Automated audit tools reliably flag the same handful of issues: missing meta descriptions, broken links, large images. Those are worth fixing, but they're rarely why a site's growth has stalled. The issues that cap rankings are usually structural, and they don't appear in a generic crawler report. This checklist starts where most audits stop.
01Crawling and indexing#
- 1
Analyze server logs, not just a crawl simulation. Logs show which URLs Googlebot actually requests and how often. It's the only reliable way to see crawl waste on large sites.
- 2
Check whether crawl budget is really your problem. Google says crawl budget mainly matters for sites with around a million or more unique pages, or 10,000+ pages that change daily. Smaller sites with indexing gaps usually have quality or duplication issues instead.
- 3
Review the Page Indexing report in Search Console. Large counts of "Crawled, currently not indexed" or "Duplicate without user-selected canonical" point to thin or duplicated templates.
- 4
Control faceted navigation and parameters. Filters, sort orders and session parameters can generate an effectively infinite number of URLs. Decide which filtered pages deserve indexing and keep the rest out of the crawl.
02Rendering and canonicals#
- 1
Compare rendered HTML with the live page. Use the URL Inspection tool to see what Google renders. On JavaScript-heavy templates, primary content, links or canonical tags can be missing from what Google sees.
- 2
Audit canonicals on faceted, paginated and parameter URLs, not just static pages. Canonicals pointing to redirected, noindexed or non-equivalent pages are ignored.
- 3
Check internal linking depth. Important pages more than three or four clicks from the homepage, or orphaned with no internal links, get crawled less and rank worse.
- 4
Verify redirect chains and legacy URLs. After migrations, chains of multiple redirects and old URLs still linked internally slow crawling and leak equity.
03Performance, structured data and AI access#
- 1
Measure Core Web Vitals on field data. Google's "good" thresholds at the 75th percentile are LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, INP of 200 milliseconds or less and CLS of 0.1 or less. Lab scores alone can hide real-user problems.
- 2
Validate structured data against what's visible. Markup must describe content users can see on the page. Test it with the Rich Results Test and fix errors in templates, not page by page.
- 3
Check that content isn't hidden from crawlers. Tabs and accordions are fine if the content is in the HTML. Content loaded only after a click or scroll event may never be seen.
- 4
Review AI crawler access in robots.txt. Decide deliberately whether to allow crawlers such as Googlebot, Google-Extended, OAI-SearchBot, GPTBot and PerplexityBot. Blocking search-focused AI crawlers can remove you from AI answers.
04How often should you run a technical SEO audit?#
Run a full technical audit at least once a year and before and after any migration, redesign or platform change. On large or frequently updated sites, monitor the essentials continuously: indexation counts, robots.txt and canonical changes, server errors and Core Web Vitals, so regressions are caught within days rather than at the next audit.
FAQFrequently asked questions
Making sure your important pages can be crawled, rendered and indexed. If a page isn't in Google's index, no amount of content or link work can make it rank.
Core Web Vitals are Google's user experience metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (loading), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness) and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability). Good scores are LCP 2.5s or less, INP 200ms or less and CLS 0.1 or less.
Usually not. Log analysis is most valuable on large sites where crawl waste is a real constraint. For small sites, Search Console's Page Indexing and Crawl Stats reports are normally enough.
