Technical SEO Audit Checklist (25 Checks That Matter)

Content and links get most of the SEO attention. But technical issues are what actually keep most sites from ranking. Here's the 25-item technical audit I run on every new client.

Crawlability (can Google reach your pages?)

1. Robots.txt - Visit yoursite.com/robots.txt - No accidental Disallow: / - Only blocking what you actually want blocked - Sitemap reference included

2. Sitemap.xml - Valid XML (use a validator) - Contains all important URLs - No 404s, redirects, or blocked pages - Submitted to Google Search Console - Under 50MB and 50,000 URLs per file (split if larger)

3. Internal linking - No orphan pages (pages with no inbound internal links) - Main navigation covers all top-level categories - Important pages linked from multiple places - Link depth from homepage under 4 clicks for priority pages

4. Crawl budget waste - No infinite scroll creating endless URL variations - Filter/facet URLs not creating duplicates - Calendar / archive pages not exploding crawl paths - Faceted nav uses parameters you can block if needed

Indexability (will Google keep your pages?)

5. Noindex tags - No accidental <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> on pages you want indexed - Check staging, QA, and production carefully - Verify with “view source” on your important pages

6. Canonical tags - Every page has a self-referencing canonical OR points to the preferred URL - No cross-domain canonicals to pages you don't control - Canonicals match the actual URL (watch for trailing slashes, case, http vs https)

7. HTTPS - All pages on HTTPS - HTTP → HTTPS redirect is a proper 301, not a redirect chain - No mixed content (HTTP resources on HTTPS pages)

8. Duplicate content - No www vs. non-www split - No trailing-slash vs. no-slash split - No case-sensitive URL variations - UTM parameters not creating new indexable pages

9. Hreflang (international sites only) - Each language version links to all others - Return tags on every language version - Valid language codes - No mismatched hreflang/canonical combos

Page experience

10. Core Web Vitals - LCP under 2.5s - INP under 200ms - CLS under 0.1 - Check mobile (most users, Google's primary ranking source)

11. Mobile usability - Responsive layout (no horizontal scroll) - Touch targets at least 48×48px with spacing - Readable text without zooming - No interstitials blocking content on mobile

12. Page speed - Test with PageSpeed Insights - No render-blocking resources - Images compressed and sized properly - CDN in place for global performance

URL structure

13. Clean, readable URLs - Short, descriptive, keyword-relevant - Hyphens not underscores - Lowercase - No session IDs or tracking params in canonical URLs

14. URL structure matches site hierarchy - /category/subcategory/product pattern where logical - Breadcrumbs match URL structure - Consistent trailing slash (or consistent lack of one)

15. 301 redirects for URL changes - Every changed URL has a 301 to the new URL - No redirect chains (A → B → C becomes A → C) - No redirect loops

Meta data

16. Title tags - Every page has a unique title - Primary keyword near the start - 50-60 characters (no truncation in SERPs) - Brand name at the end

17. Meta descriptions - Every page has a unique meta description - 150-160 characters - Includes call to action - Targets the user, not keyword density

18. Header tags (H1-H6) - One H1 per page, matching page intent - H2/H3 structure that reflects content hierarchy - No skipping levels (don't go H1 → H3)

19. Image alt text - Every content image has descriptive alt text - Decorative images have empty alt (alt="") - Alt text describes the image, not stuffed with keywords

Structured data

20. Schema markup - Organization schema on all pages (homepage at minimum) - Article schema on blog posts - Product schema for e-commerce - FAQ / HowTo schema where applicable - Validates in Rich Results Test

21. Breadcrumbs - Visible on pages deeper than 2 levels - Marked up with BreadcrumbList schema - Match actual URL/navigation path

Server and technical

22. Server response codes - Pages you want indexed return 200 - Deleted pages return 404 or 410 (not soft 404s) - Redirected pages return 301 - Server errors (5xx) rare and investigated

23. HTTPS certificate - Valid, not expired - Correct domain (no common name mismatch) - Strong cipher suites - HSTS header set (optional but recommended)

24. JavaScript rendering - Content visible to crawlers even with JS disabled (SSR or prerendering for SPAs) - Test with Chrome's “Inspect source” (not DevTools' rendered DOM) - Critical content doesn't require JS

25. Pagination - rel="prev" / rel="next" (deprecated by Google but some say still helps other engines) - Or consolidate with canonical to page 1 - Sequential paginated pages reachable

How to actually run this audit

1. Crawl the site with Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) or Sitebulb
2. Check Search Console for every error type
3. Run PageSpeed Insights on your top 10 pages
4. View source on 5 different page types
5. Compile findings into a prioritized fix list
6. Fix highest-impact items first (indexing blockers, Core Web Vitals)

Need help?

A thorough technical audit takes 4-8 hours and usually surfaces 10-30 issues worth fixing. I run these regularly — the output is a prioritized, actionable punch list. Send me a message.