Technical SEO and Performance
Recover rankings after a migration, speed up your site and get it ready for AI search, on Drupal, WordPress or a custom stack.
iTech4Web provides technical SEO services and performance work for websites on Drupal, WordPress and custom stacks. We find out why a site lost search traffic after a migration or redesign, fix what keeps search engines and AI assistants from reading it, and make pages fast enough to pass Core Web Vitals. Content and link building stay with your marketing team or SEO agency, and we work alongside them.
Technical SEO services for sites that lost traffic or speed
When rankings or speed drop, the cause is often in the setup rather than the content: a migration, a redesign, a new host or a plugin left switched on. We find what changed and fix it.
Rankings lost after a migration or redesign
We compare the old and new URLs, then fix redirects, canonical tags, page titles, hreflang and sitemaps. We also look for leftovers, such as a staging setting that tells search engines not to index the live site.
Slow pages and failing Core Web Vitals
We measure loading, responsiveness and layout shifts with real-visitor data and lab tests, then fix what slows the page down: heavy images, fonts, scripts or slow templates.
A server that slows down under load
We add page and object caching and a CDN, tune the database and PHP, and set firewall rules so aggressive bots don't take capacity from real visitors.
A site AI assistants can read
Structured data, clean sitemaps, crawl rules and an llms.txt file tell search engines and AI assistants in machine-readable form who you are and what you offer.
The three numbers behind Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are Google's measures of loading, responsiveness and visual stability. Google says good Core Web Vitals, along with other page experience aspects, align with what its core ranking systems seek to reward. These are its targets.
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
The main content should appear within 2.5 seconds. Typical fixes: a faster server response, right-sized images and fewer render-blocking files.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
The page should react to a tap or click in under 200 milliseconds. Typical fixes: less JavaScript on the main thread and lighter third-party scripts.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Content should stay put while the page loads, with a score under 0.1. Typical fixes: reserved space for images, ads and embeds, and steadier font loading.
Targets from Google's Core Web Vitals documentation.
Getting your site ready for AI search
Google says optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO, and that you don't need special AI files or markup to appear in Google Search. So we start with the basics that search engines rely on, then add a few inexpensive extras.
The basics
We check that every important page can be crawled and indexed, and that duplicate pages point to the right original.
The extras
Structured data describes your organization, services and FAQs in a format machines read. llms.txt is a proposed file that gives AI tools a short map of your site.
From the audit to measured results
Audit
We start from the outside with read-only checks: a crawl, redirects, titles, canonical tags, structured data and speed tests on mobile and desktop. With access to Search Console and analytics, we add your real-visitor data.
A plan in order of impact
Every finding gets a severity and an effort estimate, so you can approve the critical fixes first and decide on the rest later.
Fixes in small releases
We ship the fixes in small, tested releases. Larger changes are rehearsed on a copy of the live site before they go out.
Measure and monitor
After each release we recheck the live site, follow Search Console and the Core Web Vitals report as Google recrawls, and tell you what changed.
Start with a free audit
The audit is free. You decide which fixes to make after you see the findings, and we quote only those.
Technical SEO and performance audit
A written report with every finding ranked by severity and an effort estimate for each fix.
Fixes
We quote the fixes you pick from the estimates in the audit and release them in small batches.
Care after the fixes
After the fixes, a website care plan covers updates, security and small fixes, with a monthly statement of hours.
Recent technical SEO and performance work
A U.S. online publication and a creative space for children in Vienna, both on WordPress, and a U.S. gaming news site on Drupal.
But Why Tho?
We moved the publication's site, with more than 17,000 posts, to a new server ahead of its old host's deadline and helped the team settle the technical and billing questions with that host. Site search went from 21 to 73 seconds down to 0.55 seconds, and the server answers cached pages in 20 to 50 milliseconds. We also repaired 18,663 image links broken by an earlier CDN setup, moved DNS and Cloudflare into an account the publication owns, and restored password reset emails for its subscribers.
“iTech4Web's quality of service is the best I have ever experienced in my 9 years working with support.”
Kate Sánchez, Editor-in-Chief. Review on Clutch
MuSe
We set up page caching, converted heavy decorative images to WebP, self-hosted the fonts and loaded scripts only where they are used. In Lighthouse mobile tests of the same page (May 5 to May 9, 2026), the score rose from 58 to 89 and Largest Contentful Paint fell from 15.5 to 3.4 seconds. Chrome's real-user data for the 28 days to September 22, 2026 shows Core Web Vitals passed on mobile, with LCP at 0.7 seconds.
TechRaptor
We started with Cloudflare caching of HTML pages for anonymous visitors, which cut server response time (time to first byte) from about 800 ms to about 500 ms. Then we put a Varnish cache in front of Drupal that clears only the pages an edit affects, and response time dropped to about 300 ms. We also built a dashboard of real visitors' load times.
Questions about technical SEO and site speed
What do technical SEO services include?
Everything that decides whether search engines can crawl, index and understand your pages, and how fast those pages load: redirects, canonical tags, titles and meta descriptions, hreflang, XML sitemaps, robots.txt, structured data, Core Web Vitals, caching and server tuning. Content writing, keyword strategy and link building are not part of it. We work alongside your marketing team or SEO agency on those.
Why did our traffic drop after a website migration or redesign?
Common causes are missing or chained redirects, canonical tags that point to the wrong page, titles that lost their keywords, a staging setting that blocks indexing on the live site, or a new sitemap that leaves pages out. An audit compares your old and new URLs and shows which of these apply to your site.
How long does it take for rankings to recover?
It depends on how often Google recrawls your pages and how large the problem was, so we don't promise a date. A fix takes effect for a page once Google recrawls it, and on a large site that can take weeks. We follow Search Console after each release and tell you what changed.
Can you guarantee first-page rankings?
No. Google decides rankings, and no agency can promise a position. We remove the technical problems that hold your pages back and show you the before and after in Search Console.
What are Core Web Vitals, and does our site pass them?
Core Web Vitals are Google's three measures of page experience: Largest Contentful Paint for loading (good is within 2.5 seconds), Interaction to Next Paint for responsiveness (under 200 milliseconds) and Cumulative Layout Shift for visual stability (under 0.1). The Core Web Vitals report in Search Console shows how real visitors experience your pages. We use it together with lab tests to find what to fix.
Do we need llms.txt or special markup for AI search?
Not for Google. Google says you don't need special AI files or markup to appear in its search, and that optimizing for its AI features is still SEO. Google still recommends structured data as part of overall SEO, so we add it where it fits your content. llms.txt is a proposed format, not a standard. It takes little time to add, so we add it when you want it.
Bots are slowing our site down. Can you help?
Yes. Aggressive crawlers and bot farms can take server capacity from real visitors. For a gaming news site we added Cloudflare firewall and bot rules in July 2026 that challenge unverified traffic from data center networks and let verified search engine crawlers through.
Which platforms do you work on?
Drupal, WordPress, custom PHP and JavaScript applications, and static or headless sites. Drupal is where we have the most depth. Redirects, caching and structured data work on the same principles on any stack.
What do you need from us to start an audit?
Your site's address is enough to begin, because the first checks use public pages. For the full audit we ask for read access to Google Search Console and your analytics, and for hosting or code access later if you want us to make the fixes.
How much does a technical SEO audit cost?
The audit is free. You get a written report with every finding ranked by severity and an effort estimate for each fix. The fixes are quoted from those estimates, and you approve each one before we start.
Tell us what changed on your site
Send us your site's address and, if you know it, when traffic or speed dropped. We will reply with questions and set up your free audit.
