Fix Next.js SEO indexing and crawl budget issues

This skill helps developers resolve Google Search Console indexing problems in Next.js applications. It provides framework-specific guidance for fixing duplicate canonicals, accidental noindex tags, sitemap errors, redirect chains, and crawl budget waste. The skill walks through a seven-step audit covering canonical URLs, noindex detection, sitemap health, static rendering verification, internal linking, redirects, and robots.txt configuration.

Use this skill when your Next.js site shows Google Search Console coverage issues such as "Crawled - not indexed," "Duplicate without canonical," "Excluded by noindex," or "Discovered - not indexed" URLs. Use it before an SEO release to audit sitemap, robots.txt, redirect, internal-linking, or static-rendering problems. Use it when you need framework-specific examples for Next.js App Router metadata, generateMetadata, robots.js, and sitemap routes.

Do not use this skill expecting guaranteed indexing - final indexing decisions remain with the search engine. Do not apply recommendations that change URL structure, redirects, or canonical policy to production without review, as these are production-impacting changes.

You provide access to your Next.js codebase, deployed URLs, and ideally Google Search Console data showing coverage states. The skill requires you to identify which pages have indexing problems (duplicate canonicals, noindex issues, missing sitemaps, or poor internal linking).

You receive a step-by-step audit with code examples for fixing canonical URLs, removing accidental noindex tags, implementing proper sitemap routes, verifying static generation, eliminating redirect chains, and configuring robots.txt. For example, canonical implementation in App Router:

// app/blog/my-post/page.js
export const metadata = {
  title: 'My Post Title',
  alternates: {
    canonical: 'https://www.yourdomain.com/blog/my-post',
  },
};

Or for dynamic routes:

export async function generateMetadata({ params }) {
  return {
    alternates: {
      canonical: `https://www.yourdomain.com/blog/${params.slug}`,
    },
  };
}

The skill also provides shell commands for auditing noindex tags:

# Search for noindex in metadata
rg -n --glob '*.{js,ts,jsx,tsx}' 'noindex|robots.*noindex' app pages

# Check layout.js - a noindex here affects ALL pages
grep -n "robots" app/layout.js

This skill works with Next.js App Router projects and integrates with Google Search Console for diagnosing coverage states. It provides configuration patterns for next.config.js redirects, app/sitemap.js routes, app/robots.js files, and metadata exports in page components.

This skill is for Next.js developers and SEO specialists managing App Router sites with indexing problems. It's particularly valuable for teams preparing SEO releases who need to audit technical SEO implementation before deployment. The skill assumes you have codebase access and can interpret Google Search Console coverage reports. It provides a nine-item indexing checklist covering canonical URLs, noindex audits, sitemap validation, sitemap submission, static generation verification, redirect chains, robots.txt configuration, internal linking, and generateStaticParams implementation for dynamic routes.