topic Re: Onpage Crawler and href attribute in Content Strategy & SEO

Onpage Crawler and href attribute

DavidVoigt — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 09:26:23 GMT

Is this a bug in the SEO onpage crawler?

It complains about a missing href, while it's just after the style attribute, it's clearly there.

Re: Onpage Crawler and href attribute

Crystal_Hopper — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 13:26:38 GMT

Hi @DavidVoigt! Can you try putting your href before the style? If that's what it is looking for, and not finding it, I think the order of your elements could affect this.

Here's an example from a recent blog about how to layout an a href:

<a href="programmer.org" style="text-decoration: none; color: yellow">programmer</a>

Re: Onpage Crawler and href attribute

DavidVoigt — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 14:13:18 GMT

Hi Crystal,

now where would be the fun in that?
But, in all seriousness, why would I change perfectly valid code?
I'm not really looking for a workaround. If this is indeed a bug, it should be fixed, upstream.
But I appreciate your reply!

Best regards,
David

Re: Onpage Crawler and href attribute

Crystal_Hopper — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 14:24:07 GMT

If you're willing to spend time documenting and tracking down a bug...good for you. You'll make everyone's lives easier in the long run and we appreciate the effort.

In the meantime, until this gets solved/resolved, if anyone comes here looking for something to try, I've at least given them a next step and they can let us know how it goes.

Re: Onpage Crawler and href attribute

DavidVoigt — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 06:49:22 GMT

So the customer is supposed to spend money on changing their code just for the purpose of avoiding a false positive result due to a bug in the crawler, which is included in a professional software package they're paying for. This is putting the cart before the horse. But if you're satisfied with a "solution" like this - good for you.

Re: Onpage Crawler and href attribute

BérangèreL — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 16:04:29 GMT

Hi @DavidVoigt,

Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us, and I’m really sorry to hear about your ongoing frustrations with the onpage crawler and how it processes the href attribute.

I have checked internally for you and the Team is aware about this behavior and currently working on it as we speak to fix it, thanks for your patience.

I will get back to you as soon as I hear from the Team.

For future Community Members visiting this thread, for information, HubSpot’s SEO recommendations emphasize:

Using full, valid URLs in the href attribute,
Avoiding relative URLs where possible (to reduce breakage risk),
Ensuring all links you wish to be crawled use the standard anchor format .

In the meantime, HubSpot’s SEO documentation (Understand SEO recommendations) explains best practices for href formatting and crawling.

Also, just a friendly reminder @DavidVoigt that Community Champions, like @Crystal_Hopper, are not HubSpot employees, but enthusiastic volunteers committed to helping and supporting everyone in the community.

Alongside users, certified partners, and HubSpot employees, Champions play a key role in moderating the community and fostering a positive environment for all.

While the accepted solution might not necessarily apply to you, this can indeed maybe help future Community Members experiencing the same behavior, even if I understand that in this specific case, it is a bug.

Thanks again for your valuable feedback, it means a lot to us. I'll check on this internally and get back to you as soon as possible.

Bérangère, HubSpot Community Manager

Re: Onpage Crawler and href attribute

BérangèreL — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 08:14:46 GMT

Hi @DavidVoigt,

Thank you so much for your patience while we looked into this.

I wanted to let you know that our team has addressed the issue, and it should now be resolved.

If you refresh your page, everything should work as expected!

We really appreciate you bringing this to the HubSpot community’s attention.

If you encounter any other issues or have questions, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

Thank you and have a wonderful day! 🌞

Bérangère

Re: Onpage Crawler and href attribute

DavidVoigt — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 08:24:51 GMT

Thank you, I'll be checking it out!