SEO Audit Checklist

Verify that yourdomain.com/robots.txt returns a 200 status and follows proper syntax. Confirm it isn't accidentally blocking all crawlers with Disallow: / for User-agent: *.

Google: robots.txt docs

Check that sitemap.xml returns 200, is well-formed XML, and contains all important URLs. For sites with more than 50,000 URLs, use a sitemap index.

Google: sitemap docs

Ensure the site redirects HTTP to HTTPS with a 301 permanent redirect. Check for mixed content (HTTP resources loaded on HTTPS pages) and verify the SSL certificate is valid and not expiring within 30 days.

Redirects should resolve in 1-2 hops. Chains of 3+ hops waste crawl budget and slow users down. Also check for redirect loops.

Scan for <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> and X-Robots-Tag: noindex headers. Ensure only the pages you actually want excluded are tagged.

Every indexable page should have a canonical URL. Check for self-referencing canonicals (good) and conflicting canonicals between pages (bad).

No missing titles, no site-wide duplicate titles, no keyword-stuffed titles. Aim for 50-60 characters. Google may rewrite your title if it's bad, generic, or over-optimized.

Google: title link docs

Every indexable page should have a unique meta description (120-160 characters). While not a ranking factor, a good description improves click-through rates from search results.

Google: snippet docs

One clear H1 per page that describes what the page is about. Multiple H1s are not a disaster (Google says heading order doesn't matter for ranking), but a single H1 is good practice for readability.

Headings should form a logical outline. An H3 shouldn't appear without a parent H2. Sub-headings help users scan and help search engines understand content structure.

Every <img> tag should have an alt attribute describing the image. This helps Google Images understand your content and makes your site accessible to screen reader users.

At minimum: og:title, og:description, and og:image should be present. This controls how your page looks when shared on social media.

At minimum, include Organization (or Person) and WebSite schemas. For content pages, include Article. For products, include Product. Proper schema enables rich results.

Google: structured data docs

The <html> element should have a lang attribute (e.g., lang="en"). This helps search engines serve the right language version to users.

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> ensures your site displays correctly on mobile devices.

Check for pages with identical or near-identical titles and meta descriptions. While Google doesn't penalize duplicate content, it wastes crawl budget and dilutes your ranking signals.

Pages with very low word count may not provide substantive value. Google says there is no magical word count, but thin pages with little original content are unlikely to rank well.

Pages returning 200 OK but containing very little content (e.g., empty search results, "no results found" messages) should either be improved or return a proper 404. Google may treat them as soft 404s.

If your site relies on JavaScript for critical content, test whether Google can render it. As Google notes, processing JavaScript is more complex and resource-intensive than plain HTML.

Monitor load time across your pages. Slow pages frustrate users and consume more crawl budget. Google uses page experience as one of many signals.

Individual pages over 1MB may load slowly on mobile connections. Audit for oversized images, unminified CSS/JS, and excessive third-party scripts.

If your site supports multiple languages, hreflang tags should be reciprocal (both pages link to each other) and use valid language/region codes. Broken hreflang tags confuse search engines.

Check the SSL certificate is not expired, not expiring within 30 days, and issued by a trusted authority. An expired certificate blocks all HTTPS access.

For sites with 1,000+ pages, audit crawl budget signals: thin content pages, excessive URL parameters, deep pagination, and slow-loading pages that Googlebot may skip.

Check for /.well-known/security.txt. Not an SEO factor, but recommended for responsible disclosure of security vulnerabilities. It's a sign of a well-maintained site.