How we audit a site for SEO

Classic search still matters for almost every site. These are the checks that still earn their place, in the order we run them, and what counts as a pass.

1. Can it be crawled and indexed?

The page returns 200, robots.txt allows it, and there's no stray noindex. Pass: every page that should rank is reachable and indexable.

2. One address per page

http and https, www and bare, all end at one URL in a single redirect, and the canonical tag points at that same URL. Pass: one hop, one final address, canonical agrees. See Your homepage has four addresses.

3. Title and description in the HTML

A unique title and meta description in the HTML the server sends, not added later by JavaScript. Pass: present, unique, and describing the page. See why JavaScript-added tags don't count.

4. One clear H1 and real headings

One H1 that says what the page is, and headings that outline the content instead of styling it. Pass: someone reading only the headings knows what the page covers.

5. Structured data that's true

JSON-LD that parses, uses the right type, and matches what's visible on the page. Pass: no errors, and no claims you can't back up. See Schema that lies about you.

6. A sitemap worth reading

Only canonical, indexable URLs, honest lastmod dates, declared in robots.txt. Pass: every URL in it returns 200 and none are missing. See Your sitemap is lying to Google.

7. Speed and images

Pages that load quickly on a phone, and images with useful alt text and sensible file sizes. Pass: no page makes a visitor wait for the main content.

What we don't check

Keyword density, meta keywords, and anything else search engines stopped caring about years ago.

Run it yourself

The free checks on the tools page cover redirects, sitemaps, structured data and share previews one at a time. PageClimber (my own product) runs the full set in one scan.