your title and description than of your server time. And if you are losing traffic to AI answers that already answer the question, that is a content question.
Where the AI Index open data helps
On that last point, we publish the AI Index open data NL: measured per industry, which companies a language model does and does not name. If you see your impressions dropping without a clear cause, start with why your impressions are dropping in 2026 NL.
The honest order
The honest order is: first rule out that it is technique, because that is the cheapest to check. If the basics turn out to be right, your answer lies in your content, your positioning or your market.
Frequently asked questions about technical SEO
What exactly is technical SEO?
Everything a search engine or AI system needs to find, load and understand your pages. It is not about the words on your page, but about the conditions under which those words can be read: reachability, speed, indexability, structure and machine-readable context.
How do I know if my technique is in order?
Start with the free SEO scan. It checks a page on 24 points spread across technique, on-page, content and AI visibility, and you get an instant result without registration. For a picture of your whole site you need a manual audit, since a scanner only reads one page.
What does a technical SEO audit cost?
A full technical audit costs 750 euros one-off, for a maximum of 20 pages. You can also get a free audit of 5 pages. That one is more general and less in-depth, but it does give you an honest picture of where you stand. If you want us to then work structurally on your visibility, that is 250 euros a month. Our service rates for SEO, Google Ads, social media and branding are on the pricing page NL, and the subscription prices for Jarvis and the MyParcel Dashboard are on their own product pages.
What are Core Web Vitals and which values do I need to hit?
Three measurements from Google. LCP measures how fast the largest visible element loads, threshold 2.5 seconds. INP measures how quickly your site responds to interaction and replaced the old FID measurement in March 2024, threshold 200 milliseconds. CLS measures unexpected shifts during loading, desired value under 0.1. Google bases these figures on 28 days of real user data.
Is technical SEO more important than content?
No, but it does come first. Content that cannot be crawled or indexed delivers nothing, no matter how well it is written. Technique is a condition, not a substitute. Once the basics are right, every euro you then put into content is worth more.
How long does it take before technical improvements have an effect?
That differs per type of fix. A page that was set to noindex and becomes indexable again can come back within days once Google visits again. Improvements in Core Web Vitals only become visible after 28 days in the data Google relies on, because that measurement runs on a rolling 28-day window.
Start by knowing where you stand
Technical SEO sounds big, but it starts small: knowing which of the six layers is not right for you. That saves months of guessing and stops you spending money on content on a foundation that cannot carry it.
Scan your site for free, or let us take a look by hand. If you are then looking for someone to carry it out and work structurally on your visibility, you can hire an SEO specialist or see how we approach improving SEO.