Key points
- Google must find, read and understand a page before it can rank it
- Speed and mobile layout matter to Google and even more to customers
- Structured data labels your business so search engines and AI tools understand it
Crawling and indexing
Google discovers pages by following links and reading sitemaps (crawling), then decides which ones to keep (indexing). A page that isn't indexed can't appear in search at all. The Pages report in Google Search Console shows which pages are indexed, and why the others aren't.
The technical checklist
- HTTPS: a secure address, which browsers and Google expect
- Sitemap: a list of your pages that helps Google find them all
- robots.txt: tells crawlers what they may read; one wrong line can hide your whole site
- One address per page: canonical tags and redirects, so www and non-www or old and new links don't compete
- Mobile-first: Google mainly uses the mobile version of your site, so it must work well on a phone
- Speed: Core Web Vitals measure loading (LCP), responsiveness (INP) and visual stability (CLS)
- Structured data: schema.org labels for your business, services, FAQs and reviews
- Internal links: every important page reachable in a few clicks, with clear link text
Why structured data matters more now
Structured data tells machines exactly what a page is about: this is a dental clinic, this is its address, these are its opening hours. It can make your Google result richer, and it gives AI tools clean facts to use (what is GEO?).
Websites in more than one language
If your site has English, Malay and Chinese versions, hreflang tags tell Google which version to show to which reader. Without them, the versions can compete with each other, or the wrong language can appear.
How we check it
Every ALS website passes an automatic check before it goes live: one main heading per page, unique titles and descriptions, valid structured data, working links, correct language tags and a real 404 page. Nothing goes live with a failed check.