SEMURAI Academy
Academy
SEMURAI Academy is a free SEO knowledge base: from the basics of search, through technical SEO and content, to Google Search Console and tools. I write from my own practice – since 2008.
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Google Search Console for Beginners: A Guide for the AI Era
A beginner’s guide to Google Search Console: how to read the Performance report, where to find AI Overviews traffic, indexing, sitemaps, Core…
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Google Search Essentials: What’s Allowed and What’s Spam in 2026
Google’s webmaster guidelines are now called Search Essentials. Here are the technical requirements, all 16 spam policies, the 2026 changes and how…
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5XX Server Errors: What 500, 502 and 503 Mean and How to Fix Them
What 5XX server errors mean, how Google treats them, how to use a 503 safely during maintenance and how to track down…
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What Is E-E-A-T? Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trust
E-E-A-T is how Google describes content quality: experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust. Here’s whether it affects rankings and how to build it.
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HTTP 3xx Status Codes (300–308): How 301, 302, 303, 307 and 308 Differ
301, 302, 307 or 308? The differences between 3xx redirect codes in one table, their impact on SEO, plus 303, 304 and…
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How to Set Up a 301 Redirect (.htaccess, Nginx, PHP, WordPress)
Ready-to-copy 301 redirect examples for .htaccess, Nginx, PHP, WordPress and Cloudflare, plus the most common mistakes and how to check that a…
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404 vs 410 Errors – What They Mean and How to Fix Them (4XX)
What 404 and 410 errors mean, how they differ and how Google treats them. When to use a 301, when a 410,…
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How to Add and Verify Your Site in Google Search Console
How to add a site or domain to Google Search Console step by step: Domain vs URL prefix, five verification methods, WordPress,…
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How to Add a User to Google Search Console (and Set Permissions)
How to add a user to Google Search Console, which permission level to choose and how to safely remove a former owner…
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Crawl Budget: What It Is and When to Optimise It
Crawl budget is the set of URLs Googlebot can and wants to crawl. Who it really affects, what wastes it, how to…
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Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (Ahrefs Free): How to Add Your Site
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, now called Ahrefs Free, gives verified site owners Site Explorer and Site Audit at no cost. Limits, verification and…
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Google Meet vs Microsoft Teams: Comparison and Pricing (2026)
Google Meet or Microsoft Teams? I compare free plan limits, pricing, recording, transcription language support and AI features (Gemini, Copilot) from an…