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What a technical SEO audit includes — and what it doesn’t

What a technical audit covers, what it does NOT, what a useful finding looks like and how to tell a report from a tool export.

Published · Neterius

Many audits are an export of 300 warnings from a tool, sorted by the severity the tool decided rather than the business. This guide explains what a useful audit should contain, what is not its job and how to recognise a report you can actually act on.

What it reviews

  • Crawling and indexing. robots.txt, meta robots, sitemap, status codes and which pages are actually in the index, not how many were submitted.
  • Canonicals and duplicates. One final URL per page, with no two versions competing and no redirect chains.
  • Internationalisation. Reciprocal hreflang between real equivalents and a self-referencing canonical per language. Google discards a non-reciprocal cluster entirely.
  • Rendering. What HTML the crawler receives versus what the browser shows after running JavaScript. It is checked, not assumed.
  • Architecture and internal links. Click depth, real HTML internal links and orphan pages.
  • Structured data. Markup that describes what the page shows, with no errors that invalidate it.
  • Performance. Field and lab metrics per template.

What a technical audit is NOT

It is not a content strategy, keyword research or ongoing execution. If a vendor sells a “full audit” and only reviews the technical side, they are promising a scope they will not deliver. These are different services, bought separately.

How it is prioritised

By impact and effort, not by the tool’s severity. A warning that prevents the main commercial page from being indexed comes before two hundred empty alt attributes, even if the tool flags them the same way.

What a well-written finding looks like

Every useful finding answers five questions: what is happening, where (the URLs or the template affected), why it matters, how to fix it and how to verify the fix. For example: the main service page declares the home page as its canonical, so Google treats it as a duplicate and does not show it; it is fixed with a self-referencing canonical and verified with the URL Inspection tool in Search Console. If a finding does not let you act, it is not a finding: it is noise.

What the client should be able to take away

  • Prioritised findings, with the reason for each priority.
  • The redirect map if there is a migration, decided BEFORE deploying.
  • For each fix, how to verify it: the exact command or tool.
  • A session with the technical team that will apply the fixes.

What to have ready

  • Read access to Search Console and analytics.
  • The list of pages that matter most commercially.
  • Migrations or redesigns from recent years, with dates.
  • Access to the repository or CMS if the fixes will also be implemented.

About timelines

Indexing of the fixes is observed within weeks. Commercial progress takes months and depends on much more than the technical side. Any specific deadline to reach a ranking is invented.

This is the scope of our technical SEO audit. If you also need content and ongoing follow-up, see our SEO services.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a technical SEO audit take?
It depends on the size of the site and how many different templates it has. A commercial site with a few dozen pages is reviewed in days; a large ecommerce site or a migration takes weeks. The scope is agreed before starting.

Does the audit include implementing the fixes?
Not necessarily: diagnosis and implementation can be bought separately. If your team applies them, the report explains how to verify each one; if we apply them, the scope is agreed and the fixes are checked at the end.

How often should it be repeated?
Before and after a migration or redesign, and whenever something structural changes on the site. In between, reviewing Search Console regularly and acting on what changes is enough.

Is it useful if my site runs on WordPress, Shopify or another platform?
Yes. The platform changes what can be fixed and how, not what is reviewed. The report states what depends on configuration, a plugin or the theme’s code.

Our own audit, published in full

What we found on neterius.com, what we fixed and what we do NOT claim. It is the most honest sample of the deliverable.

Related services

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