A technical SEO audit checklist helps you find the problems that stop search engines from crawling, indexing and understanding a site, before they cost rankings. The 25 checks below are grouped by area, and each one says why it matters and how to fix it.
Use it for your own site or as the standard process for every SEO audit for clients. The process for running the audit and how often to repeat it come at the end.
Crawling and indexing
If search engines cannot reach or index a page, nothing else on this list matters for that page. Start here.
1. robots.txt does not block important pages
Why it matters: a single wrong Disallow line can hide a whole section of a site from crawlers. It often happens after a staging site goes live with its robots.txt still in place.
How to fix it: open /robots.txt, check every rule against the site's key folders, and remove anything that blocks pages you want found. Keep blocks for admin areas, carts and internal search results.
2. The XML sitemap is clean and submitted
Why it matters: a sitemap tells search engines which URLs you consider important. One full of redirects, errors or noindex pages sends mixed signals.
How to fix it: list only indexable URLs that return a 200 status, reference the sitemap in robots.txt, and submit it in Search Console.
3. Important pages are not set to noindex
Why it matters: a noindex meta tag or header removes a page from search results. Templates, plugins and site migrations can add it by accident.
How to fix it: crawl the site, list every noindex page, and confirm each one is meant to be hidden. Remove the tag from anything that should rank.
4. Canonical tags point to the right URL
Why it matters: the canonical tag tells search engines which version of a page to index. A missing canonical leaves the choice to them; a canonical pointing to a different page can stop the current page from being indexed.
How to fix it: give each indexable page a self-referencing canonical. Only point to another URL when the page really is a duplicate of it.
5. One preferred version of the domain, on HTTPS
Why it matters: if http://, https://, www and non-www versions all load, the same content exists at several addresses and links are split between them.
How to fix it: pick one version, serve it on HTTPS, and 301 redirect the others to it.
6. The indexed page count makes sense
Why it matters: a big gap between the pages you have and the pages Google indexes points to crawl, quality or duplication problems.
How to fix it: open the Page indexing report in Search Console and read the reasons listed for pages that are not indexed. Fix the ones that affect pages you want to rank.
Status codes, crawl errors and broken links
Crawl errors and broken links waste crawl budget, frustrate visitors and leak the value of internal links.
7. No broken pages (4xx)
Why it matters: pages that return 404 or other 4xx codes drop out of search results, and any links to them lead nowhere.
How to fix it: 301 redirect removed pages to the closest relevant page. If nothing is relevant, let the page return 404 and remove the links pointing to it.
8. No server errors (5xx) or pages that do not respond
Why it matters: server errors and timeouts tell search engines the site is unreliable. Repeated errors can slow crawling of the whole site.
How to fix it: check server logs for the failing URLs, then fix the code, plugin or hosting limit behind them. Re-crawl to confirm.
9. No broken internal links
Why it matters: internal links help search engines discover pages and understand which ones matter. A link to a missing page breaks that path.
How to fix it: export the list of broken internal links with the pages they appear on, and update each link to the correct live URL.
10. Internal links point straight to the final URL
Why it matters: links that go through a redirect, or a chain of redirects, slow down crawling and page loads.
How to fix it: update menus, footers and content links to point directly at the final destination URL.
11. No broken images
Why it matters: missing images look broken to visitors and lose any image search traffic.
How to fix it: restore the image file or update the src to its new location. Remove the image if it is no longer needed.
On-page tags
12. Every page has a unique, well-sized title
Why it matters: the title is a strong relevance signal and is often what searchers see as the headline of your result. Missing or duplicate titles make pages compete with each other.
How to fix it: write a unique title for each page with the main topic near the start. Around 50 to 60 characters usually displays in full.
13. Every page has a unique meta description
Why it matters: descriptions are not a ranking factor, but Google often uses them as the snippet, so they affect click-through rate.
How to fix it: write a specific summary of each page, roughly 120 to 160 characters, with a reason to click. Avoid copying one description across many pages.
14. One clear H1 per page
Why it matters: the H1 tells visitors and search engines what the page is about. Pages without one are harder to scan and understand.
How to fix it: give each page one H1 that matches its topic, and use H2 and H3 headings for the sections below it.
15. The html lang attribute is set
Why it matters: <html lang="en"> tells browsers and screen readers the page language, and helps tools serve the right translation.
How to fix it: add the correct language code to the site's main template.
Content
16. No thin content
Why it matters: pages with very little text, often under 300 words, rarely answer a search fully. Many of them can lower how search engines view a site's overall quality.
How to fix it: expand pages that deserve to rank, merge similar thin pages into one stronger page, or noindex pages with no search value such as tag archives.
17. No duplicate or near-duplicate content
Why it matters: when several pages say nearly the same thing, search engines pick one to show and the rest compete for nothing.
