SEO

Overview

Playupi’s SEO strategy is built around the fact that every game has a unique, crawlable page with rich metadata. The platform uses server-side rendering (Next.js SSR) so all content is available to search engines without JavaScript execution.

Key Advantages

Thousands of unique pages — each game, category, and author gets a dedicated URL
SSR by default — all pages are server-rendered and cacheable at the edge
Structured data — game pages include JSON-LD markup for rich search results
Fast load times — static assets on CDN, game content loads lazily in iframes

URL Structure

Clean, readable, keyword-rich URLs:

Page	URL Pattern	Example
Home	`/`	`playupi.com`
Category	`/category/:slug`	`playupi.com/category/action`
Game detail	`/games/:slug`	`playupi.com/games/subway-surfers`
Author	`/authors/:slug`	`playupi.com/authors/kiloo-games`
Search	`/search?q=:query`	`playupi.com/search?q=puzzle`

URL Rules

Rule	Implementation
Lowercase only	Slugs are always lowercase
Hyphens as separators	`my-game-title`, never `my_game_title` or `MyGameTitle`
No trailing slashes	`/games/tetris` not `/games/tetris/`. Redirect if accessed with trailing slash
No IDs in URLs	Use slugs, not UUIDs. `/games/subway-surfers` not `/games/abc-123`
Max length	Slugs capped at 80 characters
Slug generation	Auto-generated from title on creation. Editable by admin. Must be unique
Slug persistence	Once a game is Visible, changing the slug creates a 301 redirect from the old URL

Meta Tags

Per-Page Tags

Page	`<title>`	`<meta description>`	OG Image
Home	Playupi — Free Browser Games Online	Play hundreds of free browser games instantly. No downloads, no installs.	Brand OG image
Category	{Category} Games — Playupi	Play the best {category} games online for free on Playupi.	Brand OG image
Author	Games by {Author} — Playupi	Play all games from {Author} on Playupi.	Brand OG image
Game Detail	{Game Title} — Play Free on Playupi	First 155 chars of game description + ”…”	Game thumbnail
Search	Search: {query} — Playupi	Find free browser games on Playupi.	Brand OG image
404	Page Not Found — Playupi	This page doesn’t exist. Browse our free browser games.	Brand OG image

Title Rules

Brand name (“Playupi”) always at the end, separated by ” — ”
Page-specific keyword at the start (most important for SEO)
Max 60 characters (Google truncates longer titles)

Description Rules

Max 155 characters
Include a call to action (“Play”, “Browse”, “Find”)
Game descriptions: use the first 155 chars of the admin-provided description, not auto-generated text
Never duplicate titles as descriptions

Every page includes Open Graph and Twitter Card meta tags for rich previews when shared on social media.

OG Image Strategy

Page Type	OG Image	Size
Home, Category, Author, Search, 404	Brand OG image: “Playupi” wordmark + tagline on branded background	1200x630
Game Detail	Game thumbnail overlaid on branded template (game icon + title + “Play Free on Playupi”)	1200x630

Game OG images can be dynamically generated using Next.js ImageResponse (or @vercel/og):

import { ImageResponse } from 'next/og'

export default async function OGImage({ params }) {
  const game = await getGame(params.slug)
  return new ImageResponse(
    <div style={{ /* branded template with game.title, game.thumbnailUrl */ }} />,
    { width: 1200, height: 630 }
  )
}

Structured Data (JSON-LD)

Game Detail Page

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "VideoGame",
  "name": "Subway Surfers",
  "description": "Run, dodge trains, and collect coins in this endless runner.",
  "url": "https://playupi.com/games/subway-surfers",
  "image": "https://playupi.com/thumbnails/subway-surfers.png",
  "author": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "Kiloo Games",
    "url": "https://playupi.com/authors/kiloo-games"
  },
  "genre": ["Action", "Arcade"],
  "playMode": "SinglePlayer",
  "gamePlatform": ["Web Browser"],
  "operatingSystem": "Any",
  "applicationCategory": "Game",
  "offers": {
    "@type": "Offer",
    "price": "0",
    "priceCurrency": "USD"
  },
  "aggregateRating": {
    "@type": "AggregateRating",
    "ratingValue": 4.2,
    "ratingCount": 1580,
    "bestRating": 5,
    "worstRating": 1
  }
}

Note: aggregateRating should only be included once a star-rating system is implemented (future feature). For MVP, use like/dislike ratio to approximate, or omit the rating block.

