Seo technical audit

Technical SEO Audit

Technical SEO is the foundation: if a page can't be crawled, rendered, and indexed, nothing else (content, schema, AI visibility) can help it. Audit in that dependency order. Label every finding measured (you observed it) or inferred (deduced without direct access).

What to collect first

• The URL(s) or domain, and the target market/language(s).
• What you can actually inspect: live HTTP response + headers, rendered DOM, robots.txt, sitemap(s), Lighthouse/PSI report, Search Console coverage.
• If you only have pasted HTML, say so and scope findings accordingly.

Audit checklist (in dependency order)

1. Crawlability

• robots.txt: reachable (200)? Does it accidentally Disallow important paths? Is the Sitemap: line present and correct? Never block CSS/JS needed to render.
• Crawl traps: infinite faceted URLs, session IDs, calendar links, parameter explosions. Recommend parameter handling / robots rules, not blanket blocks.
• Internal-link reachability: every important page should be reachable within a few clicks from the home/hub. Flag orphan pages and deep (>3–4 click) pages.

2. Indexability

• <meta name="robots"> and X-Robots-Tag header: catch accidental noindex.
• Canonical: each page declares a self-referential canonical unless intentionally consolidating. Flag conflicting/cross-domain/chained canonicals and canonicals that point to non-200 or noindex URLs.
• Status codes: 200 for indexable content; 301 for permanent moves; avoid 302 for permanent; fix 4xx/5xx; eliminate redirect chains and loops.
• Soft 404: "not found" content returned with a 200. Flag thin/empty/error pages that should return 404/410.
• Duplicate content: parameterized, http/https, www/non-www, trailing-slash, and uppercase variants resolving to the same content without canonical/redirect.

3. Rendering

• Is critical content/links present in the initial HTML, or injected by JS? Client-side-only content risks delayed or missed indexing. Recommend SSR/SSG or pre-rendering for primary content and links.
• Compare raw HTML vs rendered DOM when possible. Flag content that only appears after interaction.

4. XML sitemaps

• Valid XML, < 50,000 URLs and < 50 MB uncompressed per file (use a sitemap index beyond that). Only canonical, indexable, 200 URLs — no noindex/redirected/404.
• Submitted in Search Console and referenced from robots.txt.

5. International / hreflang (multilingual sites)

• hreflang set is reciprocal (every alternate links back) and self- referential. Use correct ISO codes (en, es, es-PA, plus x-default).
• hreflang URLs must be canonical, indexable 200 pages. Don't mix hreflang with conflicting canonicals across languages. This is the #1 multilingual SEO bug.

6. Site architecture

• Logical hierarchy: home → hub/category → detail. Shallow, descriptive URLs.
• Strong internal linking from authority pages to priority pages with descriptive anchor text. Flag important pages with too few internal links.

7. Performance — Core Web Vitals

Field data (CrUX/PSI) is the ground truth; lab (Lighthouse) is diagnostic. A page passes only if all three are good at the 75th percentile:

Metric	Good	Common causes when failing
LCP ≤ 2.5 s	loading	slow server/TTFB, render-blocking CSS/JS, unoptimized hero image, no preload
INP ≤ 200 ms	interactivity	heavy/long JS tasks, large main-thread work, unoptimized event handlers
CLS ≤ 0.1	stability	images/embeds without dimensions, injected banners, late-loading fonts (FOUT)

Quote thresholds exactly. Report measured field values when available; otherwise diagnose causes and mark as inferred.

8. Mobile & page experience

• Mobile-first: same content on mobile and desktop; responsive viewport set.
• HTTPS everywhere; no mixed content. No intrusive interstitials that block content.
• Tap targets, legible font sizes, no horizontal scroll.

Output format

| Severity | Area | Finding | Evidence (measured/inferred) | Fix |

Severity scale:

• P0 blocker — prevents crawl/index/render (noindex on key pages, robots block, 5xx, render-blocked content, broken canonical/hreflang).
• P1 major — meaningful ranking/UX impact (CWV failing, redirect chains, soft 404s, sitemap errors).
• P2 minor — hygiene (anchor text, shallow internal links, minor redirects).
• P3 nice-to-have.

End with: a short prioritized fix order, and explicitly note any area you could not verify due to lack of access. Hand schema findings to seo-schema-builder, content/architecture-of-content to seo-content-brief, and gate changes through seo-quality-gates.

See references/checklist.md for an expanded checklist and verification commands.