Archived document. This file has been superseded or completed and is kept for historical reference.

SEO Fixes Summary

Date: 2026-02-05

Branch: fix/seo-indexing-issues

Issues Identified

Based on the Google Search Console report, the following issues were identified:

1. 51 duplicate canonical issues - Google choosing different canonical than user specified
2. 50 pages with redirects being indexed
3. 1 page blocked by 401 - unauthorized request
4. 4 pages crawled but not indexed
5. 2 soft 404 pages
6. 6 discovered but not indexed pages
7. 15 alternate pages with canonical tags (verify these are correct)
8. 5 noindex pages (verify these are intentional)
9. 1 actual 404 page

Fixes Implemented

1. Dynamic Robots Meta Tag (head.njk)

• Updated src/_includes/head.njk to conditionally render robots meta tag
• Pages with robots: noindex,nofollow in frontmatter now get noindex meta tag
• All other pages get index, follow meta tag

2. Canonical URL Consistency

• The canonical URL is now automatically generated from page.url variable
• All canonical URLs are absolute URLs starting with https://sempers.com
• Index pages get / instead of /index.html

3. Dynamic Sitemap Generation (sitemap.njk)

• Created src/sitemap.njk that dynamically generates sitemap.xml
• Removed the static src/sitemap.xml file
• Excludes noindex pages, feedback, assets, and 404 pages

4. Eleventy Configuration Updates (.eleventy.js)

• Removed sitemap.xml from passthrough copy
• Added dateISO filter for sitemap dates

5. .htaccess Updates

• Added HTTPS enforcement
• Added www to non-www redirect
• Added trailing slash removal
• Added security headers

Files Modified

• src/_includes/head.njk
• .eleventy.js
• public_html/.htaccess

Files Added

• src/sitemap.njk
• business-files/SEO_FIXES_SUMMARY.md

Files Deleted

• src/sitemap.xml

Verification

• Site builds successfully
• Sitemap.xml contains 121 URLs
• All pages have proper canonical URLs
• Visual comparison: All 125 pages identical between QA and Production

Status

• Merged to master: 2026-02-06
• Deployed to production: 2026-02-06
• Visual regression test: PASSED (125/125 pages identical)