case 01 · 200 OK
Recovering an e-commerce store from Soft 404s
Context. Empty and thin category pages on a store were being treated by Google as Soft 404s - pages that return a 200 status but look like errors - so they dropped out of the index and dragged on crawl efficiency.
What I did. Audited the affected templates, added proper handling for genuinely empty categories, removed accidental noindex directives on pages that should rank, and corrected canonicals so Google stopped seeing duplicates.
Outcome. The affected category URLs returned to a clean indexable state and re-entered the index after recrawl.
e-commerceSoft 404noindexcanonical
case 02 · 301
Untangling a redirect chain after a migration
Context. A site migration had left behind multi-hop redirect chains (old URL → interim URL → final URL), wasting crawl budget and diluting link signals.
What I did. Mapped every legacy URL to its correct destination, collapsed the chains into clean single-hop 301s, fixed the resulting 4xx stragglers, and updated internal links to point at final URLs directly.
Outcome. Redirects resolved in a single hop and the broken-link count in Search Console fell back toward zero.
migration301 mappingredirect chainsinternal links
case 03 · XML
Sitemap architecture for a large catalog
Context. A large store relied on a single oversized sitemap that crawlers struggled to process, leaving newer products and posts undiscovered.
What I did. Split the monolith into a sitemap index with separate child maps for products, blog posts, and static pages, then submitted and monitored coverage in Search Console.
Outcome. Crawlers could read and track each section independently, improving discovery of new URLs.
sitemapssitemap indexcrawl coverage
case 04 · setup
Clean Search Console foundation for a launch
Context. A newly launched site had no verified search presence and no way to measure organic performance.
What I did. Verified the property via DNS/TXT records, submitted the sitemap so crawling began immediately, set up Bing Webmaster Tools in parallel, and connected Google Analytics for end-to-end tracking.
Outcome. The site was measurable and crawlable from day one, with a verified property and a registered, error-free sitemap.
GSC verificationDNS / TXTBingAnalytics