Category Page

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "CollectionPage",
  "name": "Action Games",
  "description": "Play the best action games online for free on Playupi.",
  "url": "https://playupi.com/category/action",
  "mainEntity": {
    "@type": "ItemList",
    "itemListElement": [
      {
        "@type": "ListItem",
        "position": 1,
        "url": "https://playupi.com/games/subway-surfers"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Home Page

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "WebSite",
  "name": "Playupi",
  "url": "https://playupi.com",
  "description": "Play hundreds of free browser games instantly.",
  "potentialAction": {
    "@type": "SearchAction",
    "target": "https://playupi.com/search?q={search_term_string}",
    "query-input": "required name=search_term_string"
  }
}

The SearchAction enables Google’s sitelinks search box (search directly from the SERP).

Sitemap

Generation

Auto-generate sitemap.xml at build time or on-demand (ISR):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://playupi.com/</loc>
    <changefreq>daily</changefreq>
    <priority>1.0</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://playupi.com/category/action</loc>
    <changefreq>daily</changefreq>
    <priority>0.8</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://playupi.com/games/subway-surfers</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-02-10</lastmod>
    <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.7</priority>
  </url>
</urlset>

Rules

Rule	Detail
Only visible games	Draft and Hidden games are excluded
Sitemap index	If > 50K URLs, split into multiple sitemaps with a sitemap index
`lastmod`	Use `game.updatedAt` for game pages, current date for Home/category
`changefreq`	Home: daily. Categories: daily. Games: weekly. Authors: weekly
`priority`	Home: 1.0. Categories: 0.8. Games: 0.7. Authors: 0.5
Auto-submit	Reference sitemap in `robots.txt`. Google auto-discovers it

Next.js Implementation

export default async function sitemap() {
  const games = await getVisibleGames()
  const categories = await getCategories()

  return [
    { url: 'https://playupi.com', changeFrequency: 'daily', priority: 1 },
    ...categories.map(cat => ({
      url: `https://playupi.com/category/${cat.slug}`,
      changeFrequency: 'daily',
      priority: 0.8,
    })),
    ...games.map(game => ({
      url: `https://playupi.com/games/${game.slug}`,
      lastModified: game.updatedAt,
      changeFrequency: 'weekly',
      priority: 0.7,
    })),
  ]
}

Robots.txt

User-agent: *
Allow: /
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /admin/

Sitemap: https://playupi.com/sitemap.xml

Rule	Reason
Block `/api/`	API responses are not useful as search results
Block `/admin/`	Admin dashboard should never be indexed
Allow everything else	All public pages should be crawlable

Canonical URLs

Every page includes a <link rel="canonical"> tag pointing to the definitive URL.

Scenario	Canonical
Normal page	Self-referencing (`https://playupi.com/games/tetris`)
Page with query params (pagination, filters)	Base URL without params (`https://playupi.com/category/action`)
Old slug (after rename)	301 redirect to new slug — no canonical needed
Duplicate content (same game, different URL)	Point to the primary URL

<link rel="canonical" href="https://playupi.com/games/tetris" />

Pagination SEO

Game list pages (Home, category, author) use pagination. Search engines need to understand the relationship between pages.

Load More / Infinite Scroll

If using “Load More” button or infinite scroll:

The initial page contains the first N games and is the only URL indexed
Loaded-more content is added to the DOM via JavaScript — not crawlable
This is fine for SEO because the most relevant (highest-ranked) games are on the initial page

Paginated URLs (alternative)

If using ?page=N pagination:

<!-- Page 1 -->
<link rel="next" href="https://playupi.com/category/action?page=2" />

<!-- Page 2 -->
<link rel="prev" href="https://playupi.com/category/action" />
<link rel="next" href="https://playupi.com/category/action?page=3" />

<!-- Last page -->
<link rel="prev" href="https://playupi.com/category/action?page=4" />

Canonical for all paginated pages points to the base URL (page 1 without ?page=).

Core Web Vitals

Google uses Core Web Vitals as a ranking signal. Gaming platforms are at risk for poor scores due to heavy iframe content.

