Content or markup interferes with the ability of search engines to analyze a page

Article
10/10/2017

These rules identify content or markup that prevents search engines from accurately analyzing your site.

Confusing content overview

Confusing content is content or code that would improve search engine rankings but is constructed in a way that makes search engines work harder to discover it.

The Microsoft Expression Web SEO Checker evaluates your site using a subset of known search-engine behavior patterns.

Confusing-content problems

The Expression Web SEO Checker detects and reports the following conditions.

The page is not well-formed

The page markup does not follow rules for well-formed XHTML. The SEO Checker cannot accurately check a page unless it is well-formed.

For more information, see WEB1042 - The page is not well-formed.

The <html> tag is missing

This page contains no <html> tag. The SEO Checker cannot accurately check a page unless it is contained inside an <html> tag.

For more information, see WEB1065 - The <html> tag is missing.

The <body> tag is missing

Because search engines generally consider text outside of the <body> tag to be less relevant than text inside a <body> tag, every page should include a <body> tag that contains search-relevant text.

For more information, see WEB1001 - The <body> tag is missing.

The <meta name="robots"> tag contains invalid values

Incorrectly using the attribute values nofollow or noindex in the <meta name="robots"> tag may significantly change the search-engine results for your site.

For more information, see WEB1038 - The <meta name="robots"> tag contains invalid values.

Canonical links are not defined in the <head> tag section

A canonical link is defined outside the <head> tag section of this page.

For more information, see WEB1057 - Canonical links are not defined inside the <head> tag section.

There is more than one canonical link

Each page should contain only one canonical link.

For more information, see WEB1056 - There is more than one canonical link.

The <title> tag is not defined in the <head> tag section

The <title> tag is defined outside the <head> tag section. Search engines may not analyze the <title> tag unless it's inside the <head> tag section.

For more information, see WEB1046 - The <title> tag is not defined inside the <head> tag section.

The <title> tag should be declared only once in a page

If there is more than one <title> tag in the <head> tag section of a page, a search engine may arbitrarily decide which one is the most relevant in the search engine results.

For more information, see WEB1050 - The <title> tag should be declared only once in a page.

The <meta name="description"> tag is not inside the <head> tag section

Search engines may have difficulty finding the <meta name="description"> tag unless it is inside the <head> tag section of the page.

For more information, see WEB1022 - The <meta name="description"> tag is not inside the <head> tag section.

The <meta name="keywords"> tag is not inside the <head> tag section

Search engines may have difficulty finding the <meta name="keywords"> tag unless it is inside the <head> tag section of the page.

For more information, see WEB1029 - The <meta name="keywords"> tag is not inside the <head> tag section.

The <meta name="keywords"> tag should be declared only once in a page

If there is more than one <meta name="keywords"> tag in the <head> tag section of a page, a search engine may arbitrarily decide which one is the most relevant in the search-engine results.

For more information, see WEB1033 - The <meta name="keywords"> tag should be declared only once in a page.

The <h1> is not inside the <body> tag section

Search engines may have difficulty finding a heading tag (<h2> through <h6>) unless it is inside the <body> tag section of the page.

For more information, see WEB1008 - The <h1> is not inside the <body> tag section.

The page contains more than one <h1> tag

If there is more than one <h1> tag in a page, a search engine may arbitrarily decide which one is the most relevant in the search-engine results.

For more information, see WEB1004 - The <h1> tag should be declared only once in a page.