Quick answer
A technical SEO audit checks whether search engines can crawl, render and index your important pages. Work in this order: crawling (robots.txt, firewall, crawlable links), indexing (Search Console page indexing, noindex, canonicals), duplicates and redirects, sitemap and structure, Core Web Vitals on mobile, JavaScript rendering and structured data, and hreflang for multi-country sites. Then sort findings into blockers, leaks and improvements.
Key takeaways
- Start with crawling and indexing: a fast page Google cannot index earns nothing.
- Search Console’s Page indexing report and URL Inspection tool do most of the diagnosis for free.
- Canonical, redirect, sitemap and internal-link signals must all agree.
- Google rates LCP within 2.5 s, INP within 200 ms and CLS under 0.1 as good.
- End every audit with an ordered fix list: blockers, leaks, improvements.
A technical SEO audit answers one question: can search engines and AI crawlers find, render and index the pages that matter, quickly and without confusion? This is the checklist we work through on every audit, in the order we work through it, with the free tools you need to do most of it yourself.
If you would rather have it done for you, our technical SEO services start with exactly this audit.
1. Crawling: can Google reach your pages?
- robots.txt. Open yoursite.com/robots.txt. Check nothing important is disallowed, and that the sitemap is declared. Google’s robots.txt guide explains the rules.
- Firewall and CDN rules. Security tools can block search and AI crawlers without anyone noticing. Our guide to Cloudflare crawler settings shows what to check.
- Crawlable links. Menus and buttons must be real
<a href>links. Google says it can generally only crawl links that are anchor elements with an href attribute. - Server errors. In Search Console, open Settings > Crawl stats and look for spikes in server errors or slow responses.
Technical SEO audit at a glance
| Area | What to check | Tool |
|---|---|---|
| Crawling | robots.txt, firewall, crawlable links | Search Console Crawl stats; browser |
| Indexing | Page indexing report, noindex, canonicals | Search Console; URL Inspection |
| Duplicates | Redirects, parameters, canonicals | Crawler such as Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) |
| Structure | Sitemap, click depth, orphans | Crawler; sitemap file |
| Speed | LCP, INP, CLS on mobile | Search Console Core Web Vitals; PageSpeed Insights |
| Rendering | JavaScript content, mobile parity, schema | URL Inspection; Rich Results Test |
2. Indexing: are the right pages in Google?
- Page indexing report. In Search Console, list pages that are “Crawled, currently not indexed” or “Discovered, currently not indexed”. Important pages there are your first priority.
- URL Inspection. Use the URL Inspection tool on your top pages: is it indexed, which canonical did Google choose, and does the rendered HTML contain your content?
- Stray noindex tags. Themes and plugins sometimes leave
noindexon live pages after a launch. - Thin and duplicate pages. Tag archives, empty categories and near-identical service pages dilute the site. See our guide to consolidating old blog content.
3. Canonicals, redirects and duplicates
- One version of the site. http, https, www and non-www should all redirect to one version with a single 301.
- Self-referencing canonicals on every indexable page. Google treats rel=canonical as a strong signal, not a command, so it must agree with your redirects, sitemap and internal links.
- Redirect chains and loops. Each old URL should reach its final page in one hop.
- Parameters and filters. Sorting and filter URLs on stores often create thousands of duplicates.
Not sure when to use canonical, noindex or robots.txt? Our canonical vs noindex guide explains the choice.
4. Sitemaps and site structure
- XML sitemap lists only indexable, canonical pages that return 200. Google’s sitemap overview covers the format.
- Click depth. Important pages should be reachable within a few clicks of the homepage.
- Orphan pages. Every page should have at least one internal link pointing to it.
- Clean URLs. Short, readable and consistent, as in Google’s URL structure guidance.
5. Speed and Core Web Vitals
Google’s Core Web Vitals measure loading (LCP), responsiveness (INP) and visual stability (CLS). Google rates LCP within 2.5 seconds, INP within 200 milliseconds and CLS under 0.1 as good.
- Check the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console, which uses real-user data, before lab tests.
- Test mobile first: most visitors in Nepal browse on phones.
- Common fixes: compress and size images, lazy-load below the fold, reduce unused scripts and plugins, reserve space for banners and ads.
Our article on how Core Web Vitals affect rankings explains how much speed really matters.
6. Rendering, mobile and structured data
- JavaScript. Compare the page source with the rendered HTML in URL Inspection. Content or links that only appear after scripts run are at risk; see Google’s JavaScript SEO basics.
- Mobile parity. The mobile page must carry the same content, links and structured data as desktop.
- Structured data. Validate Organization, LocalBusiness, Product, Article and FAQ markup with the Rich Results Test, and remove duplicate schema from overlapping plugins.
- Titles and descriptions. Unique and descriptive on every page, per Google’s title link guidance.
7. International and multilingual sites
If you target more than one country or language, check that each version has its own URL, hreflang annotations that point both ways, and a self-referencing canonical. Our hreflang guide for Nepali brands walks through it, and our international SEO services cover the full setup.
How do you turn the audit into action?
An audit is only useful if it ends in a short, ordered fix list. We sort every finding into three groups:
- Blockers: anything stopping important pages being crawled or indexed. Fix this week.
- Leaks: duplicates, redirect chains, slow templates. Fix this month.
- Improvements: structured data, internal links, content gaps. Feed these to your content SEO plan.
Our Jeep Nepal case study shows a technical rescue in practice, from fixing the foundations to building model pages buyers search for.
Want a second opinion on your site? Ask us for a free SEO review and we will tell you what to fix first, in plain language.
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Reviewed by
K.K. Bhatta
K.K. Bhatta is a general digital marketer at Queens Digital Agency: hands-on across SEO, paid media, and whatever platform changes next. A lifelong learner rather than a one-topic specialist, he tests ideas on live campaigns before writing about them, and stays skeptical of anything that has not actually been tried.
Every claim in this article was checked against a live source before publishing.
A review of whether search engines can crawl, render and index your important pages, and whether anything technical, such as duplicates, slow templates or broken redirects, is holding them back.
A full audit once a year and after any redesign or migration, with lighter monthly checks of Search Console.
Much of it, yes, with Search Console, PageSpeed Insights and a free crawler. Fixing template, server or JavaScript issues usually needs a developer.
Our diagnostic audit starts from NPR 12,000 one-time, excluding VAT. Audit plus fixes starts from NPR 28,000 for WordPress and CMS sites.
Sources and references
Facts in this guide come from the sources below, checked live on 8 November 2026. Everything else is our own working practice, stated as such.
- Google Search Central, Robots.txt introduction
- Google Search Central, Link best practices
- Search Console Help, URL Inspection tool
- Google Search Central, Specify a canonical
- Google Search Central, What is a sitemap
- Google Search Central, URL structure
- Google Search Central, Core Web Vitals
- Google Search Central, JavaScript SEO basics
- Google Search Central, Title links