Note: This analysis is intended exclusively for educational and informational purposes. All observations are based on publicly available information and do not involve access to any internal data. For more details, please refer to our Disclaimer page.
Table of Contents
In this technical SEO audit we’re putting the next site under the microscope 🙂 – another very popular Romanian site: drmax.ro.
Note: In addition to the issues reported in the video above, I subsequently discovered new problems covered in this article – including a page being duplicated 8 times in Google’s index.
1. Dynamic pages with URL parameters indexed
This issue appears to be partially resolved, as the page where I originally detected the problem looks correct at the time of writing. (You can see what the problem looked like before it was fixed here in the audit video, at the 08:40 mark.)
The issue was the indexing of two versions of the same page – the version with tracking parameters and the clean original URL.
However, I managed to find the same problem on other pages. Searching Google with the query below, for example…
https://www.google.com/search?q=site:https://www.drmax.ro/marci-exclusive/evoluderm+-inurl:page&sca_esv=576fa12ddf34293e&sxsrf=ADLYWIJG3kdrD0iJJBTPoFAivsEYUh-4XQ:1737034709527&filter=0&biw=2124&bih=1031&dpr=0.9
…we can see the same page indexed 4 times in this case.
My guess is that the original link from the video was fixed because a Disallow: /*2pau directive was added to the robots.txt file – that duplicated URL contained the term ‘2pau’.
Searching Google, we can still find pages containing the ‘2pau’ term that is now blocked in robots.txt.
site:https://www.drmax.ro/ inurl:2pau
So the issue with URLs containing the ‘2pau’ term appears to be in the process of being resolved.
That said, while looking for the same issue on a similar page, I found another related problem – URLs with tracking parameters are being indexed in Google.
- SEO Tip: To display full URLs in Google search results, use the Chrome extension Remove Breadcrumbs.
https://www.google.com/search?q=site:https://www.drmax.ro/marci-exclusive/evoluderm+-inurl:page&sca_esv=2e72d065ef487a51&sxsrf=AHTn8zpqHTOwUcBTHmoWfP0UQk3UYa1TBQ:1737995599915&filter=0&biw=2390&bih=1160&dpr=0.8
Why is this duplication happening?
The main reason appears to be the absence of a blocking directive for this type of URL in the robots.txt file.
A secondary reason could be incorrect indexing on Google’s part – though this typically only happens when tracking parameter URLs are displayed somewhere on the site or shared externally.
Potential Impact and fixing
The negative effects are the same as those described in my other technical SEO audits with similar issues – index bloating and page cannibalization.
Index bloating means Google consumes crawl budget on pages with no value, while cannibalization occurs when two pages with similar content compete for rankings with no clear winner.
A proper fix would require internal knowledge to understand the logic behind the settings that are causing the duplication – data I don’t have access to.
Speculating without direct access: it looks like the robots.txt directive blocking URLs containing ‘/2pau’ was added after those pages had already been indexed. As a result, Google can no longer access those pages and therefore can’t understand they’re not meant to be indexed.
For the tracking parameter URLs (those without ‘/2pau’), the correct robots.txt directives should have been in place from the start to prevent indexing.
Resolving this will require identifying all on-site and external mentions of these tracking parameter URLs.
2. Pagination pages indexed multiple times
Another issue discovered after the initial audit – the same pagination page is indexed numerous times.
This is a multi-layered problem: some links are incorrectly indexed due to the issue already mentioned above, but there’s also a separate, new issue at play.
Dynamic product filter URLs are indexable, and the pagination pages appear to lack the directives that are automatically applied elsewhere on the site.
Video of the issue captured live:
Using the example from the video, searching Google with the query below…
https://www.google.com/search?q=site:https://www.drmax.ro/gnc+inurl:page%3D3&num=100&sca_esv=bca4d6818df5eb0f&sxsrf=ADLYWIKPwafHOjtGIDioBoY9vy04wxawgg:1737124906499&filter=0&biw=1528&bih=712&dpr=1.25
…we find the same third product page indexed 18 times. Some variants are different due to applied filters, which is acceptable – but I found two sets of exact duplicates, indexed 8 and 6 times respectively.
Why is this duplication happening?
Similar to the issue found in the FarmaciaTei audit, this appears to be a native Magento platform problem.
I’m not entirely sure to what extent it can be avoided – is this a hardcoded Magento issue, or something that can be configured at the user level?
