Drupal websites can be structured for SEO in flexible ways. Enabling clean URLs, managing URL aliases with Pathauto, and controlling HTML output with modules like Clean Markup are important. Configuring metatags with the Metatag module and adding breadcrumbs and alternative feeds helps search engines index content. Views also need configuration to optimize pagination and metadata. With strategic configuration, Drupal can be optimized for search engines.

1. DRUPAL 7 SEO
How to structure a Drupal website for strategic Search EngineOptimisation
Peter Macinkovic | @inkovic onTwitter Drupal Melbourne Meetup | July 2016

2. WHAT MAKES SEO IN DRUPAL DIFFERENT?
 Drupal is Flexible: You are not ‘locked in’ any particular
information architecture
 Out of the Box, Drupal 7 is lacking: There are a few ‘must-
have’ modules
for most Drupal installations
 Drupal is Creative: You can solve a lot of common SEO
problems in a couple of different ways

3. ENABLING CLEANS URL
INDEXINGAND CRAWLABILITY
• By default, URLs are queries
eg: http://www.example.com/?q=node/83
• Clean URLs helps Google Spiders crawl
your URLs more cleanly than queries
Source: http://drupal.stackexchange.com/a/54570/21701
Reference: https://www.drupal.org/getting-started/clean-urls
• Required: mod_rewrite enabled in Apache
• For nginx and other platforms, refer to
https://www.drupal.org/node/717772

4. ENABLING CLEANS URL
INDEXINGAND CRAWLABILITY
URL: example.com/admin/config/search/clean-urlsURL: example.com/admin/config/search

6. MANAGING URL ALIASES
INDEXINGAND CRAWLABILITY
• By default, each node has a hard
referenced system URL
eg: /node/12
• URLs can be Aliased to match a node for a
semantically correct url
• Path, the default module is limited
• Pathauto makes URL configuration easy
Source: http://example.com/admin/config/search/path
Reference: https://www.drupal.org/project/pathauto

8. MANAGING URL ALIASES: PATHAUTO
INDEXINGAND CRAWLABILITY
• UsingTokens to create semantic URL
structures
eg: /articles/[node:title]
• Parent would likely be aView
• eg: /articles could be a views page that lists
all articles in order of publish date
Source: http://example.com/admin/config/search/path/patterns

9. drupal.org/project/clean_markup

10. GLOBAL REDIRECT

11. drupal.org/project/clean_markup

12. CURING ‘DIVITIS’ IN DRUPAL
• Default markup rendered is lousy: Drupal 7 has a nasty habit of wrapping
everything in 2+ divs and slapping on 3+ classes on everything
• Blocks by default render the block title as a h2: Hierarchy of heading tags in
HTML is really important for SEO. Unchanged Blocks divert attention from the
content of the page.
• Modular solution orTheme level: Pick the appropriate solution, whether it is
overwriting a tpl.php file or using a module to change defaults.
• Compatible with Display Suite: Configuring a bundle is almost identical to
configuring the fields of a content type.

13. MANAGING HTML OUTPUT
CLEAN BLOCKS MODULE
• Clean Markup: Choose the wrapper
elements of HTML for Panels, Blocks etc.
• Useful for sitebuilders to control output
• Removes the need to customise at the
theme level
Reference: https://www.drupal.org/project/clean_markup

14. MANAGING HTML OUTPUT
CLEAN BLOCKS MODULE
• Clean Markup: Choose the wrapper
elements of HTML for Panels, Blocks etc.
• Useful for sitebuilders to control output
• Removes the need to customise at the
theme level
Reference: https://www.drupal.org/project/clean_markup

15. drupal.org/project/clean_markup

16. MANAGING HTML OUTPUT
OTHERTIPS
• Theme Each ContentType Optimally: Try to render fields that are semantic and
schema.org compliant. Do not leave this to the content author.
• Theme Common Elements: Default blocks template, views templates etc.
• Make sure it is fast: Cached everything for anonymous users. Use Boost,Varnish,
Aggregation on Javascript and CSS.

17. MANAGING METATAGS
METATAG MODULE
• MetaTags are important: PageTitle and the
first h1 tags are considered the most
important onsite elements for keywords
• Smart Defaults: Using tokens and pattern
matching to create verbose
• Customise on a Entity-by-Entity Basis
Reference: https://www.drupal.org/project/metatag
• Alternative: metatag_quick, page_title

18. drupal.org/project/metatag

19. MANAGING METATAGS
CONFIGURING DEFAULT METATAGS
• Configure Smart Defaults: By default, all
404 pages have their canonical URL set to
root URL
• ConfigureYour Nodes: Make sure that you
have verbose defaults for PageTitle,
Description etc.
• Contextual Awareness: Do edge case
exceptions. i.e. if term reference or view
page = 0 results, reference parent.
• 1 result? Canonical the result itself!

20. MANAGINGVIEWS
CONFIGURING DEFAULTVIEWS PAGES
• Configure IndividualViews Pages: Ensure
correct Metatags are set viaViews Metatag
Overview.
drupal.org/project/metatag_views_overview
• Pagination: Ensure <link rel=“previous”
href=“/1”> etc. are configured to improve
crawlability ofView Pages
Refer to:
https://www.drupal.org/node/1567684

21. drupal.org/project/views_rss

22. MANAGINGVIEWS
CONFIGURING REL ALTERNATIVE FEEDS
• Set rel alternative to a feed:
Create an RSS feed for allViews/List pages with an RSS version to improve indexability of nodes.

23. drupal.org/project/path_breadcrumbs

24. MANAGING BREADCRUMBS
CONFIGURING RICH SNIPPET
• All Else Fails, Use JSON-LD + Contextual
Views: Quick. Dirty. JSON in between a
script tag.
• Do NOT Use Microdata: BreadcrumbList is
buggy. Use JSON-LD or RDFa vocab instead.
Don’t forgetView Pages: Breadcrumsb aren’t
just for nodes.
Reference: https://www. schema.org/BreadcrumbList

25. drupal.org/project/path_breadcrumbs

26. QUESTIONS?
• I didn’t cover Context in this talk: Strategic Block Placement on a /path level can
be used strategically to hyper optimise a page like taxonmy or views pages.
• I don’t like the SEO Checklist module: It’s opinionated and so am I.