In plain words
The articles on this site are good. The trouble is behind them: search engines are being shown the shopping cart and leftover test pages, and the home page is slow to answer.
From a real audit, names removed · A content site with a small online store, built with a page builder · audited in Sep 2026
- 24
- Pages in the page sitemap
- At least 11
- Of those, shop plumbing or leftovers
- 2.15 s
- Server response (TTFB)
- 60
- Stylesheets requested by the home page
Words this audit uses
- Sitemap:
- The list of pages a site hands to search engines.
- Indexed, noindex:
- Indexed means a search engine has stored a page and can show it. A noindex tag asks it not to.
- H1, main heading:
- The main heading of a page: the line that tells a search engine what the page is about.
- Structured data, schema, JSON-LD:
- Labels in a page’s code that tell machines what something is: an article, a product, a business.
- Redirect:
- An instruction that sends visitors and search engines from one address to the right one.
- Lighthouse:
- Google’s free test of how fast a page loads.
- TTFB, server response:
- How long the server takes to start answering.
- Meta description:
- The short summary shown under a page’s title in search results.
- Search Console:
- Google’s free tool that shows how a site appears in its search results.
The audit’s short version
The writing is well made. What holds it back is that search engines are being invited to crawl the shopping cart, the checkout and two unfinished test pages, while the shop itself sells nothing.
How it was measured
Measured from the live site, its sitemaps and its page source: the robots tags, the sitemap counts, the headings, the requests and the server response. The PageSpeed API was over its daily quota when we tested, so the speed figures are our own measurements and no Lighthouse score is quoted.
What is already working
- One article taken as a sample has 4,738 words, 13 H2 subheadings, one correct H1, 32 internal links, and a title and meta description that read as written by hand.
- The same article carries full structured data: BlogPosting, Person, VideoObject, ImageObject, WebPage and WebSite.
- Redirects are set up properly, with both www and http sending a clean 301 to HTTPS.
What the audit found
1The indexable empty store
The main finding. Every URL below returns “index, follow” and sits in the sitemap. Of the 24 pages in the page sitemap, at least 11 are shop plumbing or leftovers, and each one tells search engines it deserves to be in the results. The site’s 22 articles are competing for attention with its own cart page.
/cart/
Why it matters: A functional page with no content of its own, open to search engines and listed in the sitemap.
/checkout/ and a second checkout path
Why it matters: Both checkout paths are indexable.
Receipt, confirmation, order history and failed-transaction pages
Why it matters: Transactional pages that should never appear in search.
/my-account/
Why it matters: A login page, open to indexing.
An unfinished page, still titled with the page builder’s default name
Why it matters: Left behind by the builder.
A second test page
Why it matters: Carries around 5,100 words. May duplicate real content.
A third leftover
Why it matters: No meaningful content beyond the template.
/products/ and /shop/
Why it matters: Indexable, and showing no products at all.
URL Why it matters /cart/ A functional page with no content of its own, open to search engines and listed in the sitemap. /checkout/ and a second checkout path Both checkout paths are indexable. Receipt, confirmation, order history and failed-transaction pages Transactional pages that should never appear in search. /my-account/ A login page, open to indexing. An unfinished page, still titled with the page builder’s default name Left behind by the builder. A second test page Carries around 5,100 words. May duplicate real content. A third leftover No meaningful content beyond the template. /products/ and /shop/ Indexable, and showing no products at all. Fix: Noindex the store plumbing and remove it from the sitemap at the same time, since a sitemap entry contradicts a noindex tag. The leftovers are deleted, or noindexed and redirected, after the long one is checked for duplicate content against the live articles.
2The home page has no H1 of its own
The home page carries three H1 tags, and all three are blog post titles pulled in by the article cards. There is no H1 describing the site itself. The title tag and meta description are both good, but the one element that says what this page is about is spent three times on other pages’ headlines. A template fault, not a writing fault, and a small fix.
Fix: One H1 that describes the site, with the article card headings demoted to H2 or H3 where they belong.
3Speed and the page builder’s load
Measured on the home page. These are our own measurements, not a Lighthouse score.
Server response (TTFB)
Result: 2.15 s
Comment: Slow. On LiteSpeed this usually means caching is not doing its job.
Full load, our test
Result: 3.78 s
Comment: Most readers arrive on a phone, where this feels worse.
Stylesheets requested
Result: 60
Comment: Typical of a page-builder site where every widget loads its own assets.
Scripts requested
Result: 31
Comment: Can be combined and deferred without touching the design.
Home page HTML weight
Result: 194 KB
Comment: Heavy for a page that is mostly text and article cards.
Measured Result Comment Server response (TTFB) 2.15 s Slow. On LiteSpeed this usually means caching is not doing its job. Full load, our test 3.78 s Most readers arrive on a phone, where this feels worse. Stylesheets requested 60 Typical of a page-builder site where every widget loads its own assets. Scripts requested 31 Can be combined and deferred without touching the design. Home page HTML weight 194 KB Heavy for a page that is mostly text and article cards. Fix: Cache configured properly, CSS and JS combined and deferred, unused builder assets stopped from loading site-wide, images converted and lazy-loaded. No redesign.
4Where the traffic is supposed to go
There is nothing for sale on the site today and no service page. The only conversion available is the newsletter signup. The audit says this up front because it decides how the work is judged: the number that matters is newsletter subscribers per month, then returning readers.
The order of work
- Noindex the store plumbing and take it out of the sitemap.
- Deal with the leftover pages.
- Fix the home page H1.
- Speed pass: cache, CSS and JS, images.
- Full crawl of all 46 URLs: broken links, redirect chains, thin pages, duplicate titles and missing meta descriptions.
- Record a Search Console and analytics baseline, so every later number is a comparison.
What this audit did not check
- A Lighthouse score: the PageSpeed API was over its daily quota, and the audit says so and gives its own measurements.
What was removed, and what was not. The business, its website and page addresses, people, competitors, places and the search terms that would name it are removed or replaced with a word in [brackets]. The prices and the proposal that closed the audit are left out. Every figure is the audit’s own.
Your own report. This sample is the audit: what we found and the evidence for it. With Technical SEO you also get the fixes, done on your site or handed over as a change sheet, and a record of each change. That record is not shown here.