Technical SEO Audit Checklist: A Ready-to-Use Version

Run the audit in five passes

A technical SEO audit answers one question: can search engines find, read, and trust your pages? Work through the five passes below in order. Each pass lists what to check, where to look, and what counts as a pass, so you can tick items off and hand the rest to a developer with exact instructions.

Pass 1: Can Google crawl and index your pages?

Open the Pages report in Search Console. It lists indexed pages and excluded pages, with a reason for each exclusion.

• Indexed pages match your important pages. Compare the indexed list against your sitemap. Every service page, product page, and key guide should appear.
• "Crawled - currently not indexed" stays small. A large share means Google fetched the pages and decided they were not worth indexing, which usually points to thin or duplicate content.
• "Discovered - currently not indexed" stays small. This means Google knows the URL exists but has not crawled it yet. On a small site, a growing count suggests crawl budget is going to unimportant URLs instead.
• No server errors (5xx). Any URL returning a 500 error needs a developer, not an SEO fix. Check again after the fix and request reindexing in Search Console.
• No "blocked by robots.txt" surprises. The blocked list should contain only URLs you meant to block, such as admin pages, internal search results, or staging copies.
• Your sitemap is submitted and current. A sitemap with URLs that return errors or redirects is worse than no sitemap, because it teaches Google to distrust it.
• Noindex tags are deliberate. Every noindexed page should be one you chose to exclude, such as a thank-you page. Accidental noindex tags are a common cause of sudden traffic drops.

Pass mark: every page you want ranked is indexed, error counts are zero, and exclusions are all deliberate.

Pass 2: Does every page resolve to one clean URL?

Duplicate URLs split ranking signals and waste crawl budget. Check your ten most important pages first, then sample the rest.

• One canonical URL per page. The same content should not load under two addresses, such as a version with and without a trailing slash, or with tracking parameters. Pick one version and redirect the rest to it with a 301 redirect.
• Canonical tags agree with redirects. If a page redirects, it should not also carry a canonical tag pointing somewhere else.
• Redirect chains are short. Every old URL should redirect straight to its final destination in one hop. A redirect that points to another redirect slows crawlers and leaks authority.
• HTTP redirects to HTTPS. Every http:// URL should redirect to its https:// version, and internal links should point at the https:// version directly.
• Trailing-slash and www choices are consistent. It does not matter which version you pick, but internal links, the sitemap, and canonical tags must all use the same one.

Pass mark: each important page loads on exactly one URL, every redirect resolves in a single hop, and the canonical tag names the URL in the address bar.

Pass 3: Do your pages load fast and render cleanly on phones?

Run your homepage and three important inner pages through PageSpeed Insights, mobile first, since Google indexes the mobile version of your site.

• Largest contentful paint under 2.5 seconds. This measures how fast the main content appears. Large uncompressed images and slow servers are the usual causes of a slow paint.
• Interaction to next paint under 200 milliseconds. This measures how quickly the page responds when a visitor taps or clicks. Heavy JavaScript is the usual cause of a slow response.
• Cumulative layout shift under 0.1. This measures how much the page jumps around while loading, usually because images lack set dimensions or banners load late.
• Images are compressed and sized correctly. A 4,000-pixel image shown at 800 pixels wide wastes bandwidth on every visit. Serve images close to their display size, in a modern format, with width and height set.
• The mobile page shows the same content as desktop. Google indexes the mobile version, so content hidden only on mobile is effectively hidden from Google. Check a page on a real phone, not just a resized desktop window.

Pass mark: the three Core Web Vitals numbers above hold on mobile for your main page templates, and the mobile page carries the same text, images, and links as desktop.

Pass 4: Is your structured data valid?

Structured data is code that tells search engines what a page is about, in a format defined at Schema.org. It can earn rich results, but only when it is valid and honest.

• Every marked-up page passes the Rich Results Test. Paste the URL into the test and fix every error it reports. Warnings are less urgent than errors, but fix them when you can.
• The markup matches the visible page. Marking up a price, a rating, or an event date that visitors cannot see on the page breaks Google's rules and can cost you the rich result.
• The right type is used for each page. An article page uses Article markup, a product page uses Product markup, and a FAQ section uses FAQPage markup. Guessing the type is worse than leaving the page unmarked.
• Organization and breadcrumb markup are consistent. Site-wide markup should name the same business, the same logo, and the same breadcrumb path on every page.

Pass mark: zero errors on every page you marked up, and every marked-up fact is visible to visitors on that page.

Pass 5: Do titles, headings, and internal links point the right way?

Technical SEO is not only about servers and code. The way pages describe themselves and link to each other decides what Google understands.

• Every page has one unique title tag. Titles should name the page's topic in the first words and differ from every other title on the site. Duplicate titles tell Google the pages are duplicates.
• Every page has one H1 that matches its subject. Subheadings (H2, H3) should follow in order, without skipping levels, and describe the section below them.
• Meta descriptions exist on important pages. They do not affect rankings directly, but they shape the snippet people see in search results.
• Important pages get internal links from related pages. A page with no internal links pointing at it is hard for crawlers and visitors to find. Link to each key page from at least one relevant page, using link text that names the topic.
• No internal links point to redirects or errors. A link to a redirected page works, but it wastes a hop. A link to a 404 page is a dead end. Fix the link at its source.

Pass mark: every important page has a unique title and H1, receives at least one internal link, and links only to live pages.

A worked example: auditing a 40-page site in one afternoon

Take a 40-page WordPress site for a local service business, where the owner suspects a traffic drop after a redesign.

First, the Pages report shows 38 indexed pages and 12 excluded. Two service pages sit under "Crawled - currently not indexed", and four old blog posts return 404. Check the two service pages for a stray noindex tag, and redirect the four dead posts to the closest live pages.

Second, the homepage loads under both the www and non-www versions, with no redirect between them. One redirect rule fixes it, and the canonical tag is updated to match.

Third, PageSpeed Insights reports a largest contentful paint of 3.8 seconds on mobile. The hero image is 2.4 MB and uncompressed. Compressing it and setting its dimensions brings the paint under 2.5 seconds.

Fourth, the FAQ markup on the pricing page fails the Rich Results Test because the answers in the code do not match the answers on the page. Updating the code to match the visible text clears the error.

Fifth, three blog posts share the title "Our Blog". Each gets a title naming its topic, and each service page gains an internal link from the homepage. A leftover staging robots.txt rule is also blocking the whole blog directory; removing it restores the missing pages.

Where technical SEO audits usually go wrong

• Fixing speed before indexation. A fast page that Google never indexes still brings no traffic. Always work the passes in order.
• Trusting a single tool's verdict. One crawler's "error" is often another tool's false positive. Confirm every serious finding in Search Console or a browser before acting on it.
• Treating the audit as a one-off. Templates change, plugins update, and editors add pages. Re-run the short version of this checklist after every redesign and every migration.

Six technical SEO terms worth knowing

• Crawl budget: the number of pages Googlebot will fetch on your site in a given period. Large sites must spend it on important pages.
• Indexation: whether Google has added a page to its index, which is required before the page can appear in search results.
• Canonical tag: a line of code naming the preferred URL for a piece of content when duplicates exist.
• 301 redirect: a permanent redirect that sends visitors and crawlers from an old URL to a new one.
• Robots.txt: a file that tells crawlers which parts of a site they may and may not fetch.
• Largest contentful paint (LCP): how long the main content of a page takes to appear.

If your audit turns up ranking or content gaps alongside the technical fixes, the best SEO rank tracking software post helps you watch positions while fixes roll out, and the Google Analytics audit guide checks whether your traffic data is trustworthy before you judge results. For a migration, the SEO migration strategy guide covers redirects and indexation through a move, and the check schema markup guide goes deeper on structured data testing. Adziq's SEO services cover audits and fixes for teams that want the work done for them.

Common questions

Sources

• Google SEO Starter Guide
• Google Core Web Vitals
• PageSpeed Insights
• Schema.org documentation
• Google Search Console

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