How to fix it: rewrite pages so each has a distinct purpose, merge true duplicates with a 301 redirect, or use a canonical tag where duplicates must exist, such as filtered product lists.
18. Images have alt text
Why it matters: alt text describes an image to screen readers and to search engines, which helps accessibility and image search.
How to fix it: add short, descriptive alt text to meaningful images. Decorative images can use an empty alt="".
Run many of these checks in a couple of minutes. The free audit crawls up to 50 pages, gives a health score and lists the top problems, with no sign-up.
Run a free SEO auditSpeed and page weight
19. The server responds quickly
Why it matters: a slow server response delays everything else on the page. Responses over one second deserve a look, and over three seconds is a clear problem.
How to fix it: add page caching, use a CDN, upgrade underpowered hosting, and find slow database queries or plugins.
20. Pages are not too heavy
Why it matters: very large pages take longer to download, especially on mobile connections.
How to fix it: remove unused scripts and inline code, paginate very long lists, and serve compressed images in modern formats such as WebP.
21. Core Web Vitals pass
Why it matters: Core Web Vitals measure real visitors' loading, responsiveness and visual stability. Google's "good" thresholds are LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, INP of 200 milliseconds or less, and CLS of 0.1 or less.
How to fix it: check the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console, then fix the worst page groups first: large hero images for LCP, heavy scripts for INP, and images or ads without set dimensions for CLS.
Mobile
22. Pages have a viewport meta tag
Why it matters: without <meta name="viewport">, phones show a zoomed-out desktop page that is hard to read and use.
How to fix it: add <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> to the main template and check the layout on a real phone.
23. Mobile pages carry the same content as desktop
Why it matters: Google mainly uses the mobile version of a page for indexing. Content, links or structured data that only appear on desktop may be ignored.
How to fix it: compare key pages on both devices and make sure text, headings, internal links and structured data are present on mobile too.
Structured data and social tags
24. Structured data is present and valid
Why it matters: structured data helps search engines understand the page and can make it eligible for rich results, such as product or article details.
How to fix it: add JSON-LD that matches what the page is (Organization, LocalBusiness, Article, Product and so on), then validate it with Google's Rich Results Test.
25. Open Graph and Twitter tags are set
Why it matters: these tags control the title, description and image shown when a page is shared on social networks and in messaging apps.
How to fix it: add og:title, og:description, og:image and a twitter:card tag to each page template.
How to do a technical SEO audit, step by step
- Collect access. Get read access to the client's Search Console and GA4 so you can see indexing, Core Web Vitals and traffic alongside the crawl.
- Crawl the site. Run a site audit crawler that respects robots.txt. Turn on JavaScript rendering for sites built with frameworks that load content in the browser.
- Sort by severity. Fix errors first (broken pages, server errors, blocked or noindexed key pages), then warnings, then notices.
- Prioritise by value. A broken link on the homepage matters more than one on a 2019 blog post. Use traffic data to decide the order.
- Fix, then re-crawl. Confirm each fix with a new crawl, and compare against the previous audit to see new and fixed issues.
- Report it. Show the client a health score, what was fixed and what comes next, in plain language.
ReportFalcon's site audits for agencies follow this process: crawls of up to 2,000 pages, a health score out of 100, errors, warnings and notices, and comparisons that show new and fixed issues. The results can appear as a "Site health" section in white-label SEO reports.
How often to run a site audit
- Monthly for active client sites, so new problems show up in the next monthly SEO report.
- Before and after any redesign, migration, CMS change or large content update.
- Straight away when traffic falls suddenly across the whole site.
- At least quarterly for small sites that rarely change.
Monthly audits are easy to forget when you manage many clients. In ReportFalcon they can run automatically for each client, and the issue list exports to CSV for your developers.
When traffic does fall, pair the crawl with the Google Search Console metrics for the same period: a technical problem usually shows up as falling impressions on the affected pages.
FAQ
What is included in a technical SEO audit?
A technical SEO audit checks whether search engines can crawl and index a site, and whether pages are fast, mobile-friendly and well tagged. That covers robots.txt, sitemaps, status codes, broken links, titles and descriptions, duplicate content, speed and structured data.
How long does a technical SEO audit take?
The crawl itself takes minutes for a small site and longer for large ones. Reviewing the results and planning fixes usually takes a few hours for a typical small business site, more for large or complex sites.
What are crawl errors?
Crawl errors are problems a crawler hits when it requests a page: 4xx errors such as 404 Not Found, 5xx server errors, timeouts and pages blocked from crawling. They stop pages from being indexed or waste crawl time.
How do I find broken links on a website?
Run a site crawler, which follows every internal link and records the status code of each destination. Export the broken links with the pages they appear on, then update or remove each one. Our free SEO audit tool checks up to 50 pages.
How do I present an SEO audit to clients?
Lead with a single health score and the most important fixes, explained in plain language. Keep the full issue list for an appendix or CSV, and show progress against the last audit each month.
