We Studied over 1M Domains to Find the Most Common Technical SEO Issues
ahrefs.com
ahrefs.com
- missing alt text - From an accessibility POV this not only possible, it's encouraged. Forcing a screen reader to read the alt text of a decorative image is a piss poor UX. Like you're going to rank for some BS stock image? Doubtful.
- page and SERP title do not match - Do they mean the H1 tag and the title tag's strings do not match? Or the actual SERP, 'cause my understanding is Google, Bing, etc. reserve the right to "adjust" the title they list in the SERP if they believe it is in their customers' best interest. Therefore, it's possible for title and SERP not to match. Regardless (see below) about title length, it's hard to imagine Google denying their customers of good content because of a minor irrelevant mismatch such as this.
- title too long is such a low value signal (to the algorithms) that it's not worth mentioning. If the underlying content is good (i.e., it'll make Google's customers happy) it's very unlikely Google will "penalize" you for a title that is too long.
- meta description too short is a other non issue. Like page title, if the search platform doesn't like the desc it'll just change it anyway. Leave it blank and the algorithms will sort it out.
- multiple H1 tag is a thing? Doesn't HTML5 allow this? That is, for example, each section can have a title and that can be an h1 (for that page section). So if you're marking up correctly multiple H1s is legit, yes?
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Of course it makes sense to try to follow the rules / guidelines when possible. On the other hand, some sites, plenty of sites just don't care. They'll never get to page 4 or 3 of the SERPs, let alone 2 or 1. Good SEO - like everything else - takes time, and sometimes - often? - that time is better spent elsewhere.
The question is: for how many of these sites would said fixes get them to SERP page 1, or even 2? I bet is 2% at best.
I wish SEOs stop promoting the idea that there's room on Page 1 for everyone.