SpideyGames.com: Fixing an Angular games site's crawl architecture before it cost AdSense revenue

Jul 29, 2022 min read

The situation

SpideyGames.com was a free online games website monetized through Google AdSense. The site had grown from a clean two-URL structure to four URL types without a clear rationale [site audit, Mar 2022]. A 404 error page had been indexed by Google with a content-style page title. Meta descriptions had serious duplication issues across pages [site audit, Mar 2022].

Advisory date: 2022-07-29T12:30:00-05:00 27–29, 2020. Platform: Angular. Implementation responsibility: Harish.

What the audit mapped

Correct architecture [site audit, Mar 2022]:

  • Home page → game-type category pages → game info pages and game play pages
  • Utility pages as separate paths

Issues identified [site audit]:

  • Indexed 404 page with a content-style title — advised 301 redirect
  • Four URL types where two served the crawl purpose — advised consolidation
  • Meta description duplication — systemic
  • 301 redirect on the indexed 404 page
  • Shared the Google Quality Raters Guide — manual review criteria1
  • Provided an SEO content editor tool
  • Link strategy: audience-first partnerships with high-traffic gaming sites over backlink acquisition
  • Explicit flag: AdSense monetization requires UX as the primary design priority2

The outcome

Advisory delivered. Harish confirmed he had begun redirecting number-based URLs [engagement records, Mar 2020]. Angular implementation was Harish’s responsibility throughout.

Sources


  1. Google Search Central. Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. Published guidance governing E-E-A-T assessment by Google’s human quality raters. ↩︎

  2. Google. AdSense Program Policies and UX Guidance. support.google.com/adsense. Documents the relationship between site UX quality and ad serving performance. ↩︎