The fix would involve identifying the setting that prevents canonical tags from being automatically applied to pagination URLs. It’s the same root problem as the one mentioned above, except there at least the canonical is applied automatically.
For pagination pages, however, canonical tags aren’t being auto-applied for an unknown reason – leaving them all indexable and self-referencing, as I mention in the video above.
Other technical SEO issues on drmax.ro
The issues above are the highest-priority ones from a technical SEO standpoint. Below I’ll list additional findings in the order I would personally address them.
3. 301 and 404 links in the footer
Since this can be fixed in a matter of minutes, it’s worth prioritizing – even if there’s no proven negative impact. The issue involves 301 and 404 links in the site’s footer, meaning they appear across tens of thousands of unique pages.
- SEO Tip: To inspect 301 redirect and 404 details across multiple URLs at once, use httpstatus.io.
According to ahrefs, there are over 70,000 pages on drmax.ro with internal links that trigger a 301 redirect – the majority being this footer link.
- SEO Tip: To quickly find broken links on any site, use the Chrome extension Check My Links.
4. External links don't open in a new tab
I wouldn’t have flagged this if it were simply a case of external links not being set to open in a new tab by default.
The real problem is that even using CTRL + click, external links can’t be opened in a new tab – something on the site is actively preventing this from working correctly.
See the example below:
https://www.drmax.ro/articole/adhd-cauze-simptome-tratament#:~:text=Centers%20for%20Disease
Internal links open in a new tab
Contrary to SEO best practices, internal links open in a new tab by default.
My recommendation would be to reverse this behavior – external links should open in a new tab automatically, and internal links should open in the same tab.
5. Internal and external 404 links
Another low-priority technical SEO issue – broken links pointing to both internal and external pages. The priority is low given the relatively small numbers compared to the overall site size: 160 external and 380 internal 404 links across 73,000 pages.
Note: The 404 footer link doesn’t appear in ahrefs here because it’s recent enough not to have been crawled yet.
While this is a low-priority issue, I would personally fix the internal 404 links. Some appear to point to products that exist at a different URL.
Taking the first example from the page below…
https://www.drmax.ro/articole/pete-pe-piele-tipuri-cauze-remedii#:~:text=altor%20afectiuni%20ale%20epidermei
…the 404 link to that medication exists at a different URL that can replace the broken one:
https://www.drmax.ro/crema-tratament-keratoza-actinica-aktin-30-ml-meditrina-pharmaceuticals
6. Articles from an old CMS
In the articles section of the site I found some posts with a noticeably different layout – most likely articles carried over from a previous CMS.
These articles differ in font, layout, and link behavior – on one article type, links open in a new tab.Examples of the two different article types:
Examples of the two different article types
https://www.drmax.ro/articole/iridociclita-cauze-simptome-tratament
https://www.drmax.ro/articole/tot-ce-trebuie-sa-stim-despre-noul-coronavirus-preventie-simptome-tratament
7. Backlinks pointing to 404 pages on drmax.ro
Not many – 26 backlinks pointing to pages that no longer exist on drmax.ro according to ahrefs – of which only 6 come from domains with a DA above 20.
Example of a backlink pointing to a 404 page:
Example of a backlink pointing to a 404 page:
https://www.presshub.ro/cum-scapi-de-raceala-5-solutii-simple-292277/#:~:text=poate%20ajuta%20s%C4%83%20scapi%20de%20acest
8. Non-https pages indexed in Google
Only 2 such pages found – a very minor issue, but worth flagging regardless of how small.
site:drmax.ro -inurl:https
Conclusion
Overall, the technical SEO issues on drmax.ro are similar to those found in the FarmaciaTei.ro website audit.
The most significant problem is one that keeps recurring across all of my audits – the same page duplicated and indexed multiple times, caused either by URL parameters or dynamic filter links.
The footer 301 and 404 links, along with the incorrect default behavior for internal and external links, are two additional issues I would personally prioritize fixing.
What did you think of this article? Did you learn something new about SEO from this audit? Or do you think there were SEO elements I missed that should have been included?
If you’re interested in SEO services, visit my Technical SEO Audit page.
My name is Andrei and in 2014 I made my first money online through websites and SEO. I currently offer SEO services for Romanian and English-language websites. Learn more about my SEO approach on my YouTube channel with SEO tutorials. For more SEO education, check my SEO blog or my SEO case studies.