Targets

Metric	Target	Risk Area
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)	< 2.5s	Game grid images, hero area
INP (Interaction to Next Paint)	< 200ms	Search input, filter changes, card clicks
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)	< 0.1	Image loading without dimensions, late-loading ads

Optimizations

Optimization	Detail
Image dimensions	Always set `width` and `height` on game thumbnails to prevent CLS
Lazy loading	Game thumbnails below the fold use `loading="lazy"`
Priority hints	First 6 game card images use `fetchpriority="high"`
Image format	Serve WebP with JPEG fallback. Use Next.js `<Image>` for automatic optimization
Iframe lazy load	Game iframe uses `loading="lazy"` — only loads when user scrolls to it (desktop) or taps Play (mobile)
Font loading	Inter loaded via `next/font` (self-hosted, no layout shift). Use `font-display: swap`
SSR + Edge caching	Game list pages are SSR-cached at the edge (Vercel). TTL: 60s with stale-while-revalidate
Preconnect	`<link rel="preconnect">` to broker CDN domains for faster iframe load

<link rel="preconnect" href="https://html5.gamedistribution.com" />
<link rel="dns-prefetch" href="https://html5.gamedistribution.com" />

Internal Linking

Strong internal linking helps search engines discover all pages and understand content hierarchy.

Link Structure

Home ──► Category pages ──► Game pages
  │                            │
  └──► Game pages              └──► Author page
                               └──► Related category pages
                               └──► Recommended game pages

Per-Page Internal Links

Page	Links To
Home	All category pages (sidebar), top game pages (grid)
Category	Game pages in that category, other categories (sidebar)
Game Detail	Author page, category pages (tags), recommended games, “more by author”
Author	Game pages by that author, categories (sidebar)

Anchor Text

Game cards: game title as anchor text (visible on hover, always in DOM for crawlers)
Category links: category name
Author links: author name
Avoid generic anchor text (“click here”, “read more”)

Image SEO

Alt Text

Image	Alt Text Pattern
Game thumbnail (grid)	`"{Game Title} — free online {primary category} game"`
Game icon (detail page)	`"{Game Title} game icon"`
Category icon	`"{Category Name} games"`
Author avatar (future)	`"{Author Name} — game developer"`

Image Optimization

Rule	Detail
Format	WebP primary, JPEG fallback
Sizes	Thumbnails served at 256px, 512px (responsive via `srcset`)
Compression	Quality 80 for thumbnails (visually lossless)
CDN	All images served through CDN with cache headers
Filenames	Use slugs: `subway-surfers-thumb.webp` not `abc123.webp`

Crawl Budget

With thousands of game pages, efficient crawl budget usage matters.

Strategy	Implementation
Sitemap priority	Higher-ranked games get higher priority in sitemap
Block low-value pages	API routes, admin pages blocked in robots.txt
Server response speed	Target < 200ms TTFB for all public pages
Avoid soft 404s	Hidden/Draft games return proper 404, not an empty page
Clean URL params	Use Google Search Console to indicate which params to ignore
No orphan pages	Every visible game must be reachable from at least one category or the Home page

International SEO (Future)

Not in MVP. When multi-language support is added:

Step	Detail
URL structure	Subdirectory: `playupi.com/fr/games/...`, `playupi.com/es/games/...`
hreflang tags	`<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr" href="https://playupi.com/fr/games/tetris" />`
Default language	English (`hreflang="en"`) with `x-default` fallback
Translated content	Game titles and descriptions translated. Slugs stay in English for URL stability
Sitemap	Separate sitemap per language, or multi-language sitemap with hreflang

See Decisions → Open Questions for i18n status.

Search Console Setup

After launch, configure Google Search Console:

Verify ownership via DNS TXT record or HTML meta tag
Submit sitemap at https://playupi.com/sitemap.xml
Monitor coverage report for crawl errors, excluded pages, indexing issues
Check Core Web Vitals report for performance regressions
Review search performance (queries, clicks, impressions, position) weekly

Key Reports to Watch

Report	What to Look For
Coverage	Increasing indexed pages as new games are added. Zero “Excluded — server error”
Performance	Click-through rate by page type. Brand vs non-brand query split
Core Web Vitals	All pages in “Good” status. Flag any regressions
Sitemaps	All submitted URLs discovered and indexed
Removals	No unexpected pages flagged for removal

SEO