01
PHASE01
Crawl & Indexation Analysis
Deep crawl in Screaming Frog, SEMrush, and Google Search Console across show, season, episode, shop, and blog templates to establish indexation baselines.
CASE_STUDY: 001FunimationSEO
Restoring Crawl Health at Catalog Scale
During Funimation's pivot from physical media to a streaming platform, I led technical SEO across the anime catalog and editorial blog. Organic sessions grew more than 200% month over month, new paid subscribers from organic surpassed paid channels, and we built maintenance systems for a library of hundreds of thousands of episodes.
The Challenge
A Catalog Built for Fans, Not Crawlers
Funimation was the leading distributor of anime and foreign entertainment in North America, localizing and distributing some of the largest anime IP in the world, including the Dragon Ball franchise. As the company moved from selling physical media into launching a streaming platform, the website had to serve as both storefront and content delivery system for thousands of anime series and hundreds of thousands of episodes.
My scope covered two surfaces: the streaming catalog and the editorial blog. The catalog carried canonical conflicts, duplicate content across physical and digital product pages, and URL structures that multiplied with every simulcast season. The blog told a different story. Several CMS migrations had left thousands of broken internal links across years of published posts. As a growth marketer who loves turning around underperforming channels, I rolled up my sleeves and started with a full technical audit of both in Screaming Frog, SEMrush, and Google Search Console.
BLOG MIGRATION DEBTCANONICAL CONFLICTSDUPLICATE CONTENTCATALOG SCALE
Phase 01
Full Technical SEO Audit
Before writing a single redirect rule, I mapped the crawl surface across the catalog and blog with Screaming Frog, SEMrush, and Google Search Console, from franchise landing pages down to individual episode URLs and long-tail editorial archives, then categorized every issue by impact and fix complexity.
SCREAMING FROGSEMRUSHGOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE
- 02PHASE02
Broken Link & Redirect Mapping
Full inventory of blog 404s and redirect chains from multiple CMS migrations, plus orphaned catalog pages left behind by the physical-to-digital transition.
- 03PHASE03
Canonical Tag Audit
Conflicting self-referencing and cross-section canonicals across shop, watch, and news templates.
- 04PHASE04
Duplicate Content Identification
Parameterized URLs, paginated archives, and syndicated synopsis blocks creating near-duplicate pages at scale.
- 05PHASE05
Site Architecture Review
Depth analysis, internal linking gaps, and franchise hub opportunities across the catalog hierarchy.
- 06PHASE06
Structured Data Validation
Schema gaps on series, episodes, and video objects limiting rich result eligibility.
- 07PHASE07
Sitemap & Robots Review
Stale sitemap segments, over-blocked resources, and robots directives suppressing key templates.
- 08PHASE08
Performance Baseline
Core template speed scores established before prioritizing fixes that could affect render and crawl efficiency.
Phase 02
The Implementation Plan
Issues were stack-ranked by revenue proximity and crawl budget impact. High-traffic franchise pages and new simulcast releases moved first, then systematic template fixes rolled out across the catalog.
Priority Matrix & Sprint Planning
P0 revenue pages first, P1 catalog templates, P2 long-tail cleanup, with each sprint scoped to measurable indexation gains.
Redirect & Canonical Consolidation
301 chains flattened across blog archives, canonicals unified per content type, and legacy shop URLs mapped to streaming equivalents.
Template-Level Fixes
Episode, season, and franchise templates rebuilt for clean URL patterns and consistent internal linking.
Sitemap Segmentation
Separate sitemaps for shows, episodes, news, and static pages with automated refresh on content publish.
Parameter & Faceted Nav Handling
Query strings canonicalized and filter pages noindexed where they generated infinite crawl combinations.
Structured Data Rollout
VideoObject and TVSeries schema deployed at scale across franchise hubs and episode pages.
Phase 03
Maintenance & Optimization
A catalog that adds new episodes weekly and a blog that publishes daily cannot run on one-time fixes. I built recurring workflows so SEO health kept pace with content on both surfaces.
Weekly Crawl Health Reports
Weekly crawl health reports from Screaming Frog, SEMrush, and Google Search Console to flag new 404s, redirect loops, and index coverage drops after every deployment.
New Release URL Workflows
QA checklist for every simulcast launch, franchise page update, and blog publish before URLs went live.
Google Search Console Triage
Weekly Google Search Console review of coverage issues, crawl anomalies, and manual action alerts.
Monthly Technical Audits
Full site re-crawl every month in Screaming Frog and SEMrush to catch template drift and emerging duplicate patterns.
Competitive SERP Monitoring
Franchise keyword tracking in SEMrush against competing streaming platforms to protect high-value SERP positions.
Content Optimization Cycles
Title and meta refinement on high-impression, low-CTR pages across the top franchise catalog.
The Results
Organic Growth That Outpaced Paid
200%+ MoMORGANIC SESSIONS
The crawl foundation went from liability to leverage. Organic sessions climbed more than 200% month over month, and new paid subscribers from organic search surpassed every paid acquisition channel during the streaming transition.
ORGANIC SUBSCRIBERS
#1 CHANNEL
New paid subscribers from organic search exceeded paid acquisition across SEM, social, and display.
ISSUES RESOLVED
3,400+
Blog broken links from CMS migrations, plus catalog canonical conflicts, duplicates, and schema gaps resolved.
I owned SEO as a growth channel, not a support queue. The site was built to deliver anime to fans, not to be crawled by Google. Once we fixed the foundation, organic sessions compounded month over month and new paid subscribers from search surpassed every paid channel.
Growth Marketer, Funimation
Technical debt choking your organic growth?
Whether you are migrating a blog, inheriting a catalog of legacy URLs, or both, I audit, prioritize, and fix the crawl infrastructure that paid channels depend on.
Engagement Series
Funimation (Crunchyroll)
Multi-engagement growth series at a specialty anime streaming platform: technical SEO, conversion optimization, affiliate partnerships, and fan-community retention during the physical-to-streaming transition.
