SEO Setup for OnlyRules

Overview

This document outlines the SEO enhancements implemented for the OnlyRules Next.js application.

Implemented Features

1. Dynamic Sitemap Generation

• Automatically generates a sitemap at /sitemap.xml
• Uses API routes for Next.js 13.5.1 compatibility
• Includes all static routes with appropriate priorities and change frequencies
• Extensible for future dynamic content (templates, user profiles, etc.)

Current Routes in Sitemap:

• / - Homepage (priority: 1.0, changeFrequency: daily)
• /dashboard - Dashboard (priority: 0.8, changeFrequency: daily)
• /templates - Templates (priority: 0.8, changeFrequency: weekly)
• /tutorials - Tutorials (priority: 0.7, changeFrequency: weekly)
• /auth/signin - Sign In (priority: 0.5, changeFrequency: monthly)
• /auth/signup - Sign Up (priority: 0.5, changeFrequency: monthly)

2. Robots.txt Configuration

• Dynamically generates robots.txt
• Configured to:
  • Allow all crawlers to access public pages
  • Disallow access to /api/, /dashboard/, and /admin/ directories
  • Special rules for Googlebot with more permissive access
  • References the sitemap location
  • Includes the host directive

3. Open Graph Configuration

• Open Graph metadata is configured in app/layout.tsx
• For dynamic OG image generation, upgrade to Next.js 14+ or use @vercel/og package

Configuration

Environment Variables

Make sure to set the following environment variable:

export NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_URL=https://yourdomain.com

This URL is used as the base for all sitemap and robots.txt URLs.

URL Rewriting

The next.config.js has been configured with URL rewrites to serve the SEO files at their standard locations:

• /sitemap.xml → /api/sitemap.xml
• /robots.txt → /api/robots.txt

This ensures search engines can find these files at their expected locations.

Testing the Implementation

1. Sitemap: Visit /sitemap.xml in your browser after deployment
2. Robots.txt: Visit /robots.txt in your browser
3. Open Graph Image: Use social media debuggers to preview:
   • Facebook: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/
   • Twitter: https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator
   • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/post-inspector/

Future Enhancements

Dynamic Content in Sitemap

To add dynamic content to the sitemap, modify the /app/api/sitemap.xml/route.ts file. For example:

// Fetch dynamic content
const posts = await fetchBlogPosts()

// Add to sitemap XML
const dynamicUrls = posts.map(post => `
  <url>
    <loc>${baseUrl}/blog/${post.slug}</loc>
    <lastmod>${post.updatedAt.toISOString()}</lastmod>
    <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.6</priority>
  </url>
`).join('')

Additional SEO Recommendations

1. Structured Data: Add JSON-LD structured data for better search engine understanding
2. Meta Tags: Ensure all pages have unique title and description tags
3. Canonical URLs: Add canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues
4. Performance: Optimize Core Web Vitals for better SEO rankings
5. XML Sitemap Index: If the site grows beyond 50,000 URLs, implement sitemap index files

Monitoring

Use these tools to monitor SEO performance:

• Google Search Console
• Bing Webmaster Tools
• Google PageSpeed Insights
• GTmetrix or similar performance monitoring

Compliance

The current setup follows:

• Next.js 13+ App Router best practices
• Google's sitemap protocol
• Robots Exclusion Standard (robots.txt)
• Open Graph Protocol for social sharing