seo-technical-audit

Technical SEO Audit

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Crawlability

Search engines must be able to discover and access your pages. Crawlability issues block indexing entirely.

Robots.txt

Controls which URLs crawlers can access.

# Allow all crawlers access to everything
User-agent: *
Allow: /

# Block specific paths
User-agent: *
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /staging/
Disallow: /*?sort=
Disallow: /*?filter=

# Sitemap reference (always include)
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml

Critical rules:

• Never block CSS/JS files (Google needs them to render pages)
• Never block important content paths accidentally
• Test with analyze_robots_txt before deploying changes
• Crawl-delay is ignored by Google (honored by Bing/Yandex)

Meta Robots & X-Robots-Tag

Page-level crawl and index directives.

Directive	Effect
index	Allow indexing (default)
noindex	Prevent indexing — removes from search results
follow	Follow links on this page (default)
nofollow	Don't follow any links on this page
noarchive	Don't show cached version
nosnippet	Don't show text snippet in results
max-snippet:N	Limit snippet to N characters
max-image-preview:large	Allow large image previews

<!-- In HTML head -->
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow">

<!-- Via HTTP header (for non-HTML files) -->
X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

MCP Tool: analyze_page extracts both meta robots and HTTP header directives.

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Indexing

Canonical Tags

The definitive way to tell search engines which URL is the preferred version.

Rules:

• Every indexable page: self-referencing canonical
• Absolute URLs only (https://example.com/page, not /page)
• Must be consistent: canonical URL must return 200 (not redirect or 404)
• One canonical per page (if multiple, Google uses the first)
• HTTP header canonical overrides HTML canonical if both present

Noindex vs Canonical

Scenario	Use
Page should never appear in search	noindex
Duplicate page, prefer another version	canonical to preferred version
URL parameter variants	canonical to clean URL
Paginated content	Self-referencing canonical on each page

Sitemap Submission

• Submit via Google Search Console
• All indexable pages should be in the sitemap
• Noindex pages should NOT be in the sitemap
• Keep sitemaps under 50,000 URLs / 50MB per file (use sitemap index for larger sites)

MCP Tools: analyze_sitemap validates structure, gsc_sitemaps checks submission status.

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Core Web Vitals

Google's page experience signals. Measured from real user data (CrUX) and lab data (Lighthouse).

Thresholds (2024+)

Metric	Good	Needs Improvement	Poor
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)	≤ 2.5s	≤ 4.0s	> 4.0s
INP (Interaction to Next Paint)	≤ 200ms	≤ 500ms	> 500ms
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)	≤ 0.1	≤ 0.25	> 0.25

LCP Optimization

Largest Contentful Paint measures when the largest visible element finishes rendering.

Common causes of poor LCP:

1. Slow server response (TTFB > 800ms) → optimize server, use CDN
2. Render-blocking resources → defer non-critical CSS/JS
3. Slow resource load → optimize/compress LCP image, use preload
4. Client-side rendering → server-side render critical content

Quick wins:

• Preload LCP image: <link rel="preload" href="hero.webp" as="image">
• Use CDN for static assets
• Optimize server response (caching, database queries)
• Avoid lazy-loading the LCP element

INP Optimization

Interaction to Next Paint measures responsiveness to user input.

Common causes of poor INP:

1. Long JavaScript tasks blocking main thread → break into smaller tasks
2. Heavy event handlers → debounce, use requestAnimationFrame
3. Large DOM size → reduce DOM nodes (target < 1,500)
4. Third-party scripts → defer or lazy-load

CLS Optimization

Cumulative Layout Shift measures visual stability.

Common causes of poor CLS:

1. Images without dimensions → always set width and height
2. Ads/embeds without reserved space → use aspect-ratio or min-height
3. Web fonts causing FOIT/FOUT → use font-display: swap + preload
4. Dynamically injected content → reserve space before injection

MCP Tool: check_core_web_vitals returns all metrics with specific optimization suggestions.

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Page Speed Optimization

Beyond Core Web Vitals, overall page speed impacts user experience and crawl budget.

Critical rendering path

1. Minimize render-blocking resources (critical CSS inline, defer JS)
2. Enable compression (Brotli preferred, gzip minimum)
3. Set cache headers (Cache-Control: max-age=31536000 for static assets)
4. Use HTTP/2 or HTTP/3
5. Minimize main-thread work (reduce JS execution time)

Image optimization

• Use modern formats (WebP/AVIF)
• Serve responsive images (srcset)
• Lazy load below-the-fold images
• Compress aggressively (80-85% quality)

Resource hints

<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com">
<link rel="preload" href="/critical.css" as="style">
<link rel="prefetch" href="/next-page.html">
<link rel="dns-prefetch" href="https://analytics.example.com">

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Mobile-Friendliness

Google uses mobile-first indexing — the mobile version of your site is what gets indexed.

Requirements

• Viewport meta tag: <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
• Responsive design (content adapts to screen size)
• No horizontal scrolling
• Tap targets: minimum 48x48px with 8px spacing
• Font size: minimum 16px for body text
• No intrusive interstitials (popups covering content)
• Content parity: mobile version has same content as desktop

MCP Tool: check_mobile_friendly evaluates all mobile usability factors.

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HTTPS & Security

HTTPS requirements

• All pages served over HTTPS (no HTTP pages in index)
• Valid SSL certificate (not expired, correct domain)
• No mixed content (HTTPS page loading HTTP resources)
• HSTS header recommended: Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains
• HTTP pages 301 redirect to HTTPS

Common HTTPS issues

Issue	Impact	Fix
Mixed content	Medium	Update all resource URLs to HTTPS
Expired certificate	Critical	Renew SSL certificate immediately
HTTP pages indexed	High	301 redirect HTTP → HTTPS + update canonical
Missing HSTS	Low	Add HSTS header

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Redirects

Redirect types

Code	Type	When to Use	SEO Impact
301	Permanent	URL changed permanently, content moved	Passes ~95% link equity
302	Temporary	Temporary move (A/B test, maintenance)	Does not pass link equity
307	Temporary (strict)	Same as 302 but preserves HTTP method	Does not pass link equity
308	Permanent (strict)	Same as 301 but preserves HTTP method	Passes link equity

Redirect issues

• Redirect chains: A → B → C → D. Maximum 2 hops recommended. Fix by pointing A directly to D.
• Redirect loops: A → B → A. Critical error — page becomes inaccessible.
• Soft 404s: Page returns 200 but shows "not found" content. Should return actual 404.
• 302 where 301 needed: Temporary redirect for permanent move wastes link equity.

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XML Sitemaps

Requirements

• Located at /sitemap.xml (or referenced in robots.txt)
• Valid XML format
• Only indexable pages (no noindex, no 404s, no redirects)
• Include <lastmod> with accurate dates (ISO 8601)
• Maximum 50,000 URLs per sitemap file
• Maximum 50MB uncompressed per file
• Use sitemap index for larger sites

Validation

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/page</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-01-15</lastmod>
    <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.8</priority>
  </url>
</urlset>

MCP Tool: analyze_sitemap parses, validates, and reports issues.

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Hreflang (International SEO)

For multi-language or multi-region sites. Tells Google which language/region version to show.

Syntax

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-us" href="https://example.com/page">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-gb" href="https://example.co.uk/page">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="https://example.com/es/page">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://example.com/page">

Rules

• Bidirectional: If page A references page B, page B must reference page A
• Self-referencing: Each page must include a hreflang pointing to itself
• x-default: Include for the fallback/language selector page
• Return tags: Every referenced URL must return the same hreflang set
• Use ISO 639-1 language codes, optionally with ISO 3166-1 region codes

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HTTP Status Codes (SEO Impact)

Code	Meaning	SEO Action
200	OK	Expected for all indexable pages
301	Moved Permanently	Passes link equity. Use for permanent URL changes
302	Found (Temporary)	Does NOT pass link equity. Use only for temporary moves
304	Not Modified	Good — efficient caching
404	Not Found	Remove from sitemap, fix internal links pointing here
410	Gone	Permanently removed. Stronger signal than 404 for deindexing
500	Server Error	Fix immediately — blocks crawling and indexing
503	Service Unavailable	Temporary. Google retries. Use for planned maintenance

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Technical Audit Workflow

Recommended order for a complete technical audit:

1. Crawlability: analyze_robots_txt → check for blocking issues
2. Sitemap: analyze_sitemap → validate structure and URLs
3. Page-level: analyze_page → meta robots, canonical, redirects, status
4. Performance: check_core_web_vitals → LCP, INP, CLS scores
5. Mobile: check_mobile_friendly → viewport, tap targets, fonts
6. Schema: extract_schema → structured data validation
7. GSC data: gsc_index_coverage → real indexing status from Google

See ERROR_CATALOG.md for the complete issue catalog. See AUDIT_WORKFLOW.md for detailed audit methodology. See HTTP_STATUS_REFERENCE.md for complete status code reference.