The 18 points of a technical audit, asked one at a time. For each: what it is, where to look, and which free tool answers it. You answer, the score moves, and your audits stay in your browser — as many as you like.
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Google and your site
What decides whether Google can see you0/6
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Question 1 of 18
Redirects
Your site must live at ONE address. If yoursite.com, www.yoursite.com, the http version and the https version all answer separately, Google sees four sites competing with each other — and splits your credit between them.
How do I check this?
Type each of the four addresses into your browser: http://yoursite.com, http://www.yoursite.com, https://yoursite.com, https://www.yoursite.com. Three of them should jump automatically to the fourth, and the address bar should always end up showing the same one.
Pass if: All four addresses land on the same one, with the same padlock.
Fail if: Two different addresses show your site without ever meeting.
A small text file at the root of your site telling search engines where they may go. One misplaced line ("Disallow: /") shuts them out of the whole site.
How do I check this?
Critical point: until it is fixed, everything else you do stays invisible.
Open yoursite.com/robots.txt in your browser and read it. If it contains "Disallow: /" on its own under "User-agent: *", your entire site is closed to Google. Check that it also points to your sitemap (a "Sitemap:" line).
Pass if: The file exists, blocks nothing important, and points to the sitemap.
Fail if: The file blocks the whole site, or blocks pages that matter.
The padlock in the address bar. Without it, browsers show "Not secure" to your visitors, and Google favours the sites that have it.
How do I check this?
Critical point: until it is fixed, everything else you do stays invisible.
Look at your address bar: a closed padlock and an https address is good. A "Not secure" warning, or a crossed-out padlock, is not. Check the expiry date too — an expired certificate breaks a site overnight.
Pass if: Closed padlock, https everywhere, certificate valid for several more weeks.
Fail if: Security warning, expired certificate, or pages still served over http.
How many of your pages Google actually knows about. This is the most important number in the whole audit: a page Google does not know earns nothing, however good it is.
How do I check this?
Critical point: until it is fixed, everything else you do stays invisible.
Search Google for: site:yoursite.com. Count the results roughly, then compare with the number of pages you have published. A 40-page site showing 3 has a problem; a 12-page site showing 11 is fine.
Pass if: The large majority of your useful pages show up.
Fail if: Few or no pages show up, on a site that is months old.
The map of your site: the list of your pages, in a file made for search engines. It is the fastest way for Google to find your new pages.
How do I check this?
Open yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. You should see a list of addresses (raw and ugly is normal — this file is not made to be read by people). Check that your recent pages are in it, and that no address leads to a deleted page.
Pass if: The sitemap exists, is up to date, and is declared in robots.txt.
Fail if: No sitemap, or one that predates your latest pages.
Pages that cannot be found. A link in your menu or your posts that leads nowhere loses the visitor and wastes Google’s visit.
How do I check this?
Click every link in your menu and your footer. Then run the site through a free crawler (500 pages is plenty for a small business) and sort by response code: everything returning 404 should be fixed or redirected to the closest equivalent page.
Pass if: No broken internal links, and a "not found" page that offers a way forward.
Fail if: Links in the menu, the footer or your posts lead nowhere.
How long your host takes to start answering. Nothing can appear before that: it is the floor under every other measurement.
How do I check this?
In PageSpeed Insights, look for "Reduce initial server response time" (TTFB). Under 0.8 second is good. Over 1.8 second, your hosting is the problem before anything else — a lighter theme will not fix it.
Pass if: Under 0.8 second to the first response.
Fail if: Over 1.8 second: hosting is the first job to do.
How long your visitor waits before they can read and click. On a phone, on mobile data, this is the number one reason people leave.
How do I check this?
Run PageSpeed Insights on your home page AND on an inner page (a product page, a post): they are almost never alike. Note the mobile score for both. Below 50, the site is genuinely slow — not "a little" slow.
Pass if: Mobile score above 50 on the home page and inside the site.
Fail if: Mobile score below 50, or more than 5 seconds before anything is readable.
Does your site adapt to the screen it is on? More than half your visitors arrive from a phone.
How do I check this?
Open your site on your own phone and do what a customer would do: find the phone number, the address, the opening hours, send a message. Check that nothing spills off the side (no sideways scrolling) and that buttons can be tapped with a thumb without zooming.
Pass if: Everything readable and tappable with a thumb, no zooming, no sideways scroll.
Fail if: You have to zoom, or text runs off the screen.
The three measurements Google officially uses to judge how comfortable your pages are: how fast the main content appears, how stable the layout is, and how quickly the page reacts to a tap.
How do I check this?
In PageSpeed Insights, read the banner at the top: "Passes / Does not pass the Core Web Vitals assessment". It is based on real visits over the last 28 days, not a lab test — so when it is available, it is the one that counts.
Pass if: The real-user banner says the assessment passes.
Fail if: The assessment fails, or one of the three measurements is in the red.
How long the largest visible element takes to appear — usually your banner image or your headline. It is the moment the visitor feels the page has arrived.
How do I check this?
PageSpeed Insights gives you the LCP in seconds, and even shows which element it is. Good under 2.5 s, needs work up to 4 s, bad beyond. The most common cause on a small-business site: a banner photo weighing several megabytes.
How stable the page is while it loads. You know the effect: you go to click, an image finishes loading, everything shifts down and you click the wrong thing.
How do I check this?
PageSpeed Insights gives a number between 0 and 1. Under 0.1 is good. Above 0.25 the page visibly jumps — reload it yourself and watch, you will see it.
The verdict on the Mobile tab. This is the one that counts: Google ranks sites on their mobile version, even for searches made on a desktop.
How do I check this?
Critical point: until it is fixed, everything else you do stays invisible.
In PageSpeed Insights, stay on the "Mobile" tab (it is the default) and note the score. Compare it with your desktop score: a 40-point gap is normal, but mobile is the one to work on first.
Pass if: Mobile score above 50, and the whole customer journey works with a thumb.
Fail if: Mobile score below 50, or the journey is impossible on a phone.
The same test, on a large screen. It matters for anything people look up from the office: quotes, B2B, business services.
How do I check this?
In PageSpeed Insights, switch to the "Desktop" tab. Then look at your site on a wide screen: plenty of sites designed for phones show up as a narrow column in the middle of a lot of empty space.
Pass if: Desktop score above 80, and a layout that uses the screen.
Fail if: Score below 60, or a layout that breaks on a wide screen.
The single biggest cause of slowness on a small-business site, by a wide margin. A photo straight off a phone weighs 4 to 8 MB; the same photo prepared for the web weighs 150 KB and looks identical.
How do I check this?
In PageSpeed Insights, open "Serve images in next-gen formats" and "Properly size images": the list tells you exactly which photos to shrink and how much you gain. Check as well that every image has a description (alt text) — that is what makes it findable in Google Images.
Pass if: No image over 300 KB, modern formats, descriptions filled in.
Fail if: Images weighing several megabytes, or no descriptions at all.
Your layout and script files. On a site built out of plugins they pile up: every add-on brings its own, and the browser has to download the lot before it can show anything.
How do I check this?
In PageSpeed Insights, look at "Eliminate render-blocking resources" and "Reduce unused JavaScript". Then count your plugins: on WordPress, past twenty or so there is almost always something you can switch off.
Pass if: Few blocking files, and no plugin installed "just in case".
Fail if: A long list of blocking scripts, or unused plugins still active.
Security instructions your server sends to the browser before the page. They are invisible, and yet they block a good share of the common attacks.
How do I check this?
Run your address through SecurityHeaders: the test returns a grade from A to F and lists what is missing. The two to get first are Strict-Transport-Security (forces https) and Content-Security-Policy (stops foreign code from running). If someone else hosts your site, send them the report — it says exactly what to add.
Pass if: Grade C or better, with Strict-Transport-Security in place.
Fail if: Grade F, or no security instructions sent at all.
Code injected through a form: someone types code into your "message" field, your site prints it as-is, and that code runs on your visitors’ machines. It is the most widespread flaw on the web.
How do I check this?
You do not have to run the attack yourself. Three checks are enough: your site and its plugins are up to date (a patched flaw only helps if you install the patch), your forms go through a maintained plugin rather than a homemade script, and Mozilla Observatory flags nothing glaring. If your site is old and never updated, mark this one as not valid.
Pass if: Site and plugins up to date, forms handled by a maintained plugin.
Fail if: Updates behind, or homemade forms with no filtering.
"Archive" files the audit in your history below and clears the sheet for the next one.
Your previous audits
In your browser
You have not archived an audit yet. The first one will show up here with its score — and you will be able to reopen it to compare.
Why do it yourself
An outsourced audit hands you a document. An audit you run yourself hands you something more useful: you now know where to look. The second time takes twenty minutes — and the day someone tells you on the phone that your site has "a big technical problem", you are in a position to ask which one.
The order of the points is not decorative. The first four decide whether Google can see your site at all: as long as one of them is red, improving speed or copy achieves nothing, because nobody will read it. Sites that are invisible on Google almost always fail on one of them.
What this audit does not cover
It is a technical audit: the machinery of the site. It says nothing about your keywords, the quality of your copy, or the links pointing at you — the three things that decide your position once the technical side is sound. Put another way: this audit checks that the car starts, not that it is pointed the right way.
The free tools that answer the questions
No subscription is needed to fill this in. PageSpeed Insights answers eight of the eighteen points on its own.
The same checklist exists as a skill for Claude and ChatGPT: your assistant collects what can be measured (redirects, robots.txt, sitemap, security headers), asks you for the numbers it cannot get on its own, and hands you a report to open. Free, no API key. What it does not replace: your own judgement on the lines that need it.
By following a fixed list, in order, and writing down what you find. The checklist above holds the 18 points of a technical audit: for each one it tells you what it is, where to look and which free tool answers it. Allow an hour or two for a small-business site. The point is not the depth of the analysis — it is going through everything instead of circling the two things you already knew about.
What exactly is a technical SEO audit?
It is the part of the audit that says nothing about your keywords or your copy, and everything about the machinery: can Google reach the site, how fast does it show up, does it work on a phone, is it secure. It comes first, because no amount of content makes up for a site Google cannot read.
Is a free SEO audit as good as a paid one?
For the technical part, yes: the measurements come from the same tools, and the reference tools (PageSpeed Insights, Search Console) are free. A paid audit buys you two things this checklist does not replace: a professional's time on the odd cases, and competitive analysis. What is worth nothing, on the other hand, is a "free audit" that hands you a score with no explanation — you will not know what to fix.
How long does this checklist take?
An hour or two the first time, most of it inside PageSpeed Insights, which answers eight of the eighteen points on its own. After that, twenty minutes: you know where to look, and you are comparing against your last run.
How often should I audit my site?
Twice a year is enough for a site that does not change much — and always after a redesign, a host migration or adding a shop. Those are the moments a site loses its visibility overnight: the "discourage search engines" box left ticked after a launch is the number one cause.
Are my answers stored anywhere?
Your answers, your notes and your history stay in your browser's memory, on your device: we do not receive them and we cannot read them. When you archive an audit, we record only the domain name and the score, so we know which sites use the tool. No email, none of your notes, no page address.
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