SEO Audit: Technical Site Audit
SEO Audit — a technical site audit service. It crawls pages like a search bot and collects issues that hinder indexing and ranking. In addition to crawling, the report includes site speed data from Google PageSpeed Insights, checks for visibility in AI search, and the domain profile.
What is checked
| Category | Examples of Issues |
|---|---|
| Indexing and Crawling | 4xx and 5xx errors, redirects and their chains, pages closed from indexing, issues with canonical and hreflang, content that appears only after executing JavaScript, robots.txt errors, sites closed to AI search engines |
| Meta and Markup | Duplicates and absence of title and description, multiple H1s, gaps in header hierarchy, images without alt, broken or incomplete JSON-LD microdata |
| Content | Duplicates, too short pages, keyword stuffing, absence of llms.txt, site not cited in AI search responses |
| Performance | Slow and heavy pages, absence of compression, images without sizes, Core Web Vitals of real visitors, slow loading on mobile |
| Links and Structure | Broken links, orphan pages, too deep nesting, excessive number of links on the page |
| Security | Mixed content, absence of HSTS |
Health Score
As a result of the crawl, the site receives a score from 0 to 100 and a list of issues prioritized. The score is not valuable by itself, but for comparison: a repeat audit after fixes shows what has truly improved.
It is calculated based on pages, not the number of issues: a page with an error counts as one, one with warnings — 0.4, and one with remarks — 0.1. The sum is divided by the number of crawled pages and subtracted from 100. More about the metric is in the glossary.
If no page of the site opened — for example, it is blocked by bot protection, the homepage redirects to another domain, or the site does not respond — there is no score: instead of a number, there is a “—”, and a banner above the report with the reason. Previously, such a site could receive a high score simply because no issues were found on it.
What else is in the report
- Site Profile — besides CMS, indexed pages, and links, here is the Domain Rating from Ahrefs (with changes since the last audit of this site), domain age, and the year of the first snapshot of the site in the web archive.
- Speed and Core Web Vitals — data from real Chrome visitors over 28 days and laboratory measurement of the homepage and several pages from different sections, plus a list of fixes that will speed up the site the most.
- Visibility in AI Search — the audit asks Perplexity questions about the site topic and checks if the answer refers to you and if AI knows your brand.
- Traffic under the Issue — if Search Console is connected, for each issue, it shows how many clicks from Google the pages where it is found bring.
How to read each block is in the article how to read the audit report.
JavaScript Sites
Some sites deliver almost empty HTML, and text and links are drawn by a script in the browser. If there is almost no text and links in the homepage code, the audit opens pages in a real browser and checks what the visitor sees. In the free check, up to 100 pages are opened this way, in the full audit — up to 1000, after which the crawl stops. The report will show a banner “Site content is drawn by JavaScript — we checked it in the browser” and the issue “Site content is drawn by JavaScript”: search engines and AI bots that do not execute scripts see such pages as empty.
Crawl Settings
You can set the depth and speed of the crawl, choose which bot to present as, whether to consider robots.txt and sitemap, whether to crawl subdomains, and how to handle filter addresses. The latter is important for online stores: without limitation, the crawler can drown in endless combinations of filters.
Express and Full Audit
| Express | Full | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | free | prepayment based on site size estimate |
| Volume | up to a hundred pages | up to tens of thousands of pages |
| Limitation | several runs per day | one active crawl per project |
| Report | some data hidden, no export | full list of issues with recommendations |
| Purpose | quickly assess the state and size of the site | working task list for the programmer |
How Payment Works
The express check of a small number of pages is available for free with a daily limit. The full crawl is paid in advance: the service estimates the site size based on the express results and names the price before the start. First, the free quota of the account is used, the remainder is from the main balance. Therefore, the first full audit cannot be started until at least one express has been done: there is nothing to assess.
Practical Scenarios
- Before starting promotion. Check the target page and the path to it: is it indexed, is there a redirect, are there internal links. This is cheaper than figuring it out later in the article no results — what to do.
- After a move or redesign. The most common damage is lost redirects and sudden noindex on an entire section; the audit finds this in one crawl.
- Store with filters. Limit filter addresses and compare the number of crawled pages with the number of products: if the crawler found many more, the search is wasting budget on garbage.
Emails After the Check
- After the free check. About a day later, an email may arrive with two or three main findings specifically about your site, with numbers: for example, who AI search recommends instead of you, whether the site passes Core Web Vitals, under which issue the most traffic from Google is. The email does not arrive if you have already ordered a full audit or started promotion, as well as if there are fewer than two strong findings.
- Monthly Monitoring. For active clients — those who recently started promotion, topped up the balance, or ever ordered a full audit — the audit rechecks already checked sites for free once a month and sends an email “what has changed in a month”: score was → became, what was fixed and what appeared, Domain Rating, citation in AI search, speed on mobile, number of pages indexed by Google, and cascades that worked on the site during this time. Only pages that are present in both checks are compared, minor remarks are not considered. If nothing has changed, there will be no email.
Both emails relate to the agreement “Reports on my sites” in the profile: it can be turned off there or via the unsubscribe link in the email itself.
Frequently Asked Questions and Errors
- “The crawler sees a block, but everything opens in the browser.” This is how hosting protection or Cloudflare responds. This is not a broken page: add the crawler to exceptions or enable crawling through a proxy. If “access denied” is already answered by the homepage, a banner will appear above the report “Site is closed by bot protection” — check in Search Console via “URL Inspection” if Googlebot can access the page.
- “Fewer pages found than exist.” Usually, the reason is in robots.txt or the absence of internal links. If the catalog is drawn by a script, the audit will switch to checking in the browser itself — see the section on JavaScript sites above.
- “Only one page checked.” Perhaps the homepage redirects to another domain. Then a banner will appear above the report “Site redirects to…” with a button that starts checking the new address.
- “The score dropped, although nothing was changed.” Compare the number of crawled pages: if the crawler went deeper, weak service pages got into the sample.
- The audit is not a security check. Finding vulnerabilities and malicious code is the task of Shield, and positions by queries — Rank Tracker.
First, fix errors that block pages from search: 4xx and 5xx, noindex, redirect loops. Then duplicates of titles and content, and only then cosmetics like the length of the description.
Analysis of Audit Findings
What each category of checks means and in what order to fix the findings.
| Article | About |
|---|---|
| How to Read the SEO Audit Report | In the catalog, there are 65 checks, three levels of importance, and six categories, plus blocks on speed, AI search, and site profile. |
| Audit: Indexing Problems and What They Mean | Six out of twelve audit errors live in this category, including JavaScript sites and robots.txt issues. |
| Audit: Meta Tags and Headings Problems | Twenty checks out of sixty-five: Title, Description, header structure, alt for images, and JSON-LD microdata. |
| Audit: Content and Speed | Thin pages, duplicates, keyword stuffing, Core Web Vitals, slow loading on mobile, and blocking scripts — this is where the real cause of weak positions often hides. |
| Audit: Interlinking and Security | Broken links, orphan pages, depth of nesting, and mixed content. |