What are technical site audits?
What a technical audit covers
A technical audit examines the infrastructure of your site rather than its written content. Crawlers look at whether pages return the right status codes, whether robots rules block important pages, and whether the sitemap lists the right URLs. Reviewing these areas helps find problems that keep pages from appearing in search.
- Crawlability: robots.txt rules and blocked pages
- Indexability: noindex tags and canonical settings
- Status codes: broken links, 404 errors, and redirect chains
- Speed and mobile experience: Core Web Vitals and layout stability
How to run one
Most people use a site crawler, which visits every page and reports issues. You can also check indexing and page experience reports in Google Search Console. Prioritize fixes that affect many pages or your most important pages first. Start with a full crawl of the homepage and key category pages, then expand to the rest of the site.
Keeping the audit useful
Run an audit after major site changes, such as a redesign or a migration to a new domain. Track the same issues over time so you can see whether fixes stuck. Check official Google documentation when you are unsure how a setting affects search. Share findings with the people who can make the fixes, such as a developer or content editor, and assign clear owners.
Common mistakes
- Fixing every warning in a report instead of the issues that affect important pages.
- Blocking pages in robots.txt that you actually want indexed.
