SEO overhaul for Google, Microsoft Bing, and other major search engines

[bmurphy-apescic]

Summary

Plan a full SEO overhaul for www.apes.org.uk to improve search visibility, indexing quality, metadata consistency, crawlability, and search engine compatibility across Google, Microsoft Bing, and other major search engines.

Expected outcome

A repository-scoped SEO improvement programme is defined and ready for implementation, covering technical SEO, on-page SEO, structured data, crawl/index controls, sitemap quality, discoverability, and search-engine submission readiness.

Scope

• Audit current metadata, page titles, meta descriptions, canonical URLs, heading structure, internal linking, robots rules, sitemap coverage, structured data, image metadata, and indexation signals.
• Review SEO coverage for Google Search and Microsoft Bing, plus compatibility with other major search engines.
• Identify gaps in technical SEO, content SEO, and search result presentation.
• Define required updates for public pages, templates, shared metadata, sitemap generation, structured data, footer links where relevant, and any search-engine verification or submission steps.
• Capture validation and rollout expectations before implementation starts.

Non-scope

• Starting implementation in this issue.
• Branch creation, commits, pull requests, or release record updates at this stage.
• Immediate changelog edits outside issue tracking.

Acceptance criteria

• A full SEO audit scope is defined for the site.
• Required updates for Google, Bing, and other major search engines are identified.
• Technical SEO tasks are broken down clearly enough for implementation planning.
• On-page SEO tasks are broken down clearly enough for implementation planning.
• Structured data, sitemap, robots, canonical, and indexing requirements are explicitly captured.
• SEO validation steps are documented, including search-engine-facing checks where applicable.
• SEO impacts on README, changelog, Change Log Hub, sitemap, footer, Newsroom, and error pages are reviewed before implementation begins.

Release impact

• Work type: Minor
• Release status: Beta
• Priority: High
• Changelog handling: Track in issue only for now

Hosting impact

No hosting or runtime change is requested at issue-creation stage, but implementation should confirm continued compatibility with the current static/PHP-oriented hosting assumptions and public-folder structure.

Local-preview and repository-structure impact

Expected to affect public metadata, sitemap-related files, templates, or shared page structures. Implementation should preserve the repository public/ website model and local-preview compatibility.

Validation plan

• Review current SEO implementation across public routes.
• Validate page titles, descriptions, canonicals, robots directives, Open Graph metadata, and structured data.
• Validate sitemap completeness and search-engine accessibility.
• Confirm footer, Newsroom, and branded error-page SEO implications where relevant.
• Run repository-supported local preview and smoke checks where applicable during implementation.

Files changed

No files changed. Issue creation only.

Metadata and workflow notes

• This issue is created only; work has not started.
• Repository label, milestone, project, assignee, and other issue metadata were not applied because repository-supported issue metadata could not be inspected from the currently available tooling.
• Changelog, Change Log Hub, and version updates are intentionally deferred and should be revisited when implementation begins.

Known blockers or dependencies

• Current SEO baseline and repository-specific page coverage still need to be inspected when implementation work is authorised.
• Search engine verification, ownership, and submission requirements may depend on existing webmaster-tool accounts and deployment access.

Suggested next step

Review and refine the audit scope, then open a follow-up implementation issue or start work on this issue explicitly when ready.

[linear-code]

WEBDEV-34