Technical SEO Audit: Checks, Report and Limits

Description

Service Technical SEO audit: what is checked and what you receive

A technical SEO audit tests whether search engines can reach, render and index the pages you want found, and lists what is stopping them. WavX checks the site against Google's published requirements, using your Search Console data and a full crawl, and delivers a prioritised list of faults with the evidence and a fix for each. It does not promise rankings.

Discuss your SEO/GEO/AEO strategy Last updated 2 October 2026

What a technical audit answers

Google describes Search as three stages: crawling, indexing and serving results. A page has to pass the first two before its content or its reputation counts for anything. Google's technical requirements for a page to be eligible for indexing are short:

Googlebot is not blocked from the page.

The page works, meaning Google receives an HTTP 200 (success) status code.

The page has indexable content.

A technical audit tests the URLs that matter on your site against those three. It then looks at what decides which URL Google keeps when several are similar: redirects, canonical tags, internal links and sitemaps. It is the first step in any SEO engagement at WavX , because content work on pages Google cannot index is wasted.

Google also states that meeting the requirements does not mean a page will be indexed. An audit removes obstacles. It does not decide the outcome.

What WavX checks

Each check is tied to Google's own documentation, not to a tool's score.

Area

What is checked

What Google's documentation says

Crawl access

robots.txt rules on every host; whether important pages, CSS or JavaScript are disallowed

robots.txt controls crawling. It "is not a mechanism for keeping a web page out of Google". A blocked URL can still be indexed, without a description, if other pages link to it

Status codes

The response of every URL: 200, redirect, 404, soft 404, 5xx

URLs that return a 4xx code are not indexed, and indexed URLs that start returning one are removed. Persistent 5xx errors slow crawling and the URLs are eventually dropped

Indexing controls

noindex in meta tags and in X-Robots-Tag headers, including ones left over from a staging site

noindex works only if the page is not blocked in robots.txt, because Google must crawl the page to see the rule

Duplicates and canonicals

The canonical each page declares, against the one Google selected

Redirects and rel="canonical" are strong signals; a sitemap entry is a weak one. Google can still choose a different canonical

Redirects

Chains, loops, temporary redirects used for permanent moves, redirects done in JavaScript

Permanent server-side redirects are recommended. Googlebot follows up to 10 hops, but Google advises redirecting straight to the final URL

Sitemaps

Whether the sitemap lists the canonical, working URLs and nothing else

A sitemap helps discovery on larger, more complex or newer sites. It does not ensure that the listed URLs are crawled or indexed

JavaScript rendering

The HTML the server sends, compared with the page after scripts have run

Google renders JavaScript, but a page can wait in a render queue. Links must be <a> elements with an href . Google notes that not all bots can run JavaScript

Mobile version

Whether the mobile page carries the same content, metadata and structured data as desktop

Google indexes and ranks from the mobile version, crawled with its smartphone agent

Internal links

Orphan pages, depth from the home page, links that exist only as script events

Google discovers pages by following links from pages it already knows, and from sitemaps

Structured data

Validity, and whether the markup matches what a visitor can see

Markup makes a page eligible for certain rich results. It does not assure one

Page experience

Core Web Vitals field data for the main page templates

Core Web Vitals are used by Google's ranking systems, alongside many other signals

Manual actions and security

The Manual actions and Security issues reports

A manual action can rank pages lower or omit them. A security issue can add a warning label in results

Two of these areas have their own pages: Core Web Vitals and page speed and structured data . The audit reports where the site stands on each. The detailed work is scoped separately.

Crawl budget is usually not your problem

Google's crawl budget guide is written for sites with more than a million pages, or more than 10,000 pages that change daily. It says that if your pages are crawled the same day they are published, you do not need it. For most business sites WavX spends no audit time here. The exceptions are stores whose filters generate very large numbers of URLs, covered under e-commerce SEO , and sites where Search Console shows many URLs as "Discovered - currently not indexed".

What WavX needs from you

Read access to Google Search Console. If there is no property yet, WavX sets one up in your company's account. Reports in a new property can be empty at first, so some checks wait until data arrives.

Read access to analytics , if you have it.

The platform and hosting details : what the site is built on, and who can deploy a change.

A list of the pages that matter : the ones a customer should be able to find.

Any record of old URLs , if the site was redesigned or moved in the last year or so.

Nothing on the site is changed during the audit.

How the audit runs

Scope. Agree which hosts and sections are included. A blog on a subdomain or a separate store counts as its own host.

Crawl. The whole site is crawled as a smartphone crawler would see it, once with JavaScript rendering and once without, so that anything which exists only after scripts run is identified.

Search Console review. The Page indexing report, URL Inspection on a sample of key pages, the Manual actions and Security issues reports, and the Core Web Vitals report. For larger sites, the Crawl Stats report as well. Google's help page says a site with fewer than a thousand pages should not need that one.

Compare the four lists. URLs in the sitemap, URLs the crawl found, URLs Google has indexed, and URLs that received clicks from Search. The differences between them are where most findings come from.

Write up. Each finding is recorded with its evidence and a fix.

Walkthrough. A call with whoever will do the work, so that nothing in the report is ambiguous.

What the report contains

A one-page summary : can Google reach and index the pages that matter, and what are the main faults.

A findings register : one row per issue, in the format below.

A URL inventory : a spreadsheet of every URL found, with status code, indexability, declared canonical, sitemap membership and click depth.

A Core Web Vitals snapshot from field data, by page template.

A leave-alone list : items that automated tools flag but Google's documentation does not treat as a fault, so nobody spends time on them.

This is the format of one row in the register. The entry is an illustration of the layout, not a finding from a real site.

Field

Example entry

Finding

Category pages carry a noindex tag left over from the staging site

Evidence

URL Inspection reports that indexing is not allowed; the page source contains the robots meta tag

Affected

Every URL under /category/

Severity

Urgent

Fix

Remove the tag from the category template, then request indexing for the main category pages

Who can fix it

A developer; a small change

How to verify

Live test in URL Inspection, then watch the Page indexing report

Severity has three levels. Urgent means pages cannot be indexed. Important means crawling is wasted or signals are split between duplicate URLs. Minor is tidying.

After the audit

Your own developer can work from the report. WavX can also implement the fixes on the stacks it works in, including Next.js, React and Shopify, and on WordPress sites. That work is quoted after the audit, because its cost depends on what the audit finds. WavX publishes no fixed price for SEO work. The audit itself is quoted after a short look at the size of the site and its platform.

If the audit shows that the real problem is a past redesign or domain change, the next step is the method described under SEO for site migrations .

What an audit cannot promise

Rankings. Google's guidance on hiring an SEO is blunt: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." An audit makes pages eligible. It does not rank them.

Indexing. Google states that it may not crawl, index or serve a page even when the page follows its guidelines. One of the reasons it gives for crawled pages staying out of the index is low content quality, which no technical fix addresses.

Speed of effect. Google says a recrawl can take from a few days to a few weeks, and that asking repeatedly does not make it faster. Validation of a fix in the Page indexing report typically takes up to about two weeks and can take much longer.

AI answers. For Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, the documented technical requirement is that a page is indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet. The audit covers that precondition and nothing beyond it. Visibility in AI assistants generally is the subject of generative engine optimisation .

When you do not need a paid audit

A site of a few dozen pages, with no recent redesign, whose pages Search Console shows as indexed, rarely needs one. Work through the checks in website not showing on Google yourself first. They use the same reports, and Search Console is free.

If an online checker has handed you a long list of "errors", do not act on it blindly either. Google's advice is to check a third-party tool's recommendations against its official documentation before making significant changes. Many flagged items are not faults.

An audit earns its fee in a narrower set of cases: before and after a migration, on a site that depends on JavaScript to show its content, on a large catalogue, when search traffic has dropped and Search Console does not explain why, or when pages you care about stay unindexed for weeks. For background on the subject, read what technical SEO is .

Frequently asked questions

Will fixing what the audit finds improve our rankings?

Nobody can promise that, and Google says so in its own guidance on hiring an SEO. The audit removes the faults that stop pages being crawled and indexed. Whether an indexed page then ranks depends on its content, the competition and Google&#x27;s systems, none of which an audit controls.

What access do you need?

Read access to Google Search Console is the main one, plus read access to analytics if you have it. We do not need to change anything on the site to audit it. If there is no Search Console property yet, we set one up in your company&#x27;s account, and you keep ownership of it.

How much does a technical SEO audit cost?

We do not publish a price for SEO work. The audit is quoted after a short look at the size of the site and the platform it runs on, because a 40-page brochure site and a 40,000-URL store are different jobs. Fix work is quoted separately, after the audit, from what it finds.

We already ran a free SEO checker. Is that the same thing?

No. A checker crawls the public site and scores it against the tool&#x27;s own rules. It cannot see your Search Console data, so it does not know which pages Google has indexed or why it left others out. Google&#x27;s guidance is to check a third-party tool&#x27;s recommendations against its official documentation before making significant changes.

Can you fix the problems as well?

Yes. The report is written so that your own developer can work from it, and we can also implement the fixes ourselves. Either way the findings come first, in writing, so you can decide who does the work.

Does the audit cover AI search as well as Google?

It covers the technical precondition. Google&#x27;s documentation says a page must be indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet before it can be a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Visibility in other AI assistants is a separate piece of work, described on our GEO page.

Sources

Google Search Central: In-depth guide to how Google Search works · read 2 October 2026

Google Search Central: Google Search technical requirements · read 2 October 2026

Google Search Central: Introduction to robots.txt · read 2 October 2026

Google Search Central: Block Search indexing with noindex · read 2 October 2026

Google Search Central: How to specify a canonical URL · read 2 October 2026

Google Search Central: Redirects and Google Search · read 2 October 2026

Google Search Central: Site moves with URL changes (redirect chains) · read 2 October 2026

Google Search Central: Learn about sitemaps · read 2 October 2026

Google Search Central: JavaScript SEO basics · read 2 October 2026

Google Search Central: Mobile-first indexing best practices · read 2 October 2026

Google crawling infrastructure: How HTTP status codes affect Google&#x27;s crawlers · read 2 October 2026

Google crawling infrastructure: Optimize your crawl budget · read 2 October 2026

Google Search Central: General structured data guidelines · read 2 October 2026

Google Search Central: Understanding page experience in Google Search results · read 2 October 2026

Google Search Central: AI features and your website · read 2 October 2026

Google Search Central: Do you need an SEO? · read 2 October 2026

Search Console Help: URL Inspection tool · read 2 October 2026

Search Console Help: Page indexing report · read 2 October 2026

Search Console Help: Crawl Stats report · read 2 October 2026

Search Console Help: Manual actions report · read 2 October 2026

Search Console Help: Security issues report · read 2 October 2026

Google Search Central: Ask Google to recrawl your URLs · read 2 October 2026

Related

Core Web Vitals and page-speed optimisation

Schema markup and structured data implementation

SEO for site migrations and redesigns

SEO and GEO services

What is technical SEO?

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