--- title: "How to Verify That SSR or Pre-render SEO Is Working Correctly" description: "Three ways to verify that SSR or pre-render SEO is functioning correctly: simulating Googlebot visits, comparing Google search results, and checking indexing status in Google Search Console." canonical_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/post/how-to-verify-seo" author: "Mark Ku" author_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku" site: "Mark Ku's Tech Notes" date_published: "2022-06-30 01:01:01 +0800" category: "SEO" tags: ["seo", "googlebot", "cloudflare", "ssr", "pre-render", "google search console", "user-agent"] language: "en" license: "CC BY 4.0" license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" attribution: "when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original" --- # How to Verify That SSR or Pre-render SEO Is Working Correctly ## Background I recently came across several sites that had SEO implemented but it wasn't actually working. So I put together some notes on how to verify whether SEO is functioning in a way that Google's crawler can index. ### Method 1: The Most Immediate Approach — Simulate a Crawler Visit ### Install the [user-agent-switcher](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/user-agent-switcher-for-c/djflhoibgkdhkhhcedjiklpkjnoahfmg?hl=zh-TW) extension from the Chrome Web Store ### Check [Google's documentation](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2019/10/updating-user-agent-of-googlebot) to learn the user-agent strings Googlebot uses to crawl your site ``` Current Googlebot user-agent strings Mobile: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/41.0.2272.96 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +https://www.google.com/bot.html) Desktop: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +https://www.google.com/bot.html) "or" Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +https://www.google.com/bot.html) Safari/537.36 ``` ### Use the user-agent-switcher extension to simulate a Googlebot visit to your site ![User-agent switcher extension UI for entering a custom string](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/how-to-verify-seo/images/3K3T80i.png) ### I found that Cloudflare was blocking the request ![Web browser displaying Cloudflare's Sorry, you have been blocked page](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/how-to-verify-seo/images/LQMIVyW.png) ### Based on a [Cloudflare community thread](https://community.cloudflare.com/t/cloudflare-managed-special-rules-are-blocking-googlebot/82911/14), the issue appears to be caused by managed firewall rules ``` Workaround As @cs-cf said, the best thing to do is to disable the rules individually so you don't lose all the other Cloudflare Specials benefits. Step-by-step Click the Firewall tab Click the Managed Rules sub-tab Scroll to Cloudflare Managed Ruleset section Click the Advanced link above the Help Change from Description to ID in the modal Search for 100035 and check carefully what to disable Change the Mode of the chosen rules to Disable Rules matching the search 100035 - Fake google bot, based on partial useragent match and ASN 100035B - Prevent fake bingbots from crawling 100035C - Fake google bot, based on exact useragent match and DNS lookup 100035D - Fake google bot, based on partial useragent match and DNS lookup 100035U - Prevent fake BaiduBots from crawling 100035Y - Prevent fake yandexbot from crawling A seventh rule related to fake bots was deployed during the incident: 100035_BETA - Fake google bot, based on partial useragent match and ASN ``` ### Note: the free plan doesn't allow managing these rules — this appears to be a default behavior of the Pro plan ![Cloudflare WAF Managed rules dashboard with upgrade to Pro option](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/how-to-verify-seo/images/smFNMo1.png) ### If SEO is working correctly, the page will render normally ![Web browser displaying a rendered e-commerce page for dried pineapple](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/how-to-verify-seo/images/TZci26Z.jpg) ## Method 2: Verify Whether the Page Has Been Correctly Indexed by Google This method is not immediate — you need to wait for Google to crawl and index your page. ### Grab the `description` from the page's HTML `` and search for it in Google ![Highlighted meta description in Chrome DevTools Elements panel](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/how-to-verify-seo/images/R4ac5dl.png) ### Check whether the page was indexed correctly ![Google search results for Powershell MongoDB backup and restore notes](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/how-to-verify-seo/images/55WLOCy.png) ## Method 3: [Check Indexing Status in Google Search Console](https://search.google.com/search-console/about) ![Google Search Console showing 196 indexed pages not in sitemap](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/how-to-verify-seo/images/XkLNyOa.png) ## Bonus Tip Chrome DevTools > More tools > Network conditions > uncheck "Use browser default." There are several predefined user agents available to choose from, including Googlebot. --- ## About this article and its author Originally published on [Mark Ku's Tech Notes](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/post/how-to-verify-seo) License: [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original ### About the author **[Mark Ku](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku)** — Software Solution Provider - 10+ years senior software engineer, now an AI Builder - Focused on large-platform architecture — North-American e-commerce, AI SaaS subscription billing - Combining AI Agents and automation to build evolvable product foundations ### Free tools built by the author All of these are free to use: - [Free PDF Sign Tool](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/pdf-sign): Online PDF sign tool — draw, type, or upload a signature, then drag, resize, and download. 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No sign-up, nothing uploaded to a server, and mermaid.live share links work as-is. - [React Intl Phone Number](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/react-intl-phone-number): react-intl-phone-number is an open-source React component: framework-agnostic and antd-free, with E.164 in/out, a searchable flag / country-code dropdown, configurable validation levels (strict / mobile-strict / loose), themeable CSS, and i18n — phone logic powered by google-libphonenumber. Lightweight and fully typed. Free and open source (MIT). - [Uptime Kuma Cluster](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/uptime-kuma-cluster): Turn single-node Uptime Kuma into a highly available cluster: OpenResty + Lua smart load balancing, shared MariaDB state, health checks and automatic failover, plus cluster-management REST APIs. One Docker Compose command to start. 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