SEO & Meta
Scorecenter includes built-in SEO support for pages, dynamic sports routes, and news articles. You control titles, descriptions, images, and page structure in the CMS, and the platform handles repetitive SEO tasks automatically.
Template variables are your best friend
Use template variables in your dynamic page meta titles for better SEO. Example: [team_name] — Stats, Fixtures & Squad | [site_name]
Page-level SEO
Every page — static or dynamic — has dedicated SEO fields:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Meta title | The title shown in browser tabs and search results. |
| Meta description | The description snippet shown in search results. |
Template variables in meta fields
Dynamic templates support template variables that are replaced at render time with real entity data. This lets you write one meta title that produces unique, keyword-rich titles for every generated page.
Examples:
| Template | Entity | Output |
|---|---|---|
[home_name] vs [away_name] — Live Score | [site_name] | Match | Arsenal vs Chelsea — Live Score | MyFootballSite |
[team_name] — Stats, Fixtures & Squad | [site_name] | Team | Manchester United — Stats, Fixtures & Squad | MyFootballSite |
[league_name] Standings [season_name] | [site_name] | League | Premier League Standings 2025/2026 | MyFootballSite |
[player_name] — Profile & Stats | [site_name] | Player | Erling Haaland — Profile & Stats | MyFootballSite |
See the Template Variables reference for the full list of available variables.
Structured data
Scorecenter automatically generates structured data for the main content types on the site, helping search engines understand what each page is about.
Every site includes general schema such as:
OrganizationWebSite
This helps search engines connect your pages with your brand and publisher identity.
Match pages generate SportsEvent structured data including:
- Match title
- Kickoff date and time
- Home and away teams
- Competition
- Venue and location
- Match status
- Score when available
Team and league pages generate sports schema including:
- Team or competition name
- Logo
- Country
- League or team relationship where available
News articles generate NewsArticle structured data including:
- Headline and description
- Publish and update dates
- Author
- Featured image
- Publisher
- Category and tags
This schema is generated automatically. Search engines still decide whether to show a rich result, but the required context is already present on the page.
Breadcrumbs
The breadcrumb module generates both:
- Visual breadcrumbs — a clickable trail shown to visitors (e.g., Home > England > Premier League > Arsenal vs Chelsea)
- Structured data — breadcrumb markup for search engines
Breadcrumbs are especially useful on dynamic pages and article pages, where the hierarchy helps both visitors and search engines understand the route.
URL structure
Scorecenter produces clean, semantic URLs by default:
| Page type | URL pattern | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Static page | /{slug} | /about |
| Match | /match/{id}/{slug} | /match/123/arsenal-vs-chelsea |
| Team | /team/{id}/{slug} | /team/42/manchester-united |
| League | /league/{id}/{slug} | /league/39/premier-league |
| Player | /player/{id}/{slug} | /player/276/erling-haaland |
Custom slug prefixes
You can customize the URL prefix for each template type. For example, a Spanish site might change:
| Default | Custom (Spanish) |
|---|---|
/match/ | /partido/ |
/team/ | /equipo/ |
/league/ | /liga/ |
/player/ | /jugador/ |
Automatic redirects
When you change a page slug, Scorecenter automatically creates a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. This preserves any existing search engine rankings and prevents broken links.
Sitemap
Scorecenter auto-generates a sitemap at /sitemap.xml. The sitemap includes:
- All static pages
- All published news articles
- News taxonomy pages such as categories, tags, and authors
- Covered dynamic team and league pages
- Match URLs for covered fixtures
- Configured bookmaker pages
Scorecenter also publishes dedicated sitemap files for pages, news, taxonomy, coverage, fixtures, and bookmakers.
Recent articles include news-specific metadata in news.xml, which improves discovery in news-focused search surfaces. The news sitemap now lists every published article (up to the 50 000-URL limit) so search engines see the full catalogue regardless of site size.
The sitemap updates automatically as content changes. No manual regeneration is needed.
RSS feed
Every site automatically publishes an RSS 2.0 feed of its latest articles at /feed.xml. The feed is discovered automatically by browsers and feed readers, and it works out of the box with:
- Apple News
- Feedly and other RSS readers
- Mailchimp RSS-to-email campaigns
- Substack and similar import flows
The feed includes the article title, excerpt, link, publication date, and author byline. No setup is required.
Robots.txt
The robots.txt file is configurable in Settings > Site > Operations. By default, Scorecenter generates a standard robots.txt that:
- Allows all crawlers
- Points to the sitemap URL
- Blocks admin and API routes
You can customize the rules to disallow specific paths or add crawler-specific directives.
Canonical URLs
Every page automatically includes a canonical URL tag. This prevents duplicate content issues from:
- Query parameters (e.g.,
?tab=standings) - Trailing slashes
- Mixed case URLs
- Language variant confusion
News taxonomy canonicals
Scorecenter also avoids duplicate archive URLs inside the news system.
- Category archives may live under a section base such as
/noticias/category/premier-league - Tag archives use a single canonical global directory such as
/tag/arsenal
If older section-specific tag URLs exist, Scorecenter redirects them to the canonical global tag page so the same tag does not compete across multiple section paths.
Open Graph and social meta
Scorecenter generates Open Graph and Twitter Card meta tags for every page:
| Tag | Source |
|---|---|
og:title | Page meta title |
og:description | Page meta description |
og:image | Page image, article image, or generated preview for supported page types |
og:url | Canonical URL |
og:type | article for news, website for other pages |
twitter:card | summary_large_image |
Match, team, league, and article pages can also use generated social preview images, which improves consistency when pages are shared on WhatsApp, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, and similar platforms.
SEO checklist
Set unique meta titles on all templates
Use template variables to generate unique, descriptive titles for every dynamic page type.
Write meta descriptions
Add meta descriptions to your homepage, key static pages, and all dynamic templates. Include template variables for dynamic pages.
Add breadcrumbs
Place the breadcrumb module on all dynamic templates (match, team, league, player) to establish hierarchy.
Configure coverage thoughtfully
More coverage means more pages in your sitemap. Ensure your coverage matches what you want indexed.
Verify structured data
Use Google's Rich Results Test to validate your article, match, and breadcrumb output.
Submit your sitemap
Submit /sitemap.xml